Road Trip Down Under

When we first learned that, in addition to Good Friday and Easter Monday, Hong Kongians also recognize Tomb Sweeping Day as a public holiday, we decided to take advantage of Nate only needing to take 4 days off to pack in a 12 day trip!  Asia has a lot of amazing travel spots, but after 8 months in such a densely packed city, we wanted to go super remote with lots of open space.  We just returned from Western Australia doing just that. Here's what we've been up to:

First, we needed to make the 8 hour flight journey from Hong Kong to Perth.  I still find this type of travel mind-blowing.  When I was a kid, I was a bit obsessed with the movie 10 Things I Hate About You and the only reason I knew the city of Perth even existed is because Health Ledger grew up there. Now, 20 years later, I have learned a few more things about Perth, such as:
- Easy access to magical beaches
- Those magical beaches almost all have sharks
- People do get eaten by those sharks
- For a safer activity, there's great wine

So yeah, I'm pretty much an expert now. First stop on our WA adventure? Winery.  Of course, that was only after doing a hilarious amount of shopping because Cathay lost our bag with all the camping stuff in it!  We bought discount sheets, towels, headlamps, and then some extra crap like glow sticks and water guns. We went food shopping. Stopped for a couple coffees in this process, because, "when in Rome..."  Once our rental car (a Rav4 decked out with a 5 person tent that collapses on top) was fully stocked, we hit the road!  In truth, we only hit the road for 20 minutes and then stopped at our pre-selected winery for lunch.

Nate and I have always loved road trips, but we quickly saw the impact living in Hong Kong has had on our kids after our winery stop.  After about 10 minutes in the car, Isla informed us she was done driving.  To be fair, 10 minutes is about the longest taxi ride we ever take around the city.  We carefully explained to our nearly 3 year old child that we actually had to drive 1500 kilometers over 5 days, and yes, she did need to stay strapped into that thing called a car seat!  Luckily, she adjusted quickly, minus a few hilarious moments of her needing to pee with no actual toilet available for hours!  (I will forever have vivid memories of demonstrating to her how to squat in the middle of the blazing hot desert while she cried hysterically screaming, "NO, JUST HOLD MEEEE!!!")

From Perth on the first day, we drove up to Jurien Bay and got incredibly lucky to score a beachfront campsite at a park called Sandy Cape.  The next day, we heard our luggage had made it to Perth and they would send it to a town called Geraldton for us by 5pm. We said, "thanks, but no thanks" because we would already be past Geraldton by 2pm. They agreed to send it to a minuscule airport in Shark Bay where we would get it the following day. 

Off we drove from Jurien Bay to Kalbarri National Park, where orange-red cliffs plunge into the ocean.  We stayed at a more traditional campsite this night, complete with a pool, playground and "jumping pillow," the latest rage in Aussie camping.  It’s like  a ground-level moon bounce and provides hours of entertainments for kids and adults. They deflate the pillow at sundown and I suspect this is because once the adults start drinking, there would be some serious jumping showdowns on the thing and probably some injuries.  So, we jumped and swam our little hearts out until sundown and then took some much-needed showers!

After a night in Kalbarri, our next destination was the very appropriately named Shark Bay. Because it’s Australia, you are casually advised not to swim far out in this area, but it might warrant more of a warning in my opinion! We were lucky enough to interact with wild dolphins and every one of them had huge shark bite scars on them.  Upon arrival in shark bay, we quickly noticed two things - crazy intense wind, which we were actually thankful for because it kept the flies away, and beautiful swirly purple seashells everywhere.  Isla and I quickly got to work filling buckets with shells and even smuggled a few back into Hong Kong the following week.  Before dinner, we made our way to the Shark Bay “airport” which was basically a shed next to a gravel parking lot. We found a nice lady who said, “Yep, I saw that green piece of luggage.  We figured you were staying at the Monkey Mia resort so we sent it there!”  And the wild goose chase continued!

The next day, we drove over to Monkey Mia, which turned out to be an amazing side trip.  The park rangers let us feed fish to the wild bottle nose dolphins as they swam around our legs, we got some great flat whites and muffins, and chased emus all around a giant chess board and on to the beach. We got so distracted, we nearly forgot to actually pick up the green bag!

