August 14

So, did I mention that I have Stephanie in a room with me, and Danny has Emily with him? No? This is significant. Emily LOVES to sleep. Stephanie not so much. Important difference.

So, Stephanie woke me up at 1:30am. Yes, pitch black, middle of the night, “Hi mommy, I’m up” kind of special. Holy crap is that early.

Needless to say, I was less than pleased and really struggled to get my butt out of bed to entertain her. Thankfully, we have the iPads with us, and I’d preloaded them with lots of movies. Combine that with free WiFi in the hotel so she can watch episodes of Phineas and Ferb, and some mermaid show she likes, and we did alright. She had a couple of hotdog buns, while I munched on Special K and drank coffee. Saying I was happy would be a stretch, but it was not unexpected, so I was prepared.

Apparently Emily slept to 5:00am. Brat. Kidding. Mostly.

We decided to get out for a walk. If you read last years first full day report, you’ll feel a sense of déjà vu here. We got down into the city by 8:00am, and believe it or not, nothing much is going on in Hong Kong on a Sunday morning at that time. Luckily, we did find a local eatery with delicious congee and we sat and enjoyed that for a bit. After that, we managed to shop for about 15 minutes to buy a couple of umbrellas and then the kids were whining for swimming.

The pool was absolutely lovely and the kids had a great time splashing and relaxing. Unfortunately, we had both a lunch and a dinner obligation today, so no break for us. The lunch was a large group affair, with three of Danny’s cousins and his aunts. It would have been nice, and the food was quite good, but both kids were tired and raunchy and weren’t up for it. We managed to get through it, and call it for the afternoon. Danny decided he had some shopping to do, so I took the kids on my own, headed on the subway back to the hotel. When we got back to my room, both girls went to sleep, virtually immediately. That sounds good, except that I also desperately needed a nap, and my room has two twin beds…..both now occupied by my kids!!! So I had nothing but a couch for me! Oh well, the kids had a great long nap (which I’ll no doubt regret later tonight) and Danny and I had a tough time waking them so we could drag them out for yet another big family meal.

Dinner was at a HongZhou style restaurant that Pok Hei and his family enjoy. It was fantastic seeing all of them, but the kids were tired and still wanted to be sleeping, so not very cooperative. We got through dinner (painfully) and then hopped a cab back to the hotel.