Hong Kong Part 2

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

As part of the pre-trip negotiations, I guaranteed Harrison that we would do something fun every day. The implicit understanding was that this would be kid-fun. Day 1 of Hong Kong barely met this agreement, so Hong Kong Day 2 was ...

... Ocean Park, Hong Kong's amusement park. Ahhh ... it was fine ... the kid's had fun ... the food was gourmet quality ... the rides were awesome .... we saw live pandas. We took a double-decker bus back and forth. The only notable difference between North American and Chinese amusement parks is that it was possible to eat either McDonald's OR a Madras curry before braving the next roller coaster.  Not much more to say ...

At the best of times, amusement parks are exhausting for parents, so mid-afternoon when we were done with Ocean Park, we decided again to head back to the hotel to rest prior to heading to the Happy Valley Racecourse for the Wednesday Night Extravaganza. We picked up some Husband and Wife cakes from a Chinese bakery at the corner of the street next to our hotel. Guess which one was better? Everyone's favorite including mine was the Wife cake.

Having slept through Tuesday night, we ... again slept through the whole thing. I woke up at 9:30pm, way too late to head to the races. Apart from Harrison, everyone else was too sleepy to move.

Temple Street Night Market

Harrison and I decided to head out to get something to eat and then to explore the Temple Street night market. Lots of sex toys and lighters and t-shirts and sex toys. We haggled for some splat toys with a vendor who wouldn't budge, so we bought from the lady right opposite him.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Hong Kong Day 3 was all about altitude. We decided to hit some of the sights even though it was winter in Hong Kong - cold and wet!

In the morning, we headed off to the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island at the end of one of Hong Kong's subway lines.

Cassandra (with purple sparkly shoes) on Hong Kong's immaculate MTR

Part of the trip was the Ngong Ping cable car, a 25 minute gondola ride through the clouds up to the top of the mountain where the temple and giant Buddha were located. We opted for the "crystal cabin" with a see-through bottom. Because it was so foggy, we could hardly see anything, but Trish (who's afraid of heights) could see enough to be freaked out.

We got up to the top to a (probably recreated for tourists) remote alpine Chinese village. It was freezing and foggy, so we headed directly to the Starbucks to get warm.

Gigantic Buddha sitting on his lotus leaf plinth

 The fog started to lift as we headed up to the awesome Po Lin Monastery.

Trish and the kids on the steps up to the Po Lin Monastery

The interior of the monastery was an impressive combination of red satin, MANY orchids of every color and large gold Buddha's. I didn't take any photos as there were alot of people praying and lighting incense, but it was beautiful.

Do we look cold? Harrison took this shot.

Next, we climbed the 268 steps up to the gigantic iron buddha sitting on top of the mountain. The view from there was awesome now that the fog had lifted. We finished off our visit with a bit of retail therapy in the little village at the end of the gondola. There was a lot of cool, although vastly overpriced stuff, but we all ended up picking something up anyways. My favorite was the chop stick store featuring over 600 different sets of chop sticks!

After going back down the gondola, we headed back into central Hong Kong. We had lunch just off Statue Square and then walked to the base of the Peak tram. Throughout all of our travels in Hong Kong, this was the only time we ever had to wait in a queue and even at that it was only for about 20 minutes.

Going up the Peak Tram

By the time we got up to the top, the weather had turned into a warm clear afternoon and we could see for miles! It was worth the wait. The views over Hong Kong Island and Kowloon and over the South China Sea on the other side were amazing!

 

We inexplicably spent $300 HKD ($40 Can) on about 2kg of candy to keep us company on the ride down. We thought about doing some shopping at the Landmark and the Prince's building, two of the malls around Statue Square, but it was WAY too bling for our budget.

Friday, January 7, 2011

On our last day in Hong Kong, we decided to walk around some of the Kowloon markets. We only had the morning and afternoon as our flight to Auckland was leaving at 19:15. While Hong Kong Island is a noticeable mixture of Chinese, white, Indian and other faces, as we headed deeper and deeper into Kowloon, there were less and less white faces mixed among the Chinese.

