The Return to Target

I’m not sure if it is because the Target store is so foreign to my kids still or because all kids are just utterly fascinated by self-checkout, but here’s how I feel every checkout goes when I’m there:

I just want to buy the four things in my cart, but every time I look down the girls have put 17 additional things in there and keep running away to get more. Then as I finally get them focused and excited to scan things, making the “beep” sound, they get so enthusiastic with this process that they scan every item twice and then demand a plastic bag for every item, even though I brought my own bags. (Sorry earth, maybe next time...) One advance made in the time we’ve been living abroad is that they now have the screen that records you while you checkout.  Once the kids catch a glimpse of this, there’s no stopping them. So much shrieking with joy, “Look in the camera, Mom! It’s MEEEE!!”  Then they proceed to climb up to get a closer look at their own faces on screen, their collective body weight now throwing off the built-in weight sensors. This makes the system completely stall and the red light go off, signalling for assistance. Last week, when the guy came to help at this point in checkout, he was so focused on the machine as I was trying to pull both kids off the scale while they were making faces at themselves in the camera, I finally said, “Let’s fix the root of the problem here! You grab the small girl and I’ll get the bigger one!” He just looked at me and said, “Ma’am, I only see one of your six Trident gum packs.”  I never meant to get any.  Ah....America. All kidding aside, it is great to be back!            

It’s been just over five months since we moved back.  Moving in June was a perfect start as it allowed us to spend lots of fun summer days with all the people we missed so much these last three and a half years. Our US living situation was a bit rocky for four months, as we lived in a furnished apartment for one month followed by a tiny unfurnished apartment for three more. The house we originally had under contract did not work out. We bailed on it after the inspection, and we are quite relieved we did. But we then tried to buy two other houses, got in bidding wars with multiple offers on both, and lost both.  Every time Nate and I live with no furniture, the same seven-ish shirts, and use an air mattress as our sleeping quarters - and let’s be honest - also the kids’ sleeping quarters at this point, we swear it is the last time we will ever do this to ourselves...and then some opportunity seems worth it and we do it again!  At least the whole family wasn’t sharing a single towel this time as my air shipment packing strategy has improved over time.

Luckily, the fourth house was the charm for us! We got into a bidding war, but this time, we were victorious!  We closed September 19th and wasted no time. Our sea shipment came the the following day and we’ve been living here (with real mattresses and even some additional clothing!) ever since.  We landed on a house that feels pretty much the opposite of Hong Kong as it has two acres of land, a nice patio and more bathrooms than frankly I believe any one family needs, but hey, this is America!

With our move back home, one of the biggest changes for us has been significantly less air travel.  Until two weeks ago, we had not flown as a family since July, which left the kids a bit confused and me incredibly antsy. So when Nate asked what I wanted to do for my birthday weekend, I quickly found some great flights to Minneapolis! (Because who doesn’t love leaving 23 degree Philly weather for 13 degree Minnesota weather?!) You would only think I was crazy until you tasted the cheese curds though. They are simply amazing. Within minutes of boarding the plane, Monroe squeezed a ketchup packet so hard that it exploded all over her shirt, face and hair and as soon as I got that reasonably cleaned up, she peed through her diaper (look, I don’t always call them “nappies” anymore!) and pee was all over her pants and soaked my pants as well. Yup, just like old times!  If we are not covered in condiments and bodily fluids, are we really having an adventure at all? Probably not. We have a few other trips lined up (Nate lasted all of one month in the US before he couldn’t stand it and booked a trip to Disney World) and we’ll be planning lots of road trips, no doubt!

There are a few other major changes that we came back to here in the states (other than stuff like the kids actually needing to be in car seats and other fancy regulations like that.) In addition to the Target self-checkout cameras, the most notable were:

- Everything Bagel Seasoning. I mean, why not? I got some because everyone told me it was fabulous. I just can’t decide what to put it on so I haven’t put it on anything yet. (Feel to message me with ideas!)

- Super ridiculous safety outlets that are put in new construction now. I won’t sugar coat my feelings on this one - they’re just awful! Parent shame me all you want, but is it really safer if I cut my fingers and bend metal plug prongs shoving with all my might until I break my toaster? After this experience in our apartment, I told Nate “no thanks” to a new-construction house.  I want the old school electrical outlets that you can actually fit plugs and baby fingers into.

- Chipotle has queso now!  The first time I went I was just moving along the line ordering, like you do, and then out of nowhere, the server asks, “Would you like queso?”  I stood like a deer in the headlights for a moment and then collected myself and replied, “Wow! Is it good?” He replied in surprise, “Um...yeah, I like it.” I was intrigued! “Does it cost extra?!” I asked, now slightly aware that I might be holding up the line. The guy looked around him like I was pulling a prank and then just goes, “Ma’am, I’ll tell you what, I’m just going to let you try some on your burrito for free today, okay?”

- Much like us, nearly all our friends went from zero to one to two kids while we were gone. Our get togethers, which we almost always just dedicate full weekends to now, still contain a fair amount of food and beverages and a great time chatting, but the timing of these weekends often now revolve around some really serious stuff, like Frozen II being released in theaters!  Oh and we all now look like we are every bit of mid-thirties when we wake up with the babies/toddlers at 5:45am after consuming cocktails past midnight. We now collectively go through more coffee, juice boxes, and milk than you can imagine. It would probably be more economical to buy a cow for our weekends together for the next few years! 

But that’s really it...more kids, more toppings at chipotle, some seriously flawed electrical outlets, cameras at self-checkout and everything bagel seasoning! 

