Sunday, November 19
LinksHome November 5
Before we left the restaurant last night, Pok Hei’s sisters invited us to come out to dim sum this morning with them. While my inclination was to say no thank you, the girls are too tired, my mouth said “Okay, sure, that would be nice”. Remind me to have that checked when we get home!
We met Pok Hei and his family at the same restaurant we’d been to the night before and had dim sum. The girls weren’t exactly in great form, but I’ve seen them worse (much worse, actually). We all got to eat and it was nice to see Pok Hei’s dad getting out with us. They all invited us to go and tour Tsim Sa Tsui right after lunch, but I did finally find the ability to politely decline an invitation and we headed back up to the hotel for a nap.
Danny went out to pick up his new suit, pants and shirts he’s had custom made while we’ve been here, so I was alone with the kids. If they had actually taken a nap, that would have been a good thing, but I just don’t have that kind of luck. Emily was watching Little Mermaid and basically refused to go to sleep in spite of being really tired. (Where’s that medication, darn it?) Stephanie went to sleep but was awake much too quickly. When Danny came back, I basically told him Emily was all his, and I’d deal with Stephanie (meds or no meds). I crawled into bed with Stephanie and we both had a good long nap and Danny did get Emily to have a shorter one.
Here’s the part that’ll have you questioning my sanity (if you weren’t already). Just before we left the restaurant, after declining the offer of touring, I found myself agreeing to dinner with Pok Hei’s whole family again. How that happened is beyond me, but it did. We agreed to meet them down at the Hong Kong Convention Centre at 5pm.
So, after our naps were done, we once again headed down into the city in a taxi to meet for a meal. We got to take some fun photos down at the waterfront with Emily and Stephanie, and it was breezy and nice, so it wasn’t exactly a hardship. It was very hazy, though, so not too many photos across the harbour. It’s fun to see all the Christmas lights going up now. It seems odd given how warm it’s been here, but they are up.
We did a little quick shopping before going to dinner. There is a fabulous shop here called Chinese Arts and Crafts. They carry only the most beautiful, and genuine, Chinese gift items. There are many, many beautiful things in the store and I can’t go into more detail until some of you see what I’ve bought for you! Suffice it to say, my wallet was feeling lighter and I was happier upon leaving. Emily bought herself a cute little silk purse for the princely sum of $90HK.
We had a fantastic meal tonight, even if we were still partially full from lunch. In November only, hairy crabs are popular here in Hong Kong. They aren’t very big, but have hairy legs and claws. They don’t have much meat, but they have lovely, tasty fat inside and are bright yellow and delicious. You could never get fat eating it, though, because getting the fatty meat out takes so much work you spend hours doing it. It took me over 30 minutes to get one crab done. They had hairy crab dumplings and soup, and we also had some chicken and wonton. The food was excellent quality and both girls ate well. By the end of the meal, their behaviour was deteriorating, but all in all, they did really well. We finished off the evening by hopping in a taxi back to the hotel.
You might think the girls would go to bed easily when they’re tired, but you’d be wrong. Emily was still driving Danny crazy at 12 midnight, and Stephanie fought my efforts to get her to sleep until around 11:15pm.