We followed Nathan Road through Mong Kok and Prince Edward districts. The first market we came to was the Goldfish Market on Tung Choi Street.

A whole street of aquariums and fish in bags hung on racks

Next, we walked through the flower market along Flower Market Road. I loved all the orchids, although the miniature clementine trees were cool as well.

Tons of Orchids

Miniature Clementine Trees

At the end of Flower Market Road is a stairway up to the Bird Market along Yuen Po Street. There wasn't much to see, but the sounds of 1000s of birds in tiny cages was almost deafening. 

Finally, we headed back to our hotel through the Ladies Market along a lower section of Tung Choi Street.

As I mentioned last post, we loved Hong Kong. It is an interesting unique city and we had the persistent observation that Hong Kong is very well run. I could have easily spent another week combing through the New Territories. From the amazing transit system to the helpful bilingual staff everywhere to the efficient on-time airport, the Chinese do a very enviable job at running this amazing city. We had expected more of a Chinese Manhattan. We were wrong.

We were.

The next leg of our journey was about to begin. We flew to Auckland on Air New Zealand, a stretch limousine of an airline compared to Continental.

When we landed, the weather was beautiful and we had to contend with exiting tourist mode and setting up our new life in New Zealand.

Hong Kong Part 1

Hong Kong was a dream! We all loved it.

Hong Kong skyline from the Peak

We arrived late at night on Monday, January 3 and left in the evening on Friday, Janaury 7, so we had more or less 4 complete days in Hong Kong. We were all pretty exhausted and getting over a gastro & jet lag; our only regret is that we all badly needed to rest. But we did manage to get a lot out of a fantastic city.

We stayed at the CityView on the Kowloon side. Although most people that have visited mainland China would argue that any part of greater Hong Kong is far removed from the real China, staying in Kowloon was definitely more China than Hong Kong island and a nice introduction to the sights, sounds and smells of Asia.

Our hotel was great. We rented two rooms. They upgraded us to a suite free of charge and the staff were excellent. I wouldn't call it luxurious, but at $90 a night per room, it was excellent value. The location was superb. We were a 15 sec walk to the Yau Ma Tei subway station and right around the corner from the Night Market. Having said that, all of us would probably stay on Hong Kong island the next time for a variety of reasons; the largest reason would be to be a little closer to the bright lights and night life of Hong Kong.

We started our first day with a stroll through the Reclamation Street market - lots of stuff I wouldn't be able to name and would think twice about tasting - no that's a lie; I'll taste anything twice. But it was cool to walk through a huge market with lots of new foods.

Reclamation Street Market

Next, Harrison took on a Chinese octagenarian at the jade market and haggled her down to $2.50 for three jade figurines representing their Chinese zodiac animals. When she wouldn't budge anymore, he threw up his hands and walked away - good move! She handed over the calculator for him to punch in the magic number. I think she got a kick out of it as well.

Unfortunately we got there right after closing ...

We kept going down Nathan Road and across Kowloon Park to the Harbor City mall, the largest mall in Hong Kong. Now, the thought of traveling across the world to spend a few hours in a mall is slightly less appealing to me than an extended colonoscopy, but this mall is crazy! I couldn't help but chuckle at Trish; she reminded me of my kids on Christmas day. "Oh my god! There's Prada! And Louis Vuitton and Jimmy Choo! And they've got Dior for Kids, but look at these designer cupcakes!" Seriously, it was a solid 3 hours of exclamation marks.

 If any of you are inclined to shopping, this is a must see if you visit Hong Kong. I even enjoyed it. They could use a few more electronic stores and a pub would be nice but I digress. I can't think of any high-end brand name that is not represented here. It was pretty cool. Trish added to her collection of sandals and the girls picked up some sparkly shoes. Harrison settled on some toys and I was happy to get out of there for under $400.