So, what’s next for us? All previous ex-pats we have talked to said the first six months back are super fun and enjoyable but that it’s common to hit an emotional lull around the six-month point. Nate figured he better nip this possible emotion in the butt proactively and registered us both for Ironman St. George a couple weeks ago. He asked me one morning what I thought and while I did not say yes, I did not clearly say no either, so I checked my inbox to find a registration confirmation a few hours later.  We have never taken a trip without our kids, and somehow I envisioned one day this might be a romantic beach getaway, but being the gluttons for punishment we are, we will be doing an Ironman on our first trip without kids!  The race is May 2, 2020, so technically training should start...like...last week, BUT I fully intend on enjoying some real American holidays first!  Bring on the eggnog! (Especially since even the organic one only costs $4 here!) After I drink way too much eggnog while staring at my bike sitting on the trainer, I’ll hop in it and we will both be entirely consumed by training (and regular life stuff) until May 2020.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Buying a House. Virtually. But Actually

Our Hong Kong apartment has an old phone in the kitchen where the security desk used to call up when visitors came to the building. This system has since been abandoned, but the phone remained there, so naturally, the kids thought it was the coolest thing in the apartment (not their toys or the view over the whole city, the old land line phone complete with a curly cord!).

At least once a week, Isla would ask about it and I would explain that when Mom and Dad were kids, this is how phones worked: You never knew who was calling until you answered the phone, you had to stay close to the wall where the cord was, and hang up when you were done talking or nobody else would be able to call. Isla’s response was the same every time. She giggled like I made the whole thing up (Nate and I have been known to make up some elaborate stories from time to time...) and then yelled, “But MOM! That is ridic-li-us, where did you see the person’s face?!”  Aaah, technology.  We recently used FaceTime to do the most ridic-li-us thing yet - buy a house!

Nate and I have never in our adult lives lived somewhere where we couldn’t walk to a town with shops and restaurants and kept that trend going while living abroad. So, when we learned we were headed back to the Main Line of Philadelphia, we felt we really couldn’t happily make a transition to an area where you had to drive everywhere. This made our housing search pretty straightforward. There is about a two mile radius around where we were comfortable buying a house, which happens to be the same two mile radius lots of people also want their houses, so this pocket of real estate is very interesting. You definitely have to be mentally prepared to fall in love with a house or two and then get out-bid.

Given this dynamic, we lived and breathed on realtor.com and other housing sites, emailed with our awesome realtor (and previous neighbor) almost daily and watched houses pop up and go within 48 hours for months.  We also toured lots of houses via FaceTime to help get a sense of what our priorities were (a nice way of saying, what we could sacrifice and still be happy).  After seeing 10+ houses via FaceTime and hundreds online, here are my real estate takeaways:

1. The color of mustard should only ever occur in, well, mustard.

2. Hiding all your random belongings into a closet for realtors to open is a actually pretty funny game. My personal favorite is when our realtor opened a closet on FaceTime, then immediately dropped the phone and yelled when something fell on him.  That “something” was a life-size standing cardboard Justin Bieber.  There was also a life-size Harry from One Direction in that closet. If we had put in an offer on this house, I’m pretty sure I would have asked for those to be included in the sale.

3. Buying a house in a flood plain may scare most people away, but remember, we’re both Ironmen. We even sometimes train for them. NBD.

4. Unfinished basements are pretty blah, but not if you create a mini wine cellar area with wooden racks and symmetrical rows of bottles in them - then it just makes me feel the people must have impeccable tastes and of course I should buy their house.

5. Hanging multiple chandeliers over a dining table or kitchen island is completely unnecessary. It’s also totally beautiful and I fall for it every time. Damn you Pottery Barn, for making me feel I must buy three of the $250 chandeliers for my new house. Now I’m going to have to go back to work just to pay for all my unnecessary chandeliers and to repaint mustard colored walls!

We felt as we aged, our houses should get older too. We are suckers for historic charm. The first house we purchased in Arlington (and lived in for eight months) was built in the 1940’s, our second house in PA was similarly-aged, and now we’ve taken a step back into some serious history with a house built in 1890.  Most of the houses in the location we targeted are quite historic, which caused us to have even more unique questions when we weren’t the ones physically in the house to tour them. Between the inherent challenges of seeing houses via phone as well as the odd little areas and intracacies of old houses, we kept stopping our realtor as he walked through the house to ask stuff like:

• “But what would you say the basement smells like?”
• “Can you please lift your phone up so I can see how tall the ceilings are? No, wait, I just see white and have no concept of space...actually could you reach one hand as high as you can and show me with the other hand? Right, Oh, that looks good! How tall are you again?  Okay, that seems sufficient.” 
• “Could you please touch the grass and tell us if it’s soft? Maybe on a 1-10 scale? Actually, I don’t even know what a 7 means. Would you want to sit on it?
•  “This bathroom looks small...is it that odd cabinet throwing things off or does this room look like it was designed for a hobbit?”
• “Crap, we had a poor connection and we actually totally missed the master bedroom. I know we are short on time...was it good?”
•  “If you were a toddler, would YOU want to play on that carpet? ...Okay, I hear you that it’s soft, but like, HOW soft?” 
•  “Now, what’s behind you? No, the other way, turn left, my left. Oh, that is your left...wait...OMG, sorry, that was just a mirror behind you. I’m so disoriented. What floor are we on again?”
•  “Let’s say today is Thanksgiving. How many pies would you say could fit in that oven at one time?  Jeez, only two? Screw it, we get our Thanksgiving pies for free at the local horse track anyway.”

