Saturday, December 13

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Ok, so after doing Disney yesterday, today is going to seem boring by comparison.  First, the girls were still exhausted from yesterday, and second we had to get up early.

We had agreed to meet a cousin and family of Danny’s for dim sum at 9:00am.  Yes, that early.  Brilliant plan the day after Disney eh?  Oh well, we managed to haul the girls out of bed, and get them showered and dressed and headed out.

Before we left the hotel, I had to have them stand in front of the Christmas tree in the hotel lobby, dressed in their Hong Kong Disneyland t-shirts!  A funny sidebar comment:  Given the religious basis for Christmas, it’s funny to me that they do more decorating and celebrating here than at home.  Every building, every hotel, every bus stop is decked out for Christmas.  And in spite of the various religious and ethnic groups here, it is still called Christmas, not just a Holiday.  Something to be said for that, eh?

Anyway, I digress.

We met Danny’s cousin, nephews and families for tea.  We walked down to the city, then took a ride on one of the old, famous Hong Kong trams.  It’s very cheap way to ride, and the girls love climbing the narrow, winding stairs and sitting up on the top level.  I definitely don’t love it, but usually get out-voted.  The ride was fun, and although we arrived late to tea, everyone was fine with that.

The girls ate not too badly, given that they don’t usually do well in groups.  The food wasn’t great, but it was still nice to see everyone.  Lots of har gow and shrimp rice noodle rolls for the girls, and they’re happy.  Actually Emily tried several other items, too, so that was good.

After lunch, we didn’t really have any plans, so after dropping stuff back at the hotel, we split into “teams”.  Stephanie and I were headed down into the city to check out the Christmas shopping at Wing On department store, and Emily and Danny had a banking run to do, followed by the Sony store.

I’m sorry (sort of) to report that the weather continues to be fantastic here!!  We enjoyed 24 degrees and sunshine again today.

Stephanie and I got down to the store, and were shocked by the crowds.  Now, don’t get me wrong, we’ve been to Hong Kong enough times, and I’ve done Boxing Day shopping at home, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this.  Wall-to-wall people, fighting to buy things at 10-40% off.   It was a mad house, and definitely didn’t interest me, or Stephanie.  She did find a little Hello Kitty bus pass holder that she “had to have” so we got that, and headed out.  She was tired, and whining, so we headed towards the escalator, with a plan to abandon my shopping outing.

Danny and Emily were successful at the bank, but the Sony store in the city was closed.  Got a text message telling me that they’d abandoned their shopping too, and would meet us at the escalator.

I had another little sidetrip in mind, though.  I visited my favourite “under the stairs, dubious cleanliness, really old guy” with do fu fa, and bought myself a treat.  Yeah, $.080 Cdn well spent.  Also stopped and got several more trays of fresh cut tropical fruits for us.  We’ve been going through a lot of fruit.  It’s inexpensive and plentiful, and there is a vendor near here that sells it cut up and on styro trays with a plastic fork, so it’s pretty much perfect.

We had been invited to Pok Hei’s house for lamb for dinner.  We hopped a cab, ‘cause the girls were tired, but they were actually really good once we got there.  They played with Cathy in her room, Emily using the internet to play games, and Stephanie playing with a stuffed toy.  Neither of them ate much dinner, but since we’d been given delicious home made, fresh turnip cake before dinner, and they ate a lot of that, I wasn’t fussed. 

The lamb meat was awesome, and they had cooked lobsters too!!  (Side note, the lamb meat was delicious but would have challenged many of you.  Given that we generally don’t eat the skin when we have lamb meat, I was a bit taken aback, when it arrived with skin and all, but since it was so tasty, I worked around it!)  We were stuffed to the gills and then were offered soup or chicken too.  None of us could eat another thing, so we passed on those things!

We headed home after, and the kids were in their bed pretty much as soon as we arrived.  We’ve got the sleep thing completely in hand, and they go to bed completely exhausted but happy every night now.