Aboard the Star Ferry

In the afternoon, it was lunch overlooking Hong Kong harbor, a trip over the harbor in the famous Star Ferry and then a walk along Queen's Road. The kids were excited to "ride the really long escalator", so we took the 30 or so escalators from Queen's Road West to Conduit Road ... only to realize that there's nothing to do up there. It's wholly residential. So we walked back down again which wasn't as bad as it sounds.

Man Mo Temple: The incense coils take several weeks to burn down

Although it was only 3:00pm, everyone's energy was beginning to wane so we took a brief detour along Hollywood Road to Man Mo temple. Then there was some trinket shopping in Soho, a quick subway trip back to the hotel  (Hong Kong's subway is amazing!) with the intention of putting our feet up for a few hours and then catching an evening Cantonese meal and a trip to the Night Market.

Everybody but me slept a solid 14 hours - right the way through to the next morning.

As a footnote, I got up around 8:30pm and ducked out for a taste of China. One of the porters at the hotel directed me to a "very famous Hong Kong restaurant". Not so sure about that, but it was a tiny hole in the wall with good food. It was a soup kitchen where I sat with 5 other locals, only two of which decided to move rather than have to watch me eat noodle soup with chop sticks and a spoon. The menu was all in Cantonese so I choose one of the 6 items translated into "Beef with Noodles" which the waitress signaled to me was the incorrect choice, so I'm not really sure what I ate. But it was boiling hot and pretty tasty and I knew I'd stolen an experience that was neither Trish nor kid-friendly.

Lucky Number 13

So, yes, the travels are glamorous, but exhausting and we all started to second guess things when a few strikes of bad luck came up against us.

There was the Newark debacle that was heart-breaking. The problems in NJ made us miss our flight on Dec 28th. Thankfully I was able to rebook our Honolulu to Kaua'i flight for 24 hours later without a penalty and the rental car company didn't seem to care. Our boat tour around the Na'Pali coast was also easily rescheduled to January 1st without problems.

But Continental or Newark or both, despite perfect flying conditions and above 0 temperatures, got us out 2 hours late from Newark - enough that we missed our connecting flight in Honolulu.

Hello Best Western Honolulu Airport!

This time the Hawaiian airline was less understanding and it cost us $400 to get on the first flight out in the morning.

So overall, we lost 1 day and 2 nights in our beautiful condo by the ocean and were out close to $1000. And there was the toll on us - waiting around airports, calling all sorts of 1-800 numbers, lugging our stuff all over the place. Thank you, Consuela, you Biatch!

Cassandra is usually our "canary in a coal mine". She started to throw up at 1:45am in Newark. I lost count at 6. Thankfully she rebounded quickly and other than some false alarms, it was over by morning.

Harrison continued to eat everything in sight. Trish and I managed to keep everything down or in or whatever, but were queasy after meals for a few days. Despite the external beauty of the Na'Pali coast, I was very quiet during the trip and the seas were apparently quite calm for January.

On takeoff from Kaua'i back to Honolulu, as Trish tried to remind Mackenzie that her tray had to be stowed and her seatback in the fully upright position, she sat bolt upright and said "But my belly is very sore ..." Well, the last word was kind of muffled by the chocolate cheerios and curdled milk flying out of her mouth. She threw up all over herself and Trish ... and - no joke - every 30-40 minutes for the entire 8 hour flight to Guam (our stopover on the way to Hong Kong). We must have used half the plane's supply of Continental little blue barf bags.

To boot, I grew to really hate Dylan, the toddler in seat 37A, who screeched "WASSER" for the entire 8 hour flight. Dylan's Dad and Dylan had some kind of communication issue. Dad's repetitive threats of "10 minutes of stroller time tomorrow" were misinterpreted by Dylan as encouragement to escalate the volume, pitch and repetitions of the "WASSER"s.

As we deplaned in Guam, we were all really exhausted and glum. I started to wonder if it was too late to rejoin Harrison's hockey team. Dylan and his family started to follow us to the gate of the flight to Hong Kong. Shit! Maybe if we ran to the gate, we would lose them. No such luck. They were on the same flight as us again! Another f***** 5 hours of "WASSER"s. Guess where they were sitting? I'm sure you all got it right - in the row directly in front of us!!!