After our fill of pastries, we headed out for perhaps our most unique camping experience. We swooped inland to an outback station and camped along the dried up riverbed in a massive wilderness area.  It was such a neat and quirky place. The “healing tubs” died our swimsuits the color of the red dirt and the toilets were contained in a large vertical piece of rusty tubing, but cooking sausages and then marshmallows over a fire as the sun set felt very fun and special. I'm glad the marshmallows were a hit as I had to bring those bad boys all the way from Hong Kong! Australia only has those circus-like marshmallows that have a powered sugar coating on them, so a bit of advanced planning was necessary.  Over night, when I got up to feed Monroe at 5am, I saw just a hint of sunrise while tons of kangaroos hopped through the riverbed.  (One of the very few benefits of getting up to feed a baby at night!)  When she was done eating, I nearly stayed awake to watch more...Nearly.  These peaceful outback moments then came to an abrupt ending when we woke up to extreme heat (the wind had stopped completely), ants all over our feet once we stepped outside, and lots of flies!  We packed up and got the heck out of there!

When the temperature hit 110 degrees in the mid morning, we decided I may have made a slight error in the itinerary planning. We were heading straight north, further into the tropics, and planning to camp that night.  We bailed on the camping plan and opted for an air conditioned cabin in Coral Bay,  a teeny tiny beach town with a handful of snorkel/dive shops, a bakery (hands down, my second favorite part!) a couple food/supply shops, a large bottle shop, and 2 options for overnight accommodation.  The large bay is calm, shallow and full of wildlife.  Bright blue stingrays would swim around your feet (my most favorite part!) and the reef could be reached by swimming out for about two minutes.  Monroe can’t wear sunscreen yet and it was so darn hot that we ended up just clothing her head to toe and then dipping her all the way in the water.  Then we’d play on the beach for 30 seconds and she’d be mostly dry again, so we repeated the process over and over.  Clothe, Rinse, Repeat!  By the time we were leaving Coral Bay 24 hours later, I felt like I knew half the people there.  We saw and interacted with the same families, restaurant waiters, bakery cashier, etc, multiple times, so we quickly felt very attached to the place!  But, we were heading to an Airbnb house rental further north next, so we were looking forward to unloading the car and exploding all of our dirty belongings into a house for the next 4 days.

Exmouth is a town about 20 minutes outside of Cape Range National Park, which much of the Ningaloo Reef runs along.  The Ningaloo Reef is very similar to the Great Barrier Reef in terms of wildlife and diversity, but you can swim to large portions of it right from shore, which makes it highly accessible (you know, once you are already as remote as Exmouth!)  Until living in Australia, I had never heard the term, "drift snorkel," but the Ningaloo Reef has quite a few of these. It goes just how the name would suggest:  You drive into the National Park, park at a specific beach, walk about 500 meters on the beach against the direction of the current, then swim out into the ocean, right into the current and just stay completely still as the current pulls you over the reef.  I read up on these drifts beforehand quite a bit, and the commentary can be summed up as: "Enjoy a unique and pristine part of the reef as you drift across a diverse eco-system and then as you look up on the beach and see a marker, get the hell out of the water!!"  The most popular drift snorkel over Turquoise Bay eventually hits an area where strong currents collide and pull you right out to sea in an area where there's nowhere to climb back out, so the caution is appropriate, but also a bit hilarious when put alongside the description of such a peaceful, casual snorkel.  I'm happy to report that we enjoyed the pristine reef and did manage to get out in time!

The finale of the trip was a full day boating excursion to swim with whale sharks, the biggest fish in the world (or so the brochure told me).  I've been on a number of ocean passages around Australia so I was familiar with how rough the water regularly gets, but this ride took the cake in terms of my closeness to puking!  It was totally worth the sickness though.  Nate and I had planned to take turns in the water, but the crew would hear nothing of this.  "Go get in the water, mates! We'll hang with your children!" is what they said.  We didn't argue. Once some whale sharks were spotted, the crew yelled at us to hop down to the back of the boat and hang there while the captain steered us into place. Then, with the boat still moving, we were instructed to jump in and hold on to a rope until they said to let go.  The boat pulled us right into place so the whale shark was headed straight for us.  It was a bit intimidating, to say the least! Then, as the massive animal got closer, we each picked a side and swam fast to stay alongside her for a good few minutes.  We were lucky enough to do this three more times that day. I had to pinch myself as it seemed like the weirdest dream ever (except the one where I ate my own fingers a while back. That was weirder.) When we eventually got back on board, totally exhilarated, we found Isla's entire body covered in marker drawings and a variety of marine animal stickers with a huge smile on her face. She, too, apparently had the time of her life!

