I must say that there are many food varieties in Hong Kong and most of them are delicious. However it is very expensive to eat in Hong Kong because of its high standard of living. I ran out of cash mainly due to food because most of the time we pick small eating places and they only accept cash.

First day we tried the beef noodle and Tim tried the seafood noodle. I was disappointed with the wan tan noodle because it was difficult to chew and there is a kind of smell which Emily rejected. The Hong Kong Kai Lan was crunchy, it goes well with Oyster sauce.

Disneyland food was extra expensive, however the portion was big. I love the morning breakfast, the simple fried noodle, somehow is tasty with the unhealthy ham.

The “siu mei” (aka roasted) is a must try in Hong Kong. The have roasted goose, chicken, pork and duck. All of them were equally delicious. When I was there I watch a documentary on how the chef roast the delicious roasted duck or goose. The chef has to make sure that the right amount of heat and turning the goose at different period. It is done on a underground fire stove with no electronic gadget to adjust temperature. They used water to lower the temperature. That’s how they make the roasted goose or duck so tasty and delicious. You can almost get it anywhere in Hong Kong. If I stayed there long enough, I may develop high cholesterol because of this. 😛

Dim Sum is one of the popular meal in Hong Kong and the variety of dim sum they have is amazing. We tried the Shanghai style Dim Sum, a little different from the local one. We had Shanghai noodle and the famous dumpling. Too bad I didn’t find the local dim sum place to eat. Sorry only 2 pictures as I was too hungry when the food is served.

The best meal so far was the street meal. I still have craving over it until today. Basically you stand on the street to eat. My kids love the bbq sausages. I tried the curry tripes, curry meatballs, squid balls and curry squid. It is fantastic and smells good too!

After the street food, we drop by Lucky Dessert place to have some delicious dessert of coz. Tim ordered the Green Tea Ice Cream. Boy it was freezing outside and he still loves the ice scraping green tea ice-cream. I had the mango sago milk dessert, the taste is superb! My hubby had the hot double boil papaya soup. You must try their desserts if you are there.

Hot Pot is also another food I like there especially during the cold weather. Somehow my entire family loves hot pot.

Their milk tea is different there but the teh tarik here is much better. Their curry is not so spicy, as Hong Kong people do not eat spicy food compare to the people here. I wished I had more time to eat more food, there are other food that I wanted to try but either too far or no time. Maybe next trip!

After this post, I am getting hungry, aren’t you?

As I was shopping in Hong Kong, I like to look at their boots. I really like their winter boots. In fact I got one for my girl and she loved it, so much. You can find all kinds of boots from the wooly ones to the leather ones. I almost wanted to get one for work but I didn’t. Lazy to try on.

Boots I got for my girl:

Besides the boots, I also like their winter collection coats. I tried most of them but their sizes are way too small for me. Anyway, a sad thing here is that we do not have winter here to enjoy those clothing.

Hong Kong is a crowded city, congested with people everywhere at anytime. I was told some do not have an office to work, they are on the street all the time. I still cannot get it how people can text using their mobile phone and walk at the same time. Hong Kong is not the same as before as I see many people from China coming into that country.

Back to my family vacation, we started with Disneyland. We check out of the hotel early morning, left the big luggage bag in the hotel’s storage facility, just took a smaller bag to check into Disneyland hotel. I bought the promo package online, 2D/1N hotel stay with 2Days park tickets.

I anticipated a crowd but there weren’t any. We could get through all the rides and some shows on the first day. We even queue to take pictures with the Disney characters. If you are going, do plan for 2 days to cover every inch and corner. You never know when the crowd will appear. My children love the Astro Blaster from Toy Story which we went more than 9 times. Emily wanted to achieve Level 5 which she did. A few times on Pooh Honey Pot, Autopedia and Small World rides.

I took my children to the Space Mountain ride. They didn’t know what they were in for. It was really fun but both were scared and didn’t want a repeat.

We went to the Stitch show but after entering, Stitch spoke in Mandarin. I had to translate some of it to my children. Emily got pick to chat with the mandarin speaking Stitch. I had to be her translator. Tim wanted to watch the English version but it was at 2pm.

The shows were superb, every one of them. I liked the 3D show and the Golden Mickeys. All shows time are listed on the brochure.

The Christmas decorations were all over Disneyland and the night lightings were very nice. They even have fake snow there at the Main Street. The best was the fireworks! I couldn’t snap any pictures because my camera ran out of battery. So sad.

Ready to view the pictures, warning lots of pictures to load..…

I had made a booking very early in the year for a Hong Kong vacation for my family. Well my frequent flyer miles were expiring and I need to use them before it is gone. I thought about going Korea for a ski trip but I was afraid of language problem. In the end, I picked Hong Kong, more suited for the kids.
Anyway, I only have to pay tax for the air tickets to Hong Kong for my family. However HK hotels are very expensive. I am glad I got cooperate rates for the hotels too. Everything else is expensive in HK because of their standard of living.

It is the second time for my family to go to Hong Kong. We did the same trip 2 or 3 years ago but somehow I felt it was too short. This time, I planned a little longer because I anticipated a lot of walking and kids get tired.

I planned 2 days in Disneyland, 1 day Noah’s Ark, 2 days shopping and 1 day Ocean Park. I also wanted to go Sai Kung for seafood but failed to do so. It was really a bummer because I was short of cash, I didn’t change much cash there. Everything there uses cash instead of credit card. Ended up I didn’t buy much stuff except at stores which use credit card.