While it is not yet a done deal, we have a contract on a historically charming Victorian house (the one built in 1890) just a 5 minute walk to town.  We’re excited to actually be there in person for the inspection, which is likely when we’ll see it in person for the first time. Given the “charm” factor, the house comes complete with a land line phone in the kitchen. My kids are going to be beside themselves.

Some of my blog readers have asked that I continue writing posts even when we are back in the States. To both of my blog fans, thank you! I’m glad it has been enjoyed as I’ve really enjoyed writing it as a way to document our time abroad as well as keep people posted on what we are up to! I’m not sure how fascinating our Philly lives will be, but I’m happy to continue writing from time to time!  After all, we bought a 130 year old house in a flood plain...there are bound to be some stories...

Leaving Hong Kong

We've done a lot these past 3.5 years!  When we boarded the plane to Melbourne, Australia, Isla was 7 months old. She is now 4 years old and Monroe, who was born in Hong Kong, is nearly 1.5 years old. Living abroad has filled our lives with endless fun and adventure as well as constant comical situations, some of which are self-inflicted as we've certainly made our share of mistakes along the way! I will say this: Ex-pat living is never boring!  We've had an incredibly positive experience and grown so much as a family. As I think back on our time abroad and some of the memorable moments, we have:

• Had our bank account shut down three times, our ATM cards cancelled countless times, our credit cards stolen twice, and my identity stolen once (resolving that one from overseas with no real US address was a real gem!)
• Received one eviction notice due to an accounting error
• Been accused of money laundering by our bank
• Become avid professional tennis fans 
• Gotten lots of weird flus/colds in Asia as well as a rare parasite in Australia, followed by E. Coli a year later in Hong Kong (me)...and then E. Coli a few more times...each
• Gone to Disneyland no fewer than 25 times
• Made it through two record-breaking typhoons
• Obtained and now proudly display three waving cats around the house
• Become pros at eating Asian delicacies and using chop sticks (Nate in this case, not me. I still use chop sticks to stab my food and pick it up when no one is looking.)
• Gotten our butts kicked in quite a few triathlons (those Aussie athletes don't mess around!)
• Encountered animals I didn't even know existed until the age of 31
• Eaten animals I didn't even know existed until the age of 31
• Celebrated new holidays (According to Isla, the four seasons are Summer, Winter, Christmas and Chinese New Year.)

And finally, we've traveled all around Australia and Asia, in addition to learning that "Australasia" is a real word for this region!   We've done nearly all our parenting abroad at this point, so as the kids have engaged with peers and formal educational structures, we have adapted many Aussie/British words and phrases, as well as some of the cultural norms. As a result of her schooling in Hong Kong and her passion for Peppa Pig, Isla speaks like a little British child most of the time.  While I'm sure this will fade, there are some other things we'll all hang on to as we've used different words, phrases and pronunciations so regularly while abroad.  We'd ask that you please bare with us when you hear us say or do the following: 

• Mate.  It's just too perfect - a fabulously gender-neutral term to call just about anyone you'd like!
• Cheers!  A classic.  I honestly don't think we'll ever stop saying this when we finish paying a bill, when someone holds a door, or just interacts with you in any way at all! Combining the two above words and yelling, "Cheers mate!" is a wonderfully happy way to end a conversation.
• Babies are "bubs." All baby items are British now - pram, dummy, nappy, etc. Our kids don't even know anything different at this point.
• We don't "rent" things. We "hire" them! As in, "We have to go pick up the hire car now."
• We are now firm believers in the tradition of Christmas crackers (also called bon bons) for all holidays! Here's the very official description on Wikipedia if you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker. We stocked up on them in January so we are ready to integrate them into our holidays later this year!
• You get in a "queue" or "queue up."  Isla believes a "line" is just what you draw on paper.
• We "reckon" things. Nate's parents have retired to rural Tennessee while we've been living abroad and I reckon we'll fit right in using this one while visiting them.
• We probably now like wine too much for America, but about the right amount for Australia and Europe.  We plan to get a hot tub for our new house in PA, so come on over any night of the week and drink up...Cheers mate!

Abroad habits will die hard. We will likely:

• Drive on the wrong side of the road...the driving in general will probably be quite poor actually. In fact, neither of us has a valid US driver's license anymore. In place of it, we have Hong Kong driver's licenses which look like a fourth grader could have made them with a laminating machine and international driver's permits that look like Isla made them with a date stamp, cut out photos and a glue stick. Needless to say, this license isn't highly regarded in the US.  Nate tried to use his ID in Nashville last summer to get into a bar and the bouncer told us to get lost or he would call the police.  So, we will both now need to take a full driving test to get re-licensed in PA, which ought to be hilarious as we still both approach US cars on the passenger side and then look confused about where the steering wheel is.
• At meals out, we'll look like the jerks who didn't tip at all. Tipping is not a thing in Australia or Hong Kong, so we are out of practice! You have permission in advance to grab our bill and write in a tip if we forget.
• Whine about the cold.  In general, one of our family rules is. "We don't whine, we solve problems."  That said, none of us has felt temperatures below 50 degrees fahrenheight in ages!  There's probably going to be some whining.

As we know we are coming back to the best group of friends and family we could ever ask for, we trust that you'll be patient when we say "nappy" or run over your mailbox with our cars, and give us some tough love when you have to tell us, "No, you weirdos, we can't do Christmas crackers on 

Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day AND Thanksgiving!"  

We land in Philadelphia June 5th!

Motown Philly, Back Again...