The “Yes Fly Zone!”

Monroe is now 12 weeks old and we figured it was time for her first passport stamp.  During the last few weeks of being pregnant and in the first few weeks of her arrival, I definitely got a little antsy and booked a couple (okay, several) trips. We figured it would be best to kick things off with a long weekend at a beach resort.  After doing a bit of research, I found that the absolute best place for a long weekend time-wise and price-wise from Hong Kong is Vietnam (who knew?!)  So, off we went to a beach town called Nha Trang.

It was a new experience traveling as a family of four, but more importantly, there were also some new eating and drinking experiences we really enjoyed:

The Coffee:  The French originally introduced coffee to Vietnam. Historically, there was no access to fresh milk, so the coffee is brewed with a filter on top or your cup that contains a small amount of condensed sweetened milk (in the case that you order the traditional "milk coffee," that is. You can also have it brewed black).  We downed quite a few cups of this delectable milk coffee with breakfast and again later between beers. It was vacation, after all!

The Beer:  In full disclosure, I'm not 100% what specific beer we had or didn't have, but we selected from a menu that had "dark beer" and "golden beer" on draft with no other names, so I am making an assumption that this was the local beer we read about prior to traveling.  Vietnamese beer is brewed daily and locally, especially in the north, and then distributed to the local food stalls and restaurants.  It was delicious and without any taste of hops, much to Nate's enjoyment as he seems to now get instant hangovers with hoppy beer, now in his mid-thirties!  So old.

All the food: We ate everything. I don't know what half of it was called, but it was all so good.  We ate noodles, dried mystery fruits that someone with broken English tried to tell me was sweet potatoes, but I don't think this was correct, we ate fish on a stick, traditional noodle breakfasts and sandwiches that had interesting meat (I think it was meat) with amazing fresh spices and greens.  And, of course, there were drinks that came in a dragon fruit which sat in a little drinking basket.  I didn't know before that little drinking baskets were even a thing, but now I feel must buy them for my Hong Kong kitchen that has virtually no storage and only one drawer.

The beach and town were great, but we'll definitely be heading back specifically for the food and drinks one day soon! There were some less than desirable moments as well, especially given that we are mid-toilet training with Isla. During the trip out, Isla informed us she had to pee about five times but then refused to go on any toilet in the airport or on the plane. After four hours of this, she waited until the plane was landing and everyone had to be in seats with seatbelts to let us know that the pee was now "coming out."  Lovely.  So, like any practiced mom would do, I loosened her seatbelt, yanked her skirt off, and shoved a diaper under her, and then felt the warmth of the massive amount of urine soaking the diaper.  I looked up at her face to find her grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah kid, that felt way better for you than it did for me.”  This trend continued for the next few days while she demanded to go back to "her toilet in Hong Kong" every time she had to go.  So, our little gal ended up hilariously constipated and then eventually panicked and pooped on the side of the toilet seat in the hotel as she didn't make it all the way onto the seat, then smeared her hand in it while still trying to position herself on the toilet.  We're very thankful she went poo at all though. Also, she finally found peeing in the shower stall amusing at least - we'll take these little successes where we can get them! Needless to say, this week we are focused on a goal of taking her to as many public toilets as possible to practice.

Our next travel adventure will be over Easter week where we’ll drive from Perth up the coast of Western Australia.  I’m not sure what is scarier - that we’ll be camping with a 3 year old who won't pee or poo anywhere but home yet and a 3 month old, or the fact that I haven’t driven a car in over eight months.  However it goes down, it will, at the very least, be memorable.  Stay tuned!