The hotel arrangements were to spend 2N in Disneyland, 2N is Kowloon and the rest in Hong Kong island. The Kowloon Hotel was very convenient to eatery places, shops, MTR and of coz near Victoria Harbor. It is also a short MTR station to Mongkok and Yau Ma Tei, where lot of shopping can be done. However the rooms were a little small. I like the Grand Harbor Hotel with was a little bigger but it has a very beautiful harbor view, also near the MTR station. Of coz, the usual Disneyland Hollywood hotel is also spacious. All three hotels have a bathtub which my children love. They never get tired of playing water even on a cold day.

The Kowloon Hotel:

The Disneyland Hollywood Hotel, more spacious with 2 twin bed and seaview. The seaview is a little far for me:

Harbor Grand HK Hotel:

A Beautiful Harbor View:

Before I went for my vacation, I thought of cutting my long hair. I guess it been 1.5 years since I last cut my hair. Actually I wanted a few inches above my shoulder. I walked into the hair salon with Emily. She also wanted to cut her fringe which is almost touching her eyes.

You know how the hair dresser cut my hair. He used a rubber band, tied my hair and cut it all at one shot. That’s the end of my long hair.

I was chatting with the hair dresser and he continued snipping away my hair. As I looked up, I was shocked to see how shot he cut my hair. I really didn’t expect it to be so short.

Anyway, my hair grows very fast so not a worry. I just have to bear with it a couple of months. Now it is so much easier to manage my hair. I don’t have to blow dry and uses lesser shampoo/conditioner. It feels great!

Before my blog become dusty with cob webs, I guess I should write something. As the children grow older, there are less and less things to blog about.

It started early Oct, when my children Sunday School class was preparing to do a performance at Prize Giving Day. My children came home with a script. I looked at it, 2 pages of script and almost fainted. Both my children were given the roles with most things to say. Oh how little faith I have in them or God for that matter. I am fine with Emily as she has her ways around it.

However God show me the impossible. First thing, Timothy told me that he didn’t want to do it. Maybe he too, has little faith in himself. Or he is afraid of people laughing at him when he forgets his lines. Anyhow I took some time with him, every Saturday to go through the script so that he can remember. We had 4 Sundays to rehearse.

To my surprise, he could remember his lines and he had no problem on stage. My second worry was if he got too nervous at the day itself in front of many audiences, he may forget his lines.

I liked what one of the teachers said, “If the audiences are laughing means you did a good job!” This definitely encouraged the children.

On the day itself, both gave a great performance. Timothy was Noah and Emily was Mrs Noah. Their class got 1st prize for the performance. When Timothy went out to take the prize, he pretended that the prize was too heavy to carry. What an actor?

From not a single word utter during his kindy school days to putting a good performance, he really has blossom. Praise God that he showed me that he has power to do the impossible with my children.

I can hear her laughter a mile away when she came through the door after school. She ran into the study room and showed me her report book. Yes! She achieved her target that I set out for her. All smiles and grins from her. Both Tim & Emily got the same position in class which is number 10. I am happy for them. Emily scored full mark for both toughest paper that is Moral and Kefahaman.

Last exam she wasn’t happy, she scored all As but position was 10. Tim scored less As but his position was 3. My in laws rewarded according to position. Poor thing, she was upset. I did reward her.

This time around, I promised her a reward if they get more than 5A. By the way she changed her mind so many times on her reward. She wanted Lego Bionicle, later she wanted Telescope, later remote control car and finally she chose this:

At least this doesn’t require any batteries. It is a guinea pig that she named “Dash”. It is only 2 months old. It is definitely much cleaner than hamsters. Now I hope my FIL will agrees to take care of it while we go on vacation.

Finally Emily can swim. I am proud of her and all credits go to her papa. At first, I wanted to start my children swimming lessons but the instructor said, they have to do it 10 lessons in a row. I hold it off until their school holidays.

However my hubby viewed YouTube on how to teach children how to swim. He used that to teach Emily and Timothy when they go swimming. Who would have thought that YouTube videos can succeed here? I am glad it saves us swimming lessons fee here.

Now I am waiting for Tim to do the same.

YouTube Swimming Lessons, thanks to Phillip Toriello for making these videos

How time flies, it is year end again. It is the busiest time of the year for me in my work place, doing closing and planning for next year budget. You can tell by looking at the frequency of my blog post.

Another thing that keeps me busy is planning for year end vacation for my family. I have to kill some frequent flyer miles before it expires. Those FF miles don’t come totally free as I still have to pay fuel and taxes, not forgetting accommodation. I wanted to play a trip to Korea because my children wanted to see snow. I did all my research, asking here and there for pricing. I even got a good deal for a ski package. Due to the fact that I speak and read no Korean language, I change plans.

Guess what we are going? I will reveal later. My kids are excited about it. The trip will be in December.

On another note, I remembered I used to vomit blood teaching my son as he is a slow learner. When he was 5 years old, he wouldn’t want to write his 1,2,3 or A,B,C. He had problem reading because he doesn’t want to speak in school due to selective mutism. I am glad he overcame that. Today, I am so proud of him after many prayers. In his exams, most papers he scored above 90 except for Penulisan and Kefahaman (Writing & Comprehension in BM). However he did improved his grades for those 2 subjects. Now I can see him, enjoying in his studies. Praise God for that. He is asking me how can improve his BM especially Karangan (aka BM Composition). I asked him to read more Malay Books.

As for my girl, I still do not know her results yet. She was on MC and the rest of the week was Deepavali holidays. However she already told me what she wants for her reward if she gets 5A. Will see whether she can get mummy to buy her the reward!

I have to say that my children have different characters especially when it comes to school activities. My elder boy doesn’t like to volunteer himself for any school activities. The one time where he was picked, yes picked was his Std 1 concert.

On the other hand, my girl would go for any school activities there is. Since she started Std 1, she joined Origami contest, Coloring contest (twice), sports day and the latest one is Fashion show. She will put up her hand for anything.

I guess, I have an introvert and an extrovert in my family. Here is my extrovert dream car….