Doing a little East Coast thing...

Remember that song?  Good old Boys II Men!  (Seriously, they must be SO OLD by now!)  Anyway, we aren't exactly headed to Motown per se, but our family is heading to Philly to do a little East Coast thing on a permanent basis next month!

As Spring approached, we knew it was only a matter of months before our Hong Kong visas as well as our two-year apartment lease expired, so we were fairly certain there were some changes in store for us. We were very pleased to learn that Nate's next role with his company will be in Malvern, Pennsylvania, beginning in June!  Nate is pumped for his new role and we are all looking forward to some long awaited time with our family and friends. We've been very fortunate to have done a lot in Hong Kong as well as all over Asia, so there weren't too many things left on my list.  In April, I officially got to work on my Hong Kong bucket list:


1. Squeeze in one last Australia trip:
There's nothing like living 25 hours of flying/travel time away from the United States to make you feel like a 9 hour flight is just a quick little jaunt! We've taken full advantage of living "just a touch north" of Australia and go as often as we can.  In early April, we couldn't even pick with coast to go to knowing it would be our last trip there for a very long time, so we did both - Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula for a few days and then Rottnest Island, off the coast of Perth for a few days. We breathed in the fresh air, the kids ran wild and free, we played with animals, we went absolutely nuts at Kmart and bought EVERYTHING...it was perfect.

From Isla's four-year-old perspective, all families move to different countries about every two years.  She is quite excited to move to the US, but following this vacation, she let us know that after we live in the US for a while, she'd like to live in Australia again. "Okay kiddo, we'll let you handle talking to your Grandparents about that one!"

2. Hit up the horse races at Happy Valley Race Track
If you know my husband well, or even have just spoken to him, like once, you probably know that one of his favorite activities is going to horse races.  We go to fancy tracks, we go to dirty tracks, we go on Thanksgiving (to a dirty one that gives out free pies), we stream the races at home while wearing big hats and holding mint juleps. We enjoy the watching and the gambling. (Seriously though, can you even call it "gambling" when your husband is an actuary?  I think not...more like "investing" really.)  The Happy Valley Race Track here is iconic - a massive green track surrounded by skyscrapers on all sides. And Wednesday nights from September-May are a huge party there.  No kids are allowed, probably for good reason, as the adults are usually having a pretty epic time. We went several weeks ago and had a great night, even cashing in a few tickets.

3. Visit the green mosque I pass almost every day but have never gone into
It's called the Jamia Mosque and it is right off of the mid-level escalators.  The other day as I was chugging it up the escalator, the mosque gate caught my eye and I thought, carpe diem!  Shockingly, there was no one else on the escalator, so I turned and ran down the escalator that was going up and cleared the bottom without tripping. You enter from the back, so coming around to the front of the mosque was just beautiful - I'm so glad I jumped over and made sure to see it!

I was thrilled to be able to group these two together on a magical Wednesday evening in April:
4. Go on the adult roller coaster rides at Disneyland
5. Go to a popular artist's show in Hong Kong
Hong Kong has a lot of performing arts in the city like opera and ballet, but very few US or European bands make a stop here on their tours.  I was not entirely sure I knew more than five Ed Sheeran songs prior to going, but a friend told me he was actually very good live, so I jumped on buying concert tickets as soon as they were released in January.  The show took place on Fantasy Lane (a.k.a. the parking lot) at Disneyland, so we took full advantage of this opportunity by attending a pre-concert free-flow snacks and drinks special at the Wilderness Lodge, then popped into the park to ride ALL the roller coasters in rapid succession (no need to be too impressed here as there's only three), and then we got some caramel popcorn and ran over to the show! Much to my surprise, I actually knew nearly all the songs too!

6. Eat MORE Michelin-star dumplings on the street 
Nate recently discovered this teeny tiny place on one of the streets we regularly walk down called Cheung Hing Kee Shanghai Pan-Fried Buns...what a mouthful! (And one mouthful just isn't enough!) I think about these soup pork buns several times a day and am constantly planning when I can get more. A pack of four costs $35 HKD which is about $4.50 US. You can also go fancy and get truffle pork buns or shrimp and pork buns. I approve of all of these, but the original...wow. Actually, I can't talk about them anymore without ordering them. Yup...order placed. Technology is amazing.

7.  See live jazz music at my favorite speakeasy
I recognize speakeasys aren't a real thing of course, but something about secret, dark, cozy bars that smell of leather and bourbon just lure me right in! One of my favorites is called Fox Glove and it disguises itself as an upscale umbrella store, which I didn't even know was a a thing.  The bar opens at 5pm, has a Mad Men Happy Hour until 8pm, and then the Jazz music starts at 10pm. All the bartenders know me because I am often the only person in the whole place at 5pm. Sometimes I bring a friend or two along, and then there are 3 of us in the entire bar.  By 10pm, I hear it's amazing - not a seat left in the place! However, this one remains on the to do list!  Honestly, I am way to focused on trying to stream Game of Thrones right now and this one may not take priority. Philly also has a great speakeasy downtown and I look forward to going there at some saucy hour soon...like 8pm! 