 

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

This weekend, we are experiencing our first Chinese New Year in Hong Kong as we welcome in the year of the dog! We have learned a few very important things:

The major tradition that ex-pats must quickly study up on is the practice of Lai See, which is the giving of money in red envelopes to a variety of people to wish them good luck and good fortune in the new year.  Anyone who regularly provides you a service including doormen/women and taxi hailers at apartment buildings, security guards, any regular hair dressers or manicurists, for example, should be given Lai See (money in a red envelope).  Traditionally, you also give to people at work or in your personal life who are younger and/or unmarried.  In fact, Nate’s HR department actually gives packs of the red envelopes to all managers with the expectation that you put money in envelopes and give them out to your direct reports, those in a lesser positions than you, and those who are unmarried. (Can you even imagine the legal nightmare this would create in the US?!  Sure, I’ll just hand out my personal money in whatever amounts I determine appropriate to a whole bunch of employees while at work!  It takes some getting used to.) There are A LOT of rules to follow with Lai See in order not to offend people, including: 

• All money given must be new, crisp, perfectly flat bills.  Coins and older, wrinkled bills are very offensive.  The lines at the banks leading up to the new year are massive as only certain banks give out freshly printed money at specific hours.
• There can only be one bill per envelope.  If you want to give someone $200 HKD, you would give 2 envelopes each containing a $100 bill. 
• Nothing can be given in 4s, as 4 means death in Chinese culture.  Do not give someone 4 envelops, $40 or $400...you get the idea.
• Envelopes must be presented and accepted with two hands. Actually, this is a the case with all items in Chinese culture, so at least this one I'm used to!
• There is an emphasis on older people giving to younger people, so you may not have your child hand an envelope to anyone.  This is a tough one for young kids as the envelopes are typically beautiful and shiny!  In general, you give "big to small," "old to young," and "senior to junior.”
• When presenting the envelopes, you can say, Happy New Year (Kung Hei Fat Choi) and/or wish them good health (Sun Tai Gin Hong!)
•  For a two week period, you should always keep red envelopes on you with a variety of dollar amounts so you are prepared regardless of who you run into. 

Other than Lai See, here are some additional things we've learned: 

• During New Year's weekend, dragons are walking the streets!  It's not quite Game of Throne's style much to my disappointment, but they are beautifully made, red and yellow dragons carried underneath by about 10-15 people per dragon holding sticks.  In most apartment buildings, you can opt in to have the dragon visit your apartment. Apparently, when you let them in, the dragon runs through every room in your entire house and then you are supposed to feed it lettuce, which it them regurgitates and spits out.  I am still googling to try and understand the precise background on this, but what I do know is that this whole home invasion is supposed to bring good fortune!  Unfortunately we won't be here that day, but I think this would have been a pretty hilarious site with a paper dragon carried by a ton of people throwing half chewed lettuce all over your apartment. We must plan around this next year!
• The whole city gets crazy busy in the weeks leading up to the new year and then completely clears out.  Traditionally, Chinese people will spend this 4 day period with their families, much like Americans would for Thanksgiving.  Chinese people travel home and the ex-pats, which make up 30% of the HK population, take advantage of the long holiday by jetting off somewhere.  Hong Kong ex-pats leave here for holidays in Europe, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and a host of other cities around the world.
• Kumquat trees are a big deal for Chinese New Year, as are tangerines and oranges.  According to an online food ordering service here, (legit enough, right?) this is for a couple reasons.  First, the color symbolizes "gold" which warrants presence in a home. Secondly, in Mandarin, the word, "tangerine," sounds similar to "luck" and the word, "orange," sounds similar to "wealth."   I made sure to buy a beautiful kumquat tree in a green ceramic dragon pot at the flower market in Mong Kok a few days ago.  Nate's parents are visiting from Tennessee, and they were kind enough to indulge me when I wanted to go to the flower market not only days before Chinese New Year, but also on Valentine's Day, one of the busiest days of the year there!  We had both kids with us, so in addition to navigating the crowds with two strollers, Nate's Dad was fighting the foot traffic and the MTR (metro) craziness with my ceramic potted kumquat tree in hand!  In retrospect, this may have been cruel.  On second thought, at least I gave him a heavy weapon to jab people with as you generally just get walked into constantly in Hong Kong!  Even with the crowds, the market of flowers upon flowers for blocks was just beautiful.   

