Ngong Ping 360

While in Hong Kong, we decided that we had to go see the largest outdoor seated copper Buddha.  I know, that's a lot of qualifications, but I don't want to make anyone who works at the largest indoor standing copper Buddha mad.

Anyway, it made for an interesting morning.  As a Christian, traveling to other religions sites is always a mix of emotions.  Of course I learn something from each site, but my core beliefs are so radically different that there is always an unsettling undertone for me.

This Buddha is located at the top of a mountain that requires a trip on a very long tram system and then a set of not so fun steps to climb.  At the top rests the statue.

Beautiful views of the smog.  Yes, it's that bad.  Tram itself was pretty cool though.

Me, Rowan and Buzz on our way up.  Rowan complained his legs were hurting later in the trip and I told him that's because I carry him everywhere and if he walked more he'd be stronger.  Is that too harsh???

Obligatory pose with the white kids.  Note that Riley is enjoying the attention (particularly from the ladies) more and more.  I'll have to keep a close eye on that kid later in life.

Hong Kong Disney!

I'll skip to one of the highlights of the trip - a day at Disney.  Everyone had a great time, it was definitely a slice of Americana here.  We only spent a day there, but could have gone back for another half day or so.  They just added a Toy Story section and have plans for 2 more over the next 2 years, so maybe we'll be back!

The boys were well armed with Christmas money from the grand parents and were very excited about the loot they walked away with!  Rowan now has a Buzz Lightyear and a Woody doll, also a bottle topper straw.  Riley has a "Slink" scarf and a noisy Buzz Lightyear gun (we had a similar model that George Vu gave us a few years ago that finally died, but apparently Riley missed the loud laser effects).  Reid now own a very cool digital watch that isn't childish or girly, so he's happy with it.

All the kids, ready to go!!!

Rowan with his hero.  He wanted to know why Buzz didn't say anything.  this began a string of RoRo pictures with characters, he even chased after a pirate for about 50 feet to get a picture.

I was feeling homesick, then I saw the "Totato" and squid chips; now that's more like it.

The boys discovered bunny ears.

Toy Story land was pretty cool.  The whole place was sized as if you were one of the army men...

Parade, Disney style.  very impressive.

Dinner of champions.

How very cosmopolitan.

Not a bad end to the day!

Hong Kong Day 1 - A rediscovery of awesome Asia Hotel breakfasts

We ate in the lounge, rather than the massive buffet on the first floor (typically they cost $30 a person!  The lounge was free as I spent over 50 nights in Marriotts last year.  Anyway, the "continental breakfast" in the lounge still rivals that of the dining room breakfast in most American hotels that I have stayed in.  Below are some pictures of the boys in flight and "tucking in" (pronounced "tookin" by most of our English friends).

The men spent the day at the pool while the moms spent the money shopping.  They said it was madness.  The pool was a non event as it was basically a lap pool, not set up for kids.  But it was a good time nonetheless.

Rowan with a 3D butterfly puzzle from the airline - now that's entertainment!  It lasted 10 seconds before he took it apart and tried to make something else with it...

Mmmmmm.

Reid's second plate!!!!!  Three pastries, an omelet, yogurt, bacon and something unidentifiable, probably hash browns.  He ate more at breakfast that day than I think I did all week.  Riley is posing in the background, but Reid is truly manning up here.  He ate every bite.

Hong Kong!

This past week we spent an action packed vacation in Hong Kong.  The city was great - beautiful views (except for the worst smog ever, rivals Beijing), excellent food (both Western and Chinese), and friends to share it with.  Over the next few days, I will weed through and post the highlights.  Below are a few shots of the skyline to start us off...

A shot of all the kids at the top of Victoria's Peak, overlooking downtown.

In transit on the way to the top of Ngong Ping, overlooking Lantau Island.

This was taken from a tower in the middle of Ocean Park, which will have it's own entry...

Picts from around town

High Speed Train + Three Letter Acronym "POS" = Dave's finding another mode of transportation.

Yes, the other wheel on the bus was another eye, but I couldn't get the shot in time.  This one's freaky enough.

Across the street from us, they are apparently building some large mall.  This could be good news for shopping and taxi catching, but bad news for more traffic...

Dulwich Christmas Performances

All students must perform in some manner several times a year at Dulwich.  Last week, we attended Reid and Riley's Christmas plays (Rowan has been sick).  On the whole it's hugely ironic that we had to move to China to attend one of our American children's Christmas performances to actually hear the words "Jesus Christ" used in relation to this months celebrations. 

There were true religious hymns and carols mixed in with the typical "Jingle Bells", "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth" and "Smoke on the Water" (high schoolers apparently chose that one).  It was obviously quite eclectic!  Riley's class did a whole play / musical on the birth of Jesus that blew us all away due to the high quality and duration of the performance!

Yes that is a Nativity on stage.  Stop the Madness!

Rileys age group.  Amazing that not only was it actually well performed, but the kids stayed engaged for the entire 45 minute plus performance!

Also, last week the boys were able to dress up in holiday outfits.  Reid went as Rudolph, Riley won best costume in his class for going as a present.  Rowan would have gone as a tree, but he was sick all week.  :(

The ramp up for the next CNY begins...

Stores have already begun stocking gifts up for Chinese New Year.  Below are some ads from the supermarket as well as some random holiday decorations.  Sorry for the picture orientations below, blogspot was working against me on some of these...

 Instant coffee gift set.  Hmm, this is a new concept for me.

Mmm, carp.  I know goldfish are lucky, but really????

Speechless.

Now that's more like it - dragon booze!

It's the year of the dragon (which happens to be my year).  Dragons are also lucky anyway, so there are going to be a lot of dragons around China this CNY.