So, what else have we been up to?  We are in full-on organization / prioritization / sell / give-away mode. This will be our third international move and getting rid of all our belongings is certainly tempting as I think about packing/unpacking again!  Because we had a lot of things we wanted to be sure to do (and eat) in Hong Kong, we decided after going to Australia in early April, that we wouldn't take any more trips. We would just enjoy this city for a few weeks and then head home the first week of June. Then last week, we panicked one night about no longer living abroad and booked flights to Penang, Malaysia at midnight. The next morning we woke up and were both kind of awkwardly giggling like, "Hey, that was weird, right?  We don't need to go to Malaysia right now! We should be saving money anyway - apparently we need to buy things like cars and be like, REAL adults again. Okay, so good thing you can always cancel flights within 24 hours of booking, right?  Yeah, that was silly...we'll just cancel the flights."  Fast forward a few hours and several phone calls and we found out the hard way that the "cancel within 24 hours" rule actually only exists in the US. We tried to teach Air Malaysia about it and gently encouraged them to explore that policy in the future. They didn't seem very open to it.  So, no point in harping on our accidental panic flights; we are now totally excited to go see...um...whatever there is to see in Penang!  We leave Thursday.

When we get back Monday evening, I figure we'll just have to pack a a few more suitcases and then we'll be America-ready!

Mountains, Kitsch and Wet Pants

A few years ago, I saw some striking photos of Guilin, China, while perusing an in-flight magazine and I immediately added it to my destination wish list.  This past weekend, that wish was granted as we explored a much more rural and incredibly scenic area of China.

It's a magical city surrounded by a picturesque winding river and tons of steep, lush green mountains. (The topography is referred to as "karst" in this case.)  I've never seen a natural landscape quite like it.  We knew in advance that March is the rainy/cloudy season, but we figured: (1) Maybe there will be slightly fewer tourists and (2) It's just rain! So, two weeks ago, we booked some last-minute flights and then scurried to plan our activities.

Planning trips like this without using a tour agency or guide is always a little tricky and there's some level - I'd say 30% - of total guessing/hoping that you selected the right thing and don't get horribly ripped off! I find the logistics planning challenging because Google Maps (and all Google for that matter, which is basically EVERYTHING useful I know of on the internet!) is blocked in China along with many other tech options.  Even the Apple Map App doesn't pull the right information or have common points of interest appropriately represented. Without good online mapping options, planning out walking route and distances between sites is a lot more guesswork.  For most of the major sites or activities, I've also found that either the websites are not in English or have some pretty faulty translations.  If the site is in English, some tour company is usually up-selling you and taking a cut.  So, I did my best tossing an itinerary together. I found a driver named Jerry on Trip Adviser for our driving needs - we met over text and made a plan. Then, off we went, on the one-hour plane ride, the shortest flight any of us has been on in ages!

On Friday, we arrived at the hotel to find a huge green space out back as well as a farm complete with a pig, peacocks, and even an ostrich in it. Wild animals, and even open green space for that matter, are both pretty foreign to our kids at the moment, so they thought the hotel grounds were the highlight of the trip! I shouldn't make fun of them however, because I think the highlight for Nate and me was that the hotel's mascot was the hallucinated penguin from Billy Madison. (Am I right?!)  He joined the Tai Chi sessions each morning and I'm not entirely sure how one can focus on their Tai Chi motions when a drunk penguin is running around the platform, but it sure was a great scene to watch from breakfast!

On Saturday, we did the activity every tourist does - the four hour boat ride down the Li River which snakes back and forth through the karst mountains and then lets you off in a town called Yangshuo. There are a few websites describing the bits and pieces about these boat operators. From what I could make out, there was a 3-star boat option which looked like it had actually sunk in the river a few times and been pulled back out.  This option seemed to be insanely crowded and even the actual boat operator's website recommended you pack your own food because the buffet provided would "not meet expectations." The 4.5-star boat looked pretty swanky and likely had never sunk before, but this came at a swanky price tag, so we opted for the 4-star boat which turned out to be perfect for us.

It was a misty, mysterious day weather-wise, which was actually quite beautiful in the mountains. When the boat docked in Yangshuo, we made our way through some tourist chaos and heavy cigarette smoke onto the "real" West Street.  I had scanned a few partially correct maps ahead of time to find that there were multiple West Streets, but luckily, finding the real one turned out to be pretty easy.  While exploring the actual West Street, we found it ranged from beautiful artisan shops with local items being handcrafted onsite to kitsch souvenir shops with panda everything and lots of little plastic toys.  The souvenir shop owners play a dangerous little game where they hand an appealing toy to children and then parents are faced with either taking the item away and making their kid cry, or just paying for the silly item and avoiding the drama. One such scenario happened when a shopkeeper handed Monroe a stuffed panda, which of course, she LOVED. I told the shopkeeper, no, we would not buy it. Meanwhile, Monroe had already jetted off down the street with it. So, the shopkeeper whipped out his calculator and typed in some astronomical amount of money. I grabbed the calculator and typed in a much more appropriate number, to which he replied, "no, no, no," while shaking his hand at me.  He typed in a slightly less insane price. I turned to see Monroe had now actually been throwing the panda up in the air and then gave it a street bath by soaking it in a dirty puddle and then laughing her head off.  I angled my body in attempt to hide what was happening behind me and then just handed the shopkeeper the original amount of money I typed into his calculator and said, "Great, well, thanks so much!" As I walked away, he stared at the money and said, "okay, okay, okay."  So, we now own a dirty little stuffed panda.

We really enjoyed exploring the local tea sets made by a guy who lived above his shop with his family and even purchased a beautiful one to bring back home. I love tea sets, but am not really a tea person, so I'll probably just drink tawny out of it, which I'm pretty excited about. Then Nate went into a comb shop where they were sanding and making combs out of various animal horns.  He spent an extraordinary amount of time in this shop asking questions. I learned two things about my husband of nearly 12 years during the time - first, that he had an affinity for water buffalo (who knew?) and secondly, that he uses a comb every morning. I honestly did not know this as most mornings I am scurrying to fetch whatever items Monroe has thrown into the toilet as we both get ready for the day.  When I questioned Nate on his comb usage, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Yeah, how do you think my hair looks this good?!"  I guess I thought it was the "level 7 hold" gel in the purple container he always asks me to buy...apparently not!  In any case, he now owns a comb made from a water buffalo horn. I give it about three days before Monroe throws it in the toilet.