So, we've got a kumquat tree, we've got tons of fresh crisp bills in envelopes ready for Lai See, and we even purchased a conglomerate of red and gold CNY decorations that I hung around the apartment with Isla. Tonight, there are fireworks and then tomorrow we will visit the famous Lam Tsuen wishing tree.  While I'm quite sure we are mis-translating some customs and still have a lot more to understand, I'd say we've at least got a few parts of this holiday down! 

One Step, Two Step, Three Step, Four...x1000!

I recently went to my post-baby medical appointment and was really looking forward to getting clearance to work out (at least officially - I’d already gone running twice and nothing seemed too broken).  I was happy to hear my, using Isla’s terminology, “Lady Gaga” had healed up nicely, but was warned that my abdominal muscles were actually torn and I needed to start physical therapy as soon as possible.

I’d so very much been looking forward to finally doing some of the amazing hiking around Hong Kong and figured that I didn’t need my abs intact too much for hiking, so I instantly planned back to back days of it!  Much like around the Hong Kong business and mid-level districts, the major theme of hiking around here is stairs!

First up was “The Twins,” where you hike two beautiful mountains overlooking the sea with a lush valley in between the two peaks.  I arranged for my friend, Meg to meet up with Maggie, my grad school buddy visiting, and me in the morning.  We hopped in a taxi and asked it to take us to the Parkview Apartment Complex, which is near the trail head.  Before we got all the way to Parkview, we saw the small trail map on the side of the twisty turny road and asked to get out. We hopped out on the side of the road, I tied the baby to me in a baby wrap, (after all she was now 7 weeks old and hadn’t been hiking yet. Total slacker!)  

From the road, we immediately started climbing up.  You must first summit over “Violet Hill” before even reaching the start of the hike.  It wasn’t until we reached the first summit that I realized we hadn’t even actually started The Twins hike yet.  Ridiculous. Leave it to Hong Kongians to describe a hike and then leave off the part where you have to summit 1 mountain before you can start the actual hike!  Then we went up. For a long time. The article I read said this hike, not including the first pretend peak, was 1200 steps.  That seemed about right.  Just stairs after stairs after stairs winding up. The view was amazing though and makes the stairs totally worth it!  Then stairs down, down, down.  Afterward, your knees mostly just feel like jelly. Exploring this area is the island is such a unique way to experience remote nature right alongside the bustling city. We met a few interesting people along the way, most of which stared at me for a bit and then did a double take and asked, “Is there a baby in there?!”  I’m not sure what else they thought I had in there, but Monroe definitely got some baby props for being adventurous that day!  She also gets some mad props from me for eating really well in the back of the taxi on the way back (yes, I breastfeed my baby in the back of taxis - this place is a far cry from the US in terms of child safety, but more on that in a future blog post!)  After some very chilly but sweaty hiking, we warmed up with some amazing Japanese ramen and beer.  It was the perfect end to a perfect morning!

The next day, the whole family and Maggie headed to hike Dragon’s back, one of the most famous hikes in the area, as the landscape across the top looks just like a jagged back of a dragon with views of the sea on either side.  We should have known better after doing The Twins, but again, we underestimated the hike to get to the hike.  Isla weighs a solid 35 pounds now so this pre-hike when she refused to walk turned out to be the biggest work out Nate’s gotten in in months!  The guidebook basically says to ride to the Chai Wan MTR (metro) station, then just walk through a cemetery and start hiking. I can see how someone would say this, but you actually have to climb about 8 flights up stairs up the vertical cemetery, then another long curvy one through the woods, then you get to a path that still isn’t the hike, but eventually leads to another path that leads to the hike. NBD, thanks stupid guidebook.  I learned my lesson again as Nate, Maggie and I all split one cliff bar across the next 5 hours.  I now know to add 2 hours, 500 stairs and 6 granola bars to every hiking plan in HK!  Dragon’s Back was beautiful and we didn’t even hike it on a clear day!  I can’t wait to go back (with lots of snacks and perhaps minus my 2 year old) and take in the stunning landscape again soon. 