And then our luck changed.

Mackenzie's gastro got better. She never vomited again and ... well nothing else either. Dylan (and all the rest of us) slept the entire flight to Hong Kong. We landed at 10:30pm in Hong Kong's beautiful clean efficient airport.

Our hotel van driver was right on time and the transport to the hotel and check-in were seamless. Harrison and I ventured out into Kowloon to find some comfort food for the ladies.

Nathan Road, Kowloon - 1:00 am

It couldn't have been the air (in Kowloon???), but as we walked back to our hotel with chicken McNuggets for the fairer members of our family, Harrison and I both felt that things had changed and that now the real trip had started. Hong Kong would not disappoint.

Rooms 1315 and 1316 at the CityView

Finally in Paradise: Kaua'i

Salvation! Our plane to Honolulu finally arrives. Note the clear blue skies that explain why the flight is 2 hours late.

Where's my Mai Tai?

There it is!

The view from our lanai:

Some shots from the kids' surfing lessons:

Harrison catching a wave

Cassandra catching a wave

The surfers with their instructor Sparky

Some other Kaua'i shots:

Mackenzie & Dad on the beach

All dressed up for our New Year's Eve Luau

Dawn of 2011

Going snorkeling off Na'Pali

Na'Pali Coast

 

Trouble in Paradise

Yeah ... all of us except Harrison went down in some form of another on Kaua'i or on the 13 hour trek to Hong Kong, but more on that later.

First Day: Is that Napali ... or Newark?

We traveled all day, we braved the airport crowds and the teeny tiny airport meals, but it was all worth it as I gaze out of my window to see ...

Oh yeah ... this is the life. And I know I promised you pictures of Napali, but instead you get NEWARK!!!!

We had a good day yesterday - some leisurely packing, a few stops for drinks, tears and goodbyes and then dinner with my parents. I stayed up too late fiddling with the house and backing up every single file in duplicate and then couldn't sleep.

But got to the airport by 8:00am for our 10:30am takeoff to Newark after which we were to connect to Honolulu.  Delayed until 13:05 and then boarded to take a trip out to the runaway and back to the gate again because Newark was backed up after the blizzard. We finally deplaned at 16:10 - plenty of time for our 16:15 connection to Honolulu which was also delayed.

Ran like crazy until we flagged one of those long golf cart thingies that cruised us to our gate at exactly 16:15.  Transient euphoria to see that the take off time had been delayed to 16:50 - plenty of time!

Overtired overweight Hispanic Continental ticket agent: "I'm sorry sir that flight is closed."

Overtired overweight sweaty dad: "What do you mean? We have boarding passes!"

Overtired overweight Hispanic Continental ticket agent: "That flight is closed. You're not getting on. Go to gate 31 and speak to customer service."

Overtired overweight sweaty dad: "But the flight doesn't leave for 35 minutes! It's still at the gate and they're still loading luggage."

Overtired overweight Hispanic Continental ticket agent: "The flight is closed. Gate 31." (picks up the phone)

So what to do? Given the thousands of grubby, tired and pissed off passengers lying around the airport everywhere and the "Don't fuck with me" expression on every single airline employee, I decided that screaming, yelling and threatening had probably been tried to little avail. Besides getting arrested on the first day of the epic adventure would be bad form.

So I ran towards gate 31 only to see a ginormous throng of tired grubby really pissed off looking people. Ahah! The lineup for customer service. Instantly recognized that this would be at least a two hour futile endeavor.

So I did the manly thing: I begged! And it worked ... kinda. I returned to the overtired overweight Hispanic Continental ticket agent and at least she confirmed seats on tomorrow's flight for us, instead of putting us on the infinite standby list.

Why would this tired airline employee go out on a limb for us? Out of the goodness of her New Jersey heart? Trish and I doubt it. A more likely version: she most likely put standby passengers in our seats when we didn't show up before last call. When we did show up, she felt a little bit bad for screwing up our trip and made sure we got on tomorrow's flight.