On the drive back, we stopped at an area where you can climb stairs up one of the mountains (at home in Hong Kong, this is just called "Tuesday") for a jaw-dropping view of the river running through the mountains.  About half way down the mountain, there were two toilets, typical in rural areas, so really just holes in the ground you stand over to pee in.  Occasionally, if you are somewhere fancy, toilet paper is even provided.  This was not "somewhere fancy."  Despite the countless bribes and promise of rewards, after seeing (and smelling) these toilets, Isla informed us she would rather just pee in her pants and change them later than use these toilets.  This was probably a wise move - every time I attempt to use these toilets, I end up with pee all over my pants anyway. Why not just cut out the middle man and pee right on your pants?  So, we carried Isla down the mountain, she eventually peed her pants, and then we changed her pants, panties AND socks in the back of the car on the way back to the hotel.


On Sunday, my new driver friend, Jerry, picked us up to take us to the major local sites. We went to a massive cave called Reed Flute, which was very impressive, but I must say that it felt like a far cry from being in nature as they put colorful glowing signs all over the place telling you what every rock formation looked like (i.e. - A lion's head, a dragon's head, a bouquet of flowers, etc...and repeat).  They even projected a short movie on the ceiling of the cave. I thought it was a bit much, but the kids loved it and I'm really glad they had an enjoyable first caving experience as we'll certainly be taking them in more caves one day soon.  Next, we checked out the downtown area which has four connected lakes with beautiful bridges and walkways.  Jerry informed us that the bridges across the river were designed to twist right and then left, back and forth the whole time because it is believed that ghosts / spirits can only travel in straight passages, so the bridges are meant to trap the spirits from getting across the lake.

The best part of the day had to be lunch.  Jerry asked if we would be more comfortable with Western cuisine. We told him, no, please take us somewhere completely local. He said he would take us to a local place named after "the Tom Hanks movie."  Nate and I figured he must not understand what we were asking and hoped that there wasn't actually a chain Bubba Gump restaurant around the corner (although I do love a good shrimp po'boy!)  Jerry came through though as he dropped us off at our restaurant.  It was, in fact, 100% local, but it did have the English name, "Forest Gump" thrown on the awning for good measure.  There was no English on the menu, so we were very grateful for some pictures provided.    

We ordered a veggie dish, something we thought had shrimp, and what I thought was obviously a chicken dish. It wasn't chicken though. It was so much better!  It was deep friend taro with sticky sweet sauce on it, which tasted like the best treat one could ever find at a carnival!  Nate nailed it with the shrimp dish selection as they came out deveined and beheaded. (Is that the correct culinary term? I think yes.)  Getting shrimp without heads in China is pretty rare so between that and the surprise carnival delight, we felt like we hit the Forest Gump lunch Jackpot!  

We rounded out Sunday with a night boat ride on the lakes.  It was our family along with a large tour group. We glided across the lakes listing to the tour group clapping along and swaying to Auld Lang Syne which was being played on a Chinese instrument that resembled a sideways harp. The kids were exhausted but slaphappy, and it felt like a special end to our Guilin adventure.

140.6 Miles, 15 Hours, 8 Poops

It's December 22, 20 days post-Ironman. And yes, I am drinking egg nog while writing this. Finding and purchasing the egg nog gave me almost as much sense of accomplishment as finishing the race.  In short, it's been a great month!  The race in Western Australia a few weeks ago was my third and Nate's fourth Ironman.  We found the journey leading up to this race to be a particularly challenging. For Nate, the biggest challenge is sheer lack of time with such a demanding job that requires a lot of travel. For me, it was adjusting to being a Mom of two, and breastfeeding through 5 months of training. Together, it was always a balancing act to manage everything.

Shortly after Monroe was born, we were sitting outside of Isla's ballet class and I was having a tough day. The kind lots of new moms have - no sleep, a jealous toddler learning to use the potty (but mostly peeing on all her clothes and then crying about it), and a baby who needed to eat every two hours.  I was tired and frustrated and venting to Nate about it. He listened and thought for a while and then replied, "You know what you need to do? Register for an Ironman to give yourself something to focus on and teach the kids about goals and discipline."  I must admit, in my exhausted state, having not even been cleared for light working out post-baby yet, I was a bit pissed at his suggestion.  But I think Nate knew exactly what he was doing...he planted a seed. He knew I would let it swirl around in my brain for a couple months and would eventually commit to this plan. You know, just like the movie, "Inception"...but way less dramatic.

Fast forward a couple months:  After some debate on a race location, Nate registered for the race in Western Australia.  If you can't already tell from our various social media and blog posts, we can pretty much find any reason to jump on a plane back to Australia. Our now 3+ years of living abroad can generally be summed up as "19 months in Australia and the remainder of the time living just a short 9 hour commute from Australia."  Once Nate registered, I only needed about two weeks to mentally commit and I officially signed up shortly after that.

