This morning we headed over to one of my favourite areas for wandering/shopping, MongKok. Check out how AXA “owns” the MTR station. Talk about advertising. My goodness you couldn’t miss it if you wanted to!

MongKok is also a fave with my kids, ‘cause it’s the cell phone capital of the world, and all the shops have tons of phones that the kids can play with. In fact, if I’d let them, we’d spend a whole day over in MongKok doing nothing but standing around while they play “call each other” on the phones. They’re only 7 and almost 9 years old, but they both already know they want a smart phone and they’re fond of the Android phones!!!! Yikes, they are going to need good jobs!

Danny had shopping he wanted to do, namely new shirts and sandals. MongKok is also famous for shoe shopping. Who am I kidding? MongKok is just a fabulous shopping area in general!! Danny found shirts really quickly, and sandals not long after, so he considered the outing a success. Stephy was looking for “egg waffles”. They are lovely light waffles, with little egg shaped sections that they sell at the street vendors. She’s happy to walk about as long as she can have that!

Weird morning, though. By about 11:00am, the kids were a little hungry (especially Stephy who’d been up for almost 6 hours!!!) so we went into their favourite little mango dessert shop. They both had funky drinks. Emily’s had strawberries, mango, and some coconut in it. Stephy’s had watermelon, aloe jelly and mango. Not sure they made good choices, since Emily mostly ate my mango pudding and Stephanie ate my cut fruit. Oh well, it filled a gap and they used a relatively clean washroom (a huge plus in Hong Kong).

By 12:30 I was feeling hungry for some actual food (since I’d also been up for MANY hours!!) so we ventured into a dirty looking Vietnamese restaurant. I ordered soup noodles, and the kids both said they weren’t hungry (after egg waffles). No problem. I ordered food, so did Danny. The food came quickly(ish) and as soon as my soup noodle arrived, guess who ate it?? If you’re thinking Emily and Stephy you’re correct. Little Miss I’m-not-hungry, and Miss I-already-had-egg-waffle consumed my entire bowl of noodles and soup. Luckily, the soup noodles come to the table quickly, since it’s just rice noodles and raw meat in a bowl, so I ordered another for me to eat. The restaurant was yucky, but the food not too bad, so we had a decent lunch. Funny, though, Danny ordered “chicken wings with butter” for Emily. In the picture, they were just roasted looking chicken wings, but when they came they had about an inch of BATTER on them. Kind of like fish and chips batter. Nasty on chicken wings, so she refused to eat them. Geez, how to confuse the English translation. Butter and batter….NOT THE SAME!

After shopping, all the kids wanted was the pool, so I obliged. Danny had a few things to get done, so I took them to the pool for the afternoon. They had an awesome time in the sun and water!

Tonight we had dinner plans. Translation, a dinner with one person that turned into hosting ten people. Yeah, after my kid got up at 5:35 am, we are hosting a big dinner.

The restaurant is actually one that I really like, and the food is really good, but ten people, putting raw food into one cooking pot really doesn’t work for my stomach. I spent the dinner managing first Stephy sound asleep, after eating nothing. Then Emily ate her food, and put her head on my lap and was also sound asleep. Great. Not. I didn’t get to eat much at all, and the meal went on and on, so I finally begged off, and took the kids home while Danny continued to serve as host to his elderly aunties and his cousins.

Fortunately for me, I’m comfortable using the subway and other travel options here in Hong Kong. I took the kids on the subway, then a taxi back to the hotel.