AAAAAAHHHHHH!  What is that?  The truly horrifying part of this is that the mannequin to the left is totally headless...

Christmas Decorating

All over the decorations for Christmas have been going up, putting us all in the mood for Christmas.  It is nowhere near the same here, of course, as it is 100% commercial and 0% significant beyond that.  However, that doesn't damper the decorating one bit.  Below are a few shots of decorations at a hotel I recently stayed at.

A life sized gingerbread fireplace, complete with gingerbread deer trophy.  Impressive!

The train set extended 40 to 50 feet.

Christmas in China

This Sunday we finally got a rest!  After church and lunch with friends, Sunday evening we turned off all electronics (only thing on espn.com was analysis of how bad Virginia Tech got whipped anyway) and got the boys focused on completing Christmas Town, which we began working on a week ago.  We also had hot chocolate, popcorn and an apple for dinner.  We will be headed off to Hong Kong in 2 weeks for vacation as we figure if anyone can get us in the mood, then Disney is it!

Our tree.  It doesn't look like it, but we left most of the breakable ornaments (about 30% of the total) in the states.

"Christmas Town" - note Santa's sleigh on the roof of the house and the snowman in the background.

Thailand

I mentioned in the previous post that I was in Thailand recently.  For those that watch the news, Thailand has been flooding for the past few MONTHS.  The government is now making decisions on who gets the floods as Bangkok is between the southern moving flood waters and the ocean.  Not good...

Anyway, on the whole we didn't see much water other than the below few pictures.  It was steadily creeping into the area in the picture though, as we noted the water level rise while we were in a 3 hour meeting...

Right inside the gate is a 2 foot concrete wall that was just poured to keep the water out of the front door.  A lot of convenience stores also had these.

The demand for sandbags has sky rocketed there, apparently there was a shortage early on.

We did get to try a new type of dining (for me anyway).  Below are a few pictures of the seafood market that we had dinner at.

First step:  select your food.  Main items available were seafood and vegetables.  You put everything in your cart and then specify how you want each thing cooked.

Picture of the open kitchen.

What the heck is this?  No, sadly, we didn't get one.

Business Golf

I've played golf three times since the end of the last golf season (September 2010), twice last week while on business.  I'm not complaining at all as on my death bed, I don't think I'll say "man, I really wish I'd played more golf".  It did make for an interesting round when I finally got out on the course, but not as interesting as seeing two monitor lizards and two cobras!

A view of one of the holes, lovely!

The lizard, right after emerging for the water.

This one was definately over 4 feet long from tip to tail.  A larger one (at least 6 feet!) had run under the bushes right when we pulled up so I missed a picture.

The snake is in the brown patch of grass at the foot of the tree. 

Below is the conversation I had while trying to get a shot of the snake:

Caddy (after seeing our interest in the lizards, stopped suddenly and pointed):  Look, a snake!

Me:  Ooo cool, get closer so I can get a picture.

Caddy (with a "you're an idiot" look on her face):  No, that snake can kill you if it bites you!

Me:  Really, what kind is it?

Caddy:  I don't know the English word.

Thai host (just as he pulled up behind us):  Oh, that's just a small cobra.

The caddy was on "snake watch" for the rest of the day whenever I was close to bushes or trees of any kind.



Beijing Bizzare (and Awesome) Food

While in Beijing, the typical day was to wake up at 5am - work out, catch up on emails from the US, then make it down to breakfast meetings by 8 or 8:30, 9 at the latest.  Then we were in conferences or meetings until 5 or 6.  At that point we would head off to dinner until maybe 8 or 9pm.  Of course I would have to catch up on China emails before bed!  Not complaining, just wanting to note it for posterity's sake...

We did have some awesome food while in Beijing:  Beijing duck (of course), Hong Kong duck, Korean twice and many other succulent items.  There was some number of beers washing it down too as I recall.  Below is my favorite dish!

Yes I ate it.  Yes it was good.  Of course I had to have another, stinger and all!

The carving of the duck.

I wouldn't be caught dead eating an uncertified duck...

A crazy few weeks

Sorry for the lack of posting - my last few weeks looked like this:

Oct. 31 - fly to Bejing for a conference.
Nov. 4 - fly back to Suzhou in time to see Rowan throw up on Friday night.
Nov. 5 - drive to Moganshan (about 3 hours from Suzhou) with Reid and Riley for an overnight camping trip with the Boy Scouts of America.
Nov. 6 - Get home from camping at 12pm, leave for flight to Bangkok at 1:30pm.
Nov. 11 - 1:30am flight back to Shanghai for customer meetings in the morning.  Customer cancelled, so I took off work after lunch for Reid's assembly for Remembrance (Veteran's) Day.
Nov. 12 - Begin cooking Thanksgiving dishes for church Men's dinner (more on that later).
Nov. 13 - Finished cooking and served men's dinner.  We totally cooked 3 turkey's and food for 50 - stuffing, pies (Rebecca rediscovered making pumpkin pies from pumpkins and hand shelling pecans), mashed potatoes, gravy, etc.

Anyway, I will begin entering the backlog of pictures ASAP!

Happy Birthday Reid!

Last Saturday we celebrated Reid's birthday with a Mad Scientist Party.  Rebecca went over the top and set up many "experiments" for the kids.  Below are a few of the pictures.

It all started in the Engineering Department where the kids built towers using molecules of gummy candies with bonds of toothpicks.  Prizes were awarded for tallest and then best design.

The old baking-soda-and-vinegar-in-a-bottle-that-blows-up-a-balloon experiment.  Maybe there's a shorter name for it, I don't know.

Our friends were very helpful, in this case running an electronics station where we were testing conductivity.

Rowan making slime.

Reid getting some covert help with his candles.

The group - 15 in all.