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After hotdog buns, Stephy decided she needed a bowl of my million dollar cereal, and then another. You see, she’s so very tired by later in the day that she’s eating almost nothing most nights at dinner, so she wakes up starving hungry. The child is eating 3 or 4 different breakfasts each day!

Emily and Danny finally showed their faces, and we followed the two-baths-kill-some-time-until-normal-people-waking-time routine again. The kids are doing really well, given that you can’t drink any water here except bottled water. It’s a pain for brushing teeth, and I watch them closely in the shower.

We were supposed to be meeting Danny’s cousin in the city at 11am so that we can buy a dress for Emily, because she’s going to be a flower girl in the cousin’s son’s wedding on Christmas day. She called just as we were leaving the hotel to tell us that the shop doesn’t open until 1pm, so she’d like to meet us for dim sum first, and take the kids to a park. Needless to say, it never takes much convincing to get Emily to a park, so we used the hotel shuttle to get to the subway, and just two short stops later, we arrived. While we are in Hong Kong, the East Asian games on. Short of the actual Olympics, this is a pretty close 2nd place. There are tons of athletes in town, hotels are full, and there are many different venues in use. Turns out the park that Danny’s cousin wanted to take the kids to is right beside the swimming venue. As we got to the park, I saw the two mascots of the games, and waltzed right up for photos. It became evident that they were really only there for athletes to take photos with, but who can resist my cute kids?? So, we got photos. 

The park was actually really awesome with a great kids play area and a bird sanctuary. The kids were busy playing and running around, but then it started to rain, so our play time was cut short. We headed to a local restaurant for dim sum. When we got to the Hon Palace (not nearly as “palatial” as the name implies!) the kids were mad that the rain interrupted their play and didn’t want to eat. Plus, the food was actually more Shanghai style, not dim sum as we expected. We ate a quick (painful) lunch, then a minor catastrophe struck. Danny’s cousin realized that she’d lost her cell phone at some point in the day with us. So, Danny and she went all over, backtracking, trying to find it without success. All the while, me and the kids sat at the “palatial” restaurant and waited. They had cool big pools of fish (for food) that Stephy wanted to pose in front of, but other than that, nothing to entertain kids.

After giving up on finding her cell phone, we went to the outdoor market to see the vendor for the flower girl dress. Only to find out that when it is raining, they don’t open!! Yup, all this fuss and bother and the damn shop wasn’t open. Talk about a fashion letdown!!!

We gave up and let Danny’s cousin go on her way, and we headed back up to the hotel, hoping for naps.  Never happened, though. 

Danny took Emily down into the city, trying to give me a chance to get Stephanie to have a sleep.  They came back about an hour later with some Sprite (Emily’s new fave) and some do fu fa for me!!!!  From the street vendor!!!  The old guy under the staircase is still there and my awesome kid spent $.80 Cdn and bought me a treat.  It was lovely and warm and spicy gingery.  Great treat, Emily!!

Stephanie never did nap, and Emily wasn’t interested in napping either, so I gave up on that hope.  Danny went down into the city again to order a custom made suit (or three). 

I had wanted to take the kids to Little Lamb hot pot for dinner, one of my very favourite restaurants in Hong Kong.  Then, I looked back on last years trip blog and realized that we did that on our second day in HK last year, and it was terrible.  So, guess what culinary delight we had again????

Pizza, again.  Oh yes, we did.  Well, not actually “we”, ‘cause I don’t love it, but I ordered pizza delivery for the kids and Danny, and I had Vietnamese soup noodle again.  Food delivery in Hong Kong is cheap and delicious and it meant I didn’t have to drag my tired, cranky kids around to a restaurant.  So, all was good.