Perhaps the most crazy part of this Dragon's Back day was our travel back home.  The hike just drops you out on a curvy, narrow road that winds down to the end of a peninsula at a beach called Shek-O, but where you end the hike, there is fast traffic and minimal sidewalk.  We didn't actually have a plan for how to get back, but when we saw a public bus coming, we didn't hesitate. Our rationale was that, where ever the bus was going was better than where we were as we could either get a taxi from down at the beach or get closer to an MTR station on the bus.  We quickly ran onto the bus and we couldn't believe what a wild ride it was.  We couldn't even make it to seats without falling over and gripping onto the bars for dear life as the bus accelerated quickly and then flew back and forth around the curves.  By the time we got to our seats, 2 of us had fallen over and Isla was laughing hysterically. The ride continued to be shockingly fast and curvy.  I remembered reading somewhere that if you chose to take a bus to Shek-O, you were, "taking your life in your own hands," as the article put it. I can now vouch for this!  We ended up back at an MTR station, tired and starving.  Luckily, there was a bakery inside the MTR station, so we gorged ourselves on some egg tarts before hopping back on the train.  

Truthfully, I’ve been missing Melbourne a lot lately, and discovering how and where to escape into nature brings Hong Kong up a notch in my book!  Now I just have to do all my PT exercises for my abs and knees so they they stay intact with the stair climbing insanity!!

 

 

Wild Boar...And Probably Also Wild Boar

Hong Kong it literally an urban jungle - crazy urban and actual crazy jungle. It is a tropical, forest-covered mountainous island that some wacky Brits in the 1840s decided was fine location to build one of the biggest cities in the world.  HK has 100+ more skyscrapers than the next biggest city by that measure.  We live in a 30 story building about 3/4 of the way up the mountain, surrounded by other buildings just as tall, it not taller.  Yet, much of the native wildlife still exists on the Hong Kong Island as well as on the other 260+ islands that make up Hong Kong.  We live two blocks from a zoo and park I take Isla to frequently.  It is a special combination of sounds every time I push her on the swing:  the sound of children playing at the park, cars rushing by on the overpass overhead, and then various kinds of monkeys screeching in the cages nearby!  Yet, the weirdest animal sighting by far happened a couple weeks ago when a wild boar wandered out of the woods and into the traffic circle in front of our apartment complex.  This guy waltzed past some taxis and proceeded to hang in the grassy area next to the building until the security guards chased him down the road (probably just to a coffee shop or nearby apartment complex!)  

This boar sighting occurred during the time my parents and sister, Alexa, were visiting.  My parents left a few days before Alexa, and I decided it was time for a more compete Hong Kong culture immersion for her.  I took her to this teeny tiny outdoor-only restaurant at the bottom of an ally and a stairway in Sheng Wan. I'd been wanting to eat here for months, but refrained while pregnant for fear of food poisoning, which is just a part of normal life here from time to time. 

The label, "restaurant," is being generous here - we're talking one guy sweating over a huge pot of...something, two small burners that resemble a Coleman camp stove, and a few buckets of various ingredients sitting on the ground outside.  There are about five plastic shared tables, where you eat right next to locals on very flimsy plastic stools with no back.  We were handed a menu that had Chinese characters along with what I believe was a very loose, partially accurate English translation.  Lex and I looked around at what most people were eating, which seemed to be noodles in various kinds of broth, most of which looked red.  We waved a woman over to take our order who looked to be about 90 years old.  It was quickly evident that she spoke no English at all, so we pointed to the menu and said "please" a lot.  She looked very confused and yelled at us a little until the man sitting next to me offered to order for us.  The man informed her that Alexa wanted noodles and vegetables and then told her I wanted noodles with chicken sausage.  She yelled something about tomatoes back for a while, so I just nodded yes to this and then she questioned the man incessantly about the chicken sausage as if she'd never heard of this before, despite it being on the menu in English.  Our helpful translator kept telling me she didn't understand about the sausage. I pointed to it on the menu again.  She threw her hands up and yelled what appeared to be her one English word, "TOMATOES."  I just replied, "yes please" and nodded again and she walked away.  Sometimes you are just never quite sure what you are going to get!  We were handed our bowls very quickly and we were happy to see they did look pretty close to what we ordered.  The noodles and tomatoes were great.  However, the "chicken sausage" looked like the most shriveled up hot dog I've ever seen.  The woman's staring and laughter when she put down my bowl leads me to believe either (a) they don't really even serve chicken sausage and this thing was just lying in basket on the floor near the stove for the past 2 years, or (b) It's wasn't really chicken. Given what I know about Hong Kong and China, and the wild animal I'd seen a few days earlier, I'd say there's a 50-50 chance I ate either cat or wild boar.  In all likelihood, it was probably "c," all of the above - 2 year old floor cat/boar sausage!  It was weird, but I'm really glad I finally fulfilled my dream of eating at this place, and, as an added bonus, neither of us got food poisoning!  I'll probably go back to eat there again, and I'll definitely order noodles with tomatoes, but I'll likely pass on the mystery meat.

