Ocean Park

Monday 28th was the hottest and most polluted day while we were in Hong Kong; it is also the day we spent at Ocean Park. A great family park, we went on a balloon ride, a sky star (chairlift) ride, walked down three levels of an indoor aquarium (atoll reef) to discover the different sealife that lives at different levels, watched an acrobatic performance by some of Hong Kong's youth, and saw some real life pandas....they were soooo cute!!! After lunch, Carolyn and I headed home to leave the husbands and the kids enjoy the rides...that's when Alvan took the Kung fu photos!!

And the winner is ...

Gotta love a panda eating bamboo

And a cute sitting panda..

And a cute girl with a panda hat!!

Whitney & Rachel at entrance of the park

Action shot

Another action shot...

Rules you don't see until you're too close to the ride to pull out!!

look at all those gondolas

look at the panda pavillion

here we go...up, up and away, in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon

look at all those stairs

Kung Fu David

Kung Fu Alvan

The Venetian

Carolyn, Rachel, Whitney and I whisked off for a night of pure indulgence at the Venetian Hotel in Macau on Thursday 24th July. The Venetian is a 5 star luxury hotel, that is absolutely enormous. I think we walked at least 5 kms when we first got there, just trying to find our way around (without going through the casino). We caught the "Cotai Jet" (a hydro ferry) from Hong Kong Harbour to Macau...the seats were like airline seating..only bigger and more comfortable. Then we caught a shuttle bus from the port to the hotel, it took us a while to find the main entrance to check in at the big main lobby we'd seen on the website. Have a look for yourself: www.venetianmacao.com We stayed in a Bella Suite, Whitney & Rachel shared one bed and Carolyn and I shared the other. Swimming pools, bubble baths, luxury robes & slippers, chocolate & non-alcholic sparkling grape juice, a gondola ride which included an impromtu performance by the gondalier, the best most pampering manicure I've ever had, a full buffet breakfast, and late night girl talk....thanks girls for a wonderful time, memories to last a lifetime!!

Whitney & Rachel on the Cotai Jet

Carolyn & Rachel on the Gondola

Whitney & Rachel on "their bed"

Karen & Whitney and Isabella (the gondolier)

Above: A view of the venetian from the food court Below: The three "Mask" ateers

Hong Kong

Just doing a quick update with photos for now, will add some more stories and pictures from our time in Hong Kong tomorrow.

Whitney & Rachel outside the Kindergarten they worked at.

View from the Nightingales home..isn't it gorgeous?

Who doesn't love funny chinese signs?

Alvan outside a temple

a road much travelled...on the double decker bus

Olympic mascots

Night markets

Alvan's arty shot

Karen's arty shot

common hong kong living

cute chinese homes

busy kowloon intersection

collision sign on every corner

Nathan Rd is the main road in Kowloon

I'm updating without pics at the moment, just so I won't forget what we've done so far. Pictures will have to be added later. We arrived safely at 8pm on Monday 21st, after a long and somewhat uncomfortable 9 hour flight. The plane was smaller than we expected, and we were largely ignored by the "attendants", and the inflight entertainment was frustrating, as there were no individual controls, and all the channels started their shows at the same time, so when your show finished there was nothing to watch until the longest running show finished. I know...whinge, whinge. The airport is so big we had to catch a train from our arrival gate to the customs & baggage section...actually we had no idea where we were going, we just followed the crowd!! Hong Kong is very warm and humidity is high, but mostly there is a cool gentle breeze blowing, and of course everything is air conditioned, so heat has not been an issue as long as we keep ourselves hydrated. Tuesday 22nd: Happy Birthday Nathan. We went to computer markets in Wan Chai to buy our camera. We bought a Sony cybershot...it will take a few days to work out all the features, but so far it's really easy. After the camera shopping we had our first dining out experience... the American Peking Restaurant. They opened the upstairs just for us, their service was fantastic. We had about 8 different dishes between the 6 of us (Carolyn, David, Rachel, Alvan, Whitney and me)...some of the new tastes which we absolutely loved were fried seaweed, fried beef in sesame bread, peking duck that was carved in front of us, and the best sweet and sour I've ever had (I am not usually a lover of sweet & sour). After lunch we walked to the base of "The Peak", the highest point on Hong Kong island. You catch a special tram (cable car) that pulls you slowly up(at a very steep degree)the mountain. Once you get off the tram there are still 8 escalators to ascend to get to the lookout point!! But the view is breath taking... it was fantastic to see all around the island. The sheer volume of buildings is only surpassed by their height!! We did take some photos with Whitney's "broken" camera, and Rachel took some pics on her camera too...so hopefully we will have a couple of good pics to add later. After the adventure of the peak, we caught a bus to the IFC (international finance centre) which also happens to be a shopping centre, we stopped for an Italian hot chocolate...mmmm! Whitney and Rachel could barely keep their eyes open, having pulled an all nighter on Monday night! We made our way "home", we were still so full from our lunch we didn't need dinner. We had scripture study together (except Whitney who had lost the battle to stay awake), talked a little longer and turned in for the night. Wednesday 23rd: Yesterday Whitney and Rachel had an opportunity to work at an International Kindergarten for a few hours (and earn some spending money in the process). We headed over to Kowloon for the day, while the girls were at work, Carolyn, David, Alvan and myself headed to the Jade markets to buy jewellery... and I discovered my talent for haggling..I loved it! Some lovely surprises for my girls when I get home (shh), I even got myself something, after Carolyn insisted I treat myself...very happy I did now! We picked up Rachel & Whitney and went to get lunch...just a chinese fast food restaurant. Then it was off to the "Ladies Market", which goes for about 3 blocks.. more haggling and lots of great buys later; some things include a beautiful fountain pen for dad (he has been wanting one for at least the last 20 years), some lovely silk table runners, and lots of other goodies that I can't mention or it will spoil the surprise for everyone! We had planned to see the "city light show" from on a boat on the harbour last night, but we were all so tired we decided to call it a day, and headed home for a lovely home-made salad for dinner. After scripture study, we all sat around talking again....lots of reminising, and of course lots of laughter. We love the Nightingales, and have really missed them this last year. They have decided they want us to move here!! yeah right! LOL. Today, Carolyn, Rachel, Whitney and myself are off to Macau, where we are spending the night at the Venetian hotel..can't wait. Alvan is off to a business meeting (fingers crossed it will be beneficial), and then he and David and Hugo are going to check out all the car show rooms (including ferrari, maseratti, and maybach just to name a few). Ok, time to go pinch myself! Hopefully, next post I'll have pics to add here.

Whitney's homecoming

Our "baby" is home!! Whitney arrived home safe and sound from California via Auckland. She arrived at 11am Thursday 17th July. Whitney actually spotted the balloons from inside the arrivals gate, and was sure it was her family!! She just had to wait another 10 minutes to get to us.

Backyard update

The three retaining walls are finished and have been filled with soil, ready for: bark & vegetable garden on the bottom level, grass on the middle level, and our the concrete slab for our new and improved patio on the top level. Freyr was out exploring the new backyard the other day, so it was a timely reminder to get some snaps to update the blog.

To give you an idea of the size of this construction...this is the top level, which is also the smallest wall by far.

Freyr and Koro playing in the dirt!

This pic shows Freyr at the top level of our newly "tiered" backyard.

This one shows Freyr playing on the flat back section that will soon have a very large concrete slab for the patio.

These two pics show where the stairs will go eventually, but they also show nicely the three levels of walls.

This is the side where there will eventually be a slide for the grandkids to go down on.