Day 5

Day 4

Day 3

Later on day 2!

Day 2

Day 1

Jubilation

Watching the royal pageant. All the presenters have aged ...they look so different from how I remember. Embarrassed to say I don't recall many of their names.

Every time they talk about The Spirit of Chartwell, it makes me think of that Blackadder line about "something twice the size of the royal barge has hoved into view between the sheets..."

There's some dude with a regional accent (shudder) who just keeps saying how the Queen is beaming. Strange though, she just looks like she always does to me.

"Interesting" section live from St Thomas's hospital of a couple whose baby was just born.

And someone just called the queen "very precious cargo".

Live TV. It's just a bad idea.

Stereotypes

I had lunch yesterday with I and P, two work colleagues. Being the only gweilo in the office, I often take the opportunity to pick their brains about local customs and opinions. Here's what they had to say on how to identify mainland Chinese visitors. Obviously, we are totally into the realm of the slightly politically incorrect stereotype here, but just go with me on this one.

1. The women wear flesh-coloured pop socks whatever the weather, especially with sandals or slippers. 
2. The men wear smart leather shoes and suit trousers with a (usually tucked-in) tshirt
3. Both men and women ALWAYS drag a rolly case along behind them in which to store all their purchases from Mannings / Watsons. I saw someone in Mannings this morning buying $5,000 worth of baby formula.
4. Around Times Square, you can usually see a number of Chinese tourists sleeping. The preferred "bed" is the afore-mentioned rolly bag. Yesterday there was a family of three asleep outside Salvatore Ferragamo. You can see pics of Chinese Sleeping here. It's just more socially acceptable. 

Just to try and even things up, maybe I can offer a couple of stereotypes about Ying Gwok Yan (English people)

1. We always wear shorts, flip flops (thongs / slippers, depending on whether you are Aussie or Flippa) and vest tops, whatever the weather. 
2. We tut loudly at all the people who are inconsiderately in our way on OUR pavement (I have largely stopped doing this since pushing a stroller around the city - life's a lot easier at the median pace of whatever pavement you are on)
3. We're all obsessed with football

Any more to add?

what we've been doing

Hiding in Granny and Baba's suitcase

Eating gloopy chinese food in Mui Wo from fabulously retro baby chairs and bowls

Taking the slow boat to Central

Giving our love to Lyuba at the IFC

Getting dolled up by men in mantyhose

Sniggering at funny slogans

Encouraging our taxi driver to take a break from his toxic cab

Eating choccy cake

Getting ready for BALLET with Hoppit

Actioning late night spag bol for Daddy

Countdown to arrival

Only 5 sleeps until Granary and Grandpa get here! There has been a stunning thunderstorm this evening, so don't forget to pack your wellies.

So what do you do on your fourth visit to Honkers in as many years? Leave! we'll be heading to Macau for the day to eat Fernando's roast chicken and drink sangria.

At the other end of the scale, we'll do the hyper-touristy rickshaw bus. I'm looking forward to the 540 degree panoramic view. WTF?

Joshy-san

Swimming

We've taken the boys to the SCAA quite a few times in the last couple of weeks, in order to get them used to the pool again before we go on holiday. They're doing really well. The SCAA is ok, but it's not exactly stylish. Or clean. Or well-kept. Actually, the pool itself is clean, but the changing rooms have seen better days. Thank God we live so close and can come home for a shower! It's a good budget option, just $22 a time for adults and $10 for kids. You have to join the SCAA, but I think that's only $100 a year.

It reminds me a bit of the Stour Centre, down to the little details like everyone wearing swimming caps....

I am sitting at home, after working this morning. The boys are in bed. It's quite an overcast, grey sort of day, but it was just significantly brightened when a gorgeous black and orange butterfly landed on the corrugated iron awning under our bedroom window. I was too slow to catch a picture, but I think it's a Common Lascar.

Poisson d'avril

Did you April Fool? no, nor did we.

I remember the good old days when Uncle Hairy and I used to get up early to prepare such treasures as covering the loo seat with clingfilm, and swapping the contents of the cereal boxes. So when Daddy came to prepare his speciality Coco Pops and custard combo, he'd tip the Coco Pops box, and out would come cornflakes. Hilarious. Good times.

Not much has happened of late. The boys have been learning lots more words, including zoom, door, moon, pull, cop cop (helicopter), bowl, toes, toast (quite similar those two), elbow, knee, dog, heart, tick tock....so while they may not tick off the list of 25 words every two year old should know*, they've got their own plan for progress towards communication.

I've been thinking more lately about our place here. I have suddenly experienced a hankering for more local food. Back in the Wan Chai days, we used to go out for dinner every night to a random eatery on Jaffe or Lockhart Road. Sometimes it was successful, sometimes not. Sometimes we didn't really know what we were ordering, but most of the restaurants had English menus, so it didn't happen every day.

Recently we have got into a habit of eating Western food, or Westernized Chinese. Which is bad, not to mention over-priced. So I am taking the bull by the horns and picking out places to eat whose names I can't read. We went to Mak's Noodles on Leighton Road the other day; apparently it's in the HK & Macau Michelin guide, but I don't know why. Seemed pretty mediocre to me. But it did remind me of how awesome oyster sauce is.


* I was going to add a link to this article, but when I googled it the first result was on HollywoodLife.com. Which makes me think perhaps it's not based on a highly respected scientific analysis.

A few pics of the boys before Carol & Eugene's wedding at The Repulse Bay