The "restaurant." Your guess is as good as mine on it's name!

Raw

Most things are astronomically expensive in Hong Kong, so my approach to finding a hair salon was to walk up and down about 10 blocks in all directions looking for salons that (A) Didn’t look too fancy - after all, I don’t color my hair (yet!) and just need a simple trim most of the time, and (B) Had some character because I like to have fun things to look at while I sit there for 45 minutes.  Of course, I also checked the price list.  

I found the perfect fit - a salon called “Raw,” along a cool, funky shopping street called Aberdeen. And “Raw” is exactly that - A tiny little black door leading to a very intimate (Intimate - the equivalent of “charming” in real estate, but everyone knows intimate and charming usually mean VERY small) room that has an urban warehouse look. You enter into a miniature front desk with 2 seats for waiting customers and then through a doorway in between the black bars that make the place resemble a jail cell.  I can’t exactly put my finer on why I love this place, but my suspicion is that it is because the salon feels like a dark, slightly dangerous, and naughty Chipotle. This, of course, makes me feel like a badass and hungry at the same time. I like this feeling.

All the Chinese hair dressers have taken up English names, much like Nate has had to select a Chinese name to use at work.  When I call to make an appointment with Andrew, I can just imagine the guy covering the phone and quietly asking in mandarin, “Hey, which one of us is Andrew again?” Then they scribble on a scrap paper. I don’t actually think they use any sort of appointment book and a computer wouldn’t fit with the decor.  

So, after entering the jail cell, a 70+ year old Chinese man who speaks about zero english waves me back and motions for me to lay on the metal and leather hair washing chair. He is the only one breaking the hair dresser dress code of cropped, fitted sweatpants and a black v-neck t-shirt.  This guy is in linen pants, dress shoes, and a cable knit sweater.  I instantly think the regular hair washer must have called in sick and one of the hair dressers’ fathers was asked to pop in and do some shampooing as a favor that day.  Knowing only a few English words may actually be more problematic than knowing none. He asks “hot?” regarding the water temperature and I assume he’s asking if it’s TOO hot.  I reply “no, not too hot” and then feel scalding water start to burn my scalp.  Apparently he must have been asking if I wanted the water to be hotter.  After several minutes of minimally successful conversing, we got to a temperature that wouldn’t leave me with third degree burns. 

The next 40 minutes are sheer bliss with Andrew. I love having my hair played with and hate making forced small talk with strangers.  Andrew asks “how short you want?” and I show him by pinching a chunk of hair at the length I want it.  I know no mandarin and Andrew has already asked all the questions he knows in English. So, I just sit, close my eyes, and enjoy the haircut and blow drying.  We don’t say a word for the next half hour. It’s glorious. If tipping was a thing here, I would tip Andrew generously. Since it’s not, I go around the corner and spend that money on egg tarts and coconut buns because the dangerous, chipotle-like atmosphere of the salon has now increased my hunger level significantly despite already having 2 breakfasts.  All in all, this whole situation makes for a very enjoyable weekday morning!  I’ve never in my life followed the recommended “hair cut every 6 weeks” rule of thumb, but I am seriously considering implementing it!  

Also, if anyone knows where I can get a pair of killer cropped, fitted sweatpants, preferably with some badass features like side zippers that serve no functional purpose, please give me a shout. I feel it’s very important that I have a full range of lazy to super chic cotton stretchy clothing and this salon has made me realize I’ve been missing a vital component in my casual wardrobe!