Training in Hong Kong was certainly interesting. Given the cost of space in the city, no standard gyms have pools (and they cost the amount of a second mortgage to join anyway) so I opted for a public pool. The public pool was quite an experience!  Like most things in the city, the pool was always swarming with people and insanely hot. It was also one of the most severe cultural immersions since moving as I was the only non-Chinese, non-senior citizen at the pool all but one time I was there.  This made confrontations in the ONE lane pretty amusing as 12 people all in one lane swam all over each other. Okay, so maybe it was just me sloppily ploughing over the top of the many 80+ year old men swimming VERY WIDE breast stroke. Some days, I opted for the pool at my apartment, which is lovely to sit at, but it’s about a 17 meter long pool, so you mostly just do flip turns on either wall back and forth and back and forth and don’t even need to do much swimming.  Its basically like training in a Holiday Inn Express indoor pool.  I usually ended up doing about 25 flip turns in 10 minutes, deciding the situation was a touch ridiculous, and sitting by the pool half-asleep drinking coffee instead since the kids kept me awake all night. I mean, falling asleep in the pool just seemed irresponsible and dangerous, after all.  You are probably thinking, “What the heck?! This doesn’t sound like real training!”  If you think my swim training was bad, let’s just say Nate did less...much much less...and only in the “flip turn apartment pool.”  His athletic ability and confidence always amaze me despite pretty minimal actual training.

As for the bike training, there are very minimal safe places to bike in the city, and they take a lot of travel to get there. We didn’t have the luxury of lots of time, so all biking was done on indoor bikes, sometimes even on he hilarious “elderly people stationary bikes” with extra wide seats because that was the only one at our apartment gym for a while.  I politely begged our apartment complex to purchase a spin bike, and was extremely grateful when they did.  I asked about the status of the new bike so often they they finally pulled me aside one morning and said the bike had arrived, but they didn’t have space or legal clearance yet to put it in the gym, so when I needed to bike, a staff member would take me down to the basement where I could use it.  The management staff referred to it as the  “Mrs. Zahm bicycle” for the three months I was escorted to the bike’s secret basement location.

One of our Saturday morning runs

And finally, the running!  We were actually able to fully enjoy and appreciate what the city has to offer when it comes to trail running.  On Saturday mornings, Nate and I would walk out of our apartment, turn right, and just start chugging it up to the top of the peak.  Once at the top of that mountain, we circumnavigated a trail at the top, before dropping down an insanely steep trail of stairs down the mountain and proceeded to run through the forest all the way to the south side of the island.  The beauty of this plan was that, even though we always got a little lost, eventually we would just pop out somewhere and there's no shortage of taxis on this island.  Nate used an app that mapped a few of our runs, and I was impressed how much of the island we were able to cover.  About halfway through training, I decided to finally turn on my watch’s pedometer function and was slightly ecstatic / horrified the day it showed I had climbed 360 flights of stairs. That's just too many stairs!  So, we were actually both in phenomenal running shape and, well, we both knew we could mentally
handle the difficult parts of the bike and the swim, despite falling a bit short on training.

For the trip itself, we were stoked to go back to Perth and even more stoked that there would be no time zone change to adjust to with the kids. We almost always stay in AirBnB houses now and rented one near the race site in Busselton, a town best known for a beautiful jetty and epic sunsets over the Indian Ocean. We packed our rented Kia Carnaval (hands down the best name for a minivan I’ve ever heard) and headed south two hours to our house. The following day was a flurry of race prep and gear purchasing, which, of course is half the reason anyone does these things in the first place!

Sleeping the night before the race is tough. I had finally fallen asleep around midnight and was woken up by Isla who I tossed into our bed with us. Ten minutes later, she whispers, “Mom, I have to go pee.” Ugh. Took her to pee, then I reckon I fell back asleep by 1am, then the alarm
went off at 4am and it was time to see how much we could tolerate eating with knots in our stomachs. I did better with this than in previous race prep and downed two hard boiled eggs, some yogurt, coffee, a muffin and banana. Half of training and prep is all about eating after all.  Practicing seeing how much you can eat before a long work out is a fascinating exercise that I don't recommend!  Nate and I put on each other’s race number tattoos in silence in the bathroom so we didn’t wake the kids. It was a special moment together, not talking, but both with lots of nervous excited energy bouncing all around inside.  We hadn't trained together much, so it was nice to have these special moments together, especially in the early morning hours right before the race.

A couple hours later, the gun went off and we ran into the chilly water together.  We actually have different strengths in this race distance but decided ahead of time to stay together for the whole thing this time. Finishing the swim portion of the race is exhilarating as you are now 1/3 done with the race sport-wise. (Note, you are actually only done with 1.7% of the race distance-wise!)  We were also quite pleased that there were no shark sightings this year. (Last year, they had to pull everyone out of the water urgently when a tiger shark was nearby!)

After jumping in the water at 7am, we were done swimming before 8:30, and we started biking. The bike went exactly as we had planned out. We kept a consistent pace from start to finish and completed the 112 miles in about 7 hours. One comical moment came 20 miles into the race when a large poisonous snake was sitting on a small bridge on the racecourse and a volunteer had to be stationed near the bridge to warn all cyclists about the snake.  Oh Australia!

A race of this distance requires heaps of mental games and tricking your brain / body into thinking you are "very close" over and over and over.  On the third hour of biking, Nate and I had a full pump-up conversation with each other about how we were nailing our pace and that we were almost at the halfway point, which basically means you are almost done.  We laughed at needing to go for just a "bit of a jog" after just a "little bit more biking."  Our spirits stayed high with the exception of miles 90-105 where we both just hit a dark patch physically and mentally. We have learned how to push through these and keep perspective. We did this mostly by continuously lying to ourselves about how much distance / time was left.  Getting off the bike is one of the best feelings in the world, despite all the, um, ass chafing that may have occurred...