Next, we spent 4 hours trying to find our luggage. Our flight number was not on the board to indicate which carousel it will come out on. Wierd! Waited 50 minutes in the luggage services line to be told that it would be on carousel 9 in 15 minutes. Three hours later, an overhead announcement that they had located our luggage!

Where was it? ON THE PLANE TO HONOLULU! Our luggage got on but we weren't allowed on.

Then the infinite lineup for cabs, the slick Lebanese town car drivers offering $100 lifts for 20 minute rides (we got one for $50) and our room at the Comfort Suites in the armpit of Newark.

So not such a great start, but definitely an adventure and 221 days still to relish. But everyone ended the day in good spirits with the hope that tomorrow night really does see us looking out of our condo onto Poipu beach on Kauai.

10 ... 9 ... 8 ...

Nine days to go.

Our 252kg crate left last Thursday and is in the middle of the Atlantic by now.

The suitcases are 3/4 full with lots of different piles around our bedroom.

The Christmas parties are done, but the schedule is still full with goodbye dinners and drinks.

Most of the tinkering and repairs around the house are done in preparation for my sister's arrival as house sitter while we are gone. All the bills here are more or less on auto-pilot.

Got a bank account in NZ with a decent amount of cash waiting for us. Got the cell phones, ISPs, schools and TV figured out. Still have to figure out where we're going to get a car and how to register it. Overall, pretty well organized.

The girls and I are excited. I was expecting rivers of tears this weekend with Harrison's final hockey game, but so far so good. We play West Island at 6:00pm tomorrow and I think that will be it, so we'll see. So happy Cynthia got the photos organized before hand. It'll be sad to take the names and 'A' (for assistant captain) off his jersey. If his team does really well, maybe we'll do something really crazy and come back for the finals ... or maybe not.

Trish has changed from nervous to nervous and excited. I think she'll be fine although I've stocked up on Kleenex for the last 3 days.

Two shifts left at work - really happy about that, although I'll miss some of the people.

I had a chat today with Mackenzie about how sometimes blond children can be ... over-admired in China and that even though it'll be really hot and humid in Hong Kong, we're going to make her wear a hat to hide her "yellow hair". I think it made her feel special.

Very much looking forward to exploring the Napali coast in Kauai and to our New Year's Eve luau. The kids are going to take surfing lessons.

Although, it's been just over 3 years in the planning and fun to organize, I'm psyched to stop organizing and start experiencing.

Can't believe it's almost here!

How To Move A Family of Five Across The Globe - Part 2

If you're interested in reading about stunning vistas and fantastic experiences, skip this post; this is meant for people planning a trip similar to ours. 

Once the job was confirmed, the next step was to begin the application process for my medical license.

One of the things I liked about working with Wavelength was that in a very streamlined process, once they had matched me to a hospital, the "recruitment" team handed things over to Elinor who handled the immigration stream. I liked that she would often call on a Sunday night just to chat and make sure that things were still going well on my end.

The process was not so different from Canada. Lots of forms to fill out, reference letters to arrange and diplomas to photocopy. The trickiest part was getting an English translation of my medical diploma from McGill that is in Latin. As it turns out, the McGill department of student services provides notarized translations for free! Bonus!

Once the application was complete and mailed off to Wellington, it took about 2 months to get the license which is probably comparable (or even a little faster) than the Royal College in Canada.

I had all our visa applications sitting in an envelope ready to be sent to the New Zealand High Commission in Ottawa. We applied for a work visa for me under the "work under special circumstances" or something like that, student visas for Harrison & Cassandra and a single visitor's visa application for my wife Trish and Mackenzie.

We had our passports back in about a month. There was some discussion about whether we'd have to pay for the kids' school, but with a work permit, primary school kids are granted "domestic student status". Our 4 year old, Mackenzie, who is attending pre-school here will keep my wife company in Palmerston North while I go to work and the two kids attend school.

With the immigration issues settled, it was time to find schools and a place to live.