Taken in Central on a beautiful winter day last week

We Had a Baby! In HONG KONG!

We tried our best to spread the news via e-mail, text, and Facebook, so hopefully you have already heard that we added a little girl, Monroe Victoria, to our family on December 12th.  We've received a lot of questions about her name.  Monroe is after Monroe, Michigan, the town on Lake Erie where Nate and his extended family made many wonderful memories at his grandparent's lake house.  Victoria is a nod to our beautiful 19 months in Victoria, Australia, but is also now a double whammy of a name as we live just up from Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, half way up Victoria Peak.  Needless to say, it just seemed right.   

Having a baby here in Hong Kong was definitely a bit of a contrast to having Isla in the United States.  Most importantly though, the medical care we received was great, and we are all doing very well 3 weeks in!  However, quite a few things were comically different.  On our private health insurance, the OB that I saw mostly has a patient panel of ex-pat women who have husbands with demanding ex-pat assignments in this country.  This became evident when I was asked when I'd like to schedule my induction.  I was surprised as I'd had a very normal pregnancy, so I asked if anything was concerning or if there were specific reasons I should be induced.  The reply I got was, "No, no, you are totally fine.  I just suggest you look at your husband's work schedule and pick what day you'd like to have the baby. Then just email me the date."  Hmmm...interesting. 

Luckily, no induction was necessary. As we were getting ready for bed on December 11th, I told Nate not to worry and that we didn't need to do anything, but just to be aware that I was starting to have a couple contractions an hour. He stared at me for a minute and then replied, "Are you sure you know what you are doing here?  I mean, your track record is crap since you didn't correctly identify labor until you couldn't walk last time."  (That's actually a fair response.)  Then he followed it up with, "Let's go to sleep and if you could just hold off labor until like 6am, that would be awesome."  I almost made it to 6am.  At 4am, I realized it was the real deal, and at 5am I woke up Nate to let him know we needed to leave for the hospital soon, but that I was going to quickly go eat everything in the kitchen.

Then, at 5:45am, I took the most painful, uncomfortable taxi ride ever on the one-lane winding road up the mountain to the hospital on the Peak.  Once at the hospital, other than actually having the baby, all services and interactions were much more like what you would expect of  staying at the Marriott instead of a hospital.  Nate was promptly greeted by staff and asked for our credit card to take a deposit. Then we were asked if we brought champagne and would we like it chilled. (I answered "yes" and "yes" to this in between contractions.)  The best part was that they actually printed a bar-coded patient label with my name and personal info on it to stick onto the champagne bottle before popping it in the fridge.  

Monroe was born just after 10am, and we were brought to our official room where I had booked us for a "2 night vaginal delivery package." I know that sounds totally disturbing, but that's what we officially booked and paid for.  (Note, there is also an option for a 3, 4, or 5-day vaginal package.)  Now, being located on top of a mountain on an island, the hospital took full advantage of its view and the room didn’t disappoint with a great balcony to get some fresh air and for a Isla to blow bubbles for pretty much 24 hours straight. The hospital staff treated you like you were in a hotel and barely even came in to see us, except for a midwife who came twice a day with a heap of drugs that I could choose from because, as she put it, "Your doctor really doesn't believe you need to experience ANY pain just because you had a baby."  Touche.  I took some ibuprofen and pocketed the rest, just in case.  That was actually completely unnecessary though as the pharmacist brought me another massive bag of drugs to take home with me upon check-out.  That was just before the billing specialists came in to settle the balance of the bill as we were packing up to go. (This type of process is actually a pipe-dream of mine as a former hospital manager!) 
And so, our vacation...I mean "hospital stay" was lovely and, as an added bonus, we got to bring home a beautiful baby.  Not too shabby.

Our first order of business upon returning home was to get Monroe a Hong Kong birth certificate.  I love the candidness of instructions in this country.  The instructions are divided into two sections with the following titles underlined and in bold:
  USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS IF YOUR CHILD IS LEGITIMATE  USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS IF YOUR CHILD IS ILLEGITIMATE
(Hong Kong and their directness and/or hilarious language translations still kill me.)  I'm happy to report that we got our daughter a Hong Kong birth certificate, plus two notarized copies in case we can never get them again once we are state-side.