Even with practice and a lot of planning, we have both made a few mistakes with things like gear and nutrition.  My repeated mistake is not putting enough prevention into wetsuit burn on my neck, and have repeatedly ended up with a yucky raw scab on the back of my neck.  (Next time, I'll be trying a taping strategy!)  Nate's first mistake in the race was when he reached into one of two large vats of sunscreen and rubbed it all over his arms prior to the bike.  His error was that one vat was sunscreen, but the one he used contained Vaseline. It worked like tanning oil and his wrists sizzled into what looked like puffy red lobsters. We laughed about this for the first 20 minutes of the run and I was really looking forward to a few more hours side by side, chatting and enjoying having a buddy as we pushed through to the end.  The giggly light chat didn't last long however as Nate's GI system had other plans.

The first 10 miles of the run were hot, but went very smoothly. Then, Nate got quite. Very quiet.  Then he informed me that his stomach was not doing well.  Then, he went to the bathroom for the first time...then a second time...then told me his stomach was cramping so badly that he needed to walk. This is very unlike Nate. We both know this just happens sometimes - when you work out for 8-10 hours straight without normal amounts of digestion actually happening, occasionally your body just revolts. Nate's body revolted.  We did a lot more walking than planned. We finished a little later than planned, but nothing was ultimately that big a deal...By Nate's eighth poop in a race course porta-pot he may have disagreed with that statement though!

I had to bite my tough to not laugh a little bit here and there, but Nate was in such bad shape, he kept yelling at me in a way much like women in labor do in the movies (not in real life of course...I would never do that).  At one point, I was like, "Hey Babe, I grabbed you a few pretzels in case you want them," to which he shot back, "Why? STOP IT! Those are awful."  An hour later he came out of the bathroom and I reached out to offer him a piece of watermelon saying, "Don't get mad, but I thought you might want a piece of..."  and before I could finish, he yelled, "AH! Don't show me that, don't EVER show me that!  Now I'm going to puke I think!"  Don't get me wrong - I felt really bad for him and he must have just felt awful, but I was holding back a some laughter at the drama and was making mental notes to make fun of him later.  Two days later I did. And he laughed a lot too.

My biggest ailment didn't actually occur until after the race. I had a lot of toe blisters. Two of them rubbed against each other the day following the race, and, well, exploded. 24 hours later, my toe was throbbing and I looked down to notice a line underneath my skin going from my toe, all the way up my foot and past my ankle.  There's nothing like a quick, urgent trip to the doctor right before a flight!  The conversation with the doctor was pretty amusing:

  Doctor:  Oh my, yes, that is a serious infection. We need to get a jolt of anti-biotics in you!  Now, do you have kids?
  Me: Yes
  Doctor:  Ah, that's going to be hard. How old?
  Me: 3 and 1.
  Doctor:  (Cringing) Ugh, okay. That's going to be VERY hard. And you fly home tomorrow?
  Me:  Tonight actually.
  Doctor: Oh, that's not good...well, is it at least a short flight? Where is it?
  Me: Hong Kong, it's about 8 hours.
  Doctor:  Shit. Sorry. Your foot is definitely going to swell up on the plane. 

Watching his reactions to every question that I clearly had the wrong answer to was comical.  He gave me double the normal dose of antibiotics, which he told me would make me sick. It did.  My turn for some stomach issues.  He then took a marker and drew a line across my leg and explained if the infection had traveled up that far by the time we landed, I needed to go straight to the hospital for an IV.  There was a Kmart next to the doctor's office so while I was getting the run down on how much the next 24 hours might suck, Nate and the kids were having the time of their lives picking out sparkly pants and a ton of party decorations for the following week when Monroe would officially turn one.  Nate ran into the parking lot yelling, "You wouldn't believe this, Ashley. Everything was like A DOLLAR!  And that's an Australian dollar, so it's really like 75 cents!  It was unbelievable!"  We've lived in Hong Kong long enough that these types of rare special experiences now blow our minds.  I am actually fearful of what is going to happen when we move back to the US and just go absolutely bananas on amazon prime and at Target.

I'm happy to report I did not need IV antibiotics when we landed. My toes looked absolutely disgusting for a few weeks, as did my neck and Nate's sunburn, but we otherwise bounced back to normal pretty fast.  In between Nate's stomach issues my toe infection, we did squeeze in some time to tour around Margaret River wineries and also to push the limits of how much extra crap from Kmart can actually fit in a travel bike bag!  What else did we learn / validate from this experience?  A couple things:

1. His GI issues aside, Nate can finish an Ironman without ever biking more than two hours or swimming more than 45 minutes in the six previous months.  I'm not sure if he's an athletic wizard or just out of his damn mind. Either way, I love him...Even when he screams at me for showing him a piece of watermelon.

2. It's always important to define one's own success.  For this race and the months leading up to it, we discussed that our success this time would not be finishing in record time.  This time, it was pushing the limits of what we could put on our plates (kids/life/work/training) and then executing a time management strategy. Or, as Nate describes this process, "winning at life."  The next race may bring a different set or priorities or a different outcome. (One can only hope that there's less pooping and more running though.)

Completing this journey together was a perfect way to end the year. As 2019 approaches, we are enthusiastic about what a new year will bring (or, more to the point, what we will bring on ourselves).  Whatever lies ahead, in whatever country, we are always incredibly grateful to feel the love and support of friends and family around the globe.  Happy New Year!