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!