The Toughest Place to Be a Bus Driver

This is a long video but it is worth watching every minute.   It’s a British documentary about a London Bus Driver who comes to Manila to try to drive a Jeepney (a Filipino bus).  The latter half is great and goes into so much detail about different aspects of life for the poor in Manila, much of which I didn’t know. 
 
It really shows what real life is like in Manila for so many.  It is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. 
 
It shows how loving and welcoming Filipinos are even when they have nothing.  It really drives home what a poor nation this is.  The video states that one third of the population in Manila live on less than 80 pesos a day (less than two dollars). 
 
It also shows how hardworking Filipinos are.   As the British bus driver, Josh, says, people shouldn’t have to work so hard for so little.  People here really do work so hard and really receive so little in return.  I often think about what Josh says in this video, that it’s completely random that he was born in London and Rahelio was born in Manila.  It could so easily have been the other way around. 
 
 
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/uYaMMTOisi8&source=uds

 

Bye Bye Curls, Hello Handsome

We left the house like this

And came back like this!

 
Here’s the play by play.  We started with some yummy noodles.

 
Then the car.

Then to mommy.  Can you tell we’re not sure about that guy with the scissors.

Then a walk around the mall to show off our new handsome look.

 
Those curls!  I almost backed out, I love those curls so much.  It’s so hot here though, the less hair the better.   I definitely wasn’t at all prepared for how emotional his first haircut would make me. It was just such a definite sign that he’s really not a baby anymore. 
 
As my mom said it’s sad when small changes happen in our children’s lives, each one is a small movement away from parents and onto independence.  So I guess this is practice for all the many many more changes to come as Adam grows up and becomes his own person. I’ll just have to make sure I appreciate every single minute!
 
 
 

 

The Ladies Market

When we booked our tickets to Hong Kong I told Kate my only request was to go to a market.  I knew Kate would come through and take me to a great one.  We put aside Saturday as our day for shopping.

It took us awhile to get out of the house Saturday after our late night.   We had a yummy breakfast at home of fruit and eggs benedict.  Some of us also had some milk.  I love this picture because you can see Adam’s newest habit of playing with our ears when he’s having his milk.  We’re about to start a campaign to get Adam to switch to drinking his milk from a sippy cup but I sure am going to miss those ear rubs.

 
Our morning was so slow in fact (and included a nap for Adam and me 🙂 that by the time we left it was time for lunch already! We decided to head out to get some dumplings before shopping.  Gavin took us to Crystal Jade which had the yummiest soup dumplings! In fact it had the yummiest everything.  The best news is that they just opened a Crystal Jade on the High Street by our house in Manila!! We’re going to try it ASAP to see if it’s as good.
 
mmmm…soup dumplings and pickled cucumber. 
 

Randy wanted to get a suit made and we (Kate, Adam and I) wanted to head to the market. Both were in Kowloon so we decided to take the Star Ferry over together and then split up for our respective shopping and meet up after.  The ferry was great.  It was just long enough to give us a great view of Hong Kong. 
 
 
 
 

 

When we got off the other side it was another world! I definitely felt like I was in Asia. 

 
 
 

Kate, Adam and I headed to the Ladies Market.  Ingenious by the way Asia, a market with only stuff that women want. So smart, I never want to wade through mens stuff again.   I’m usually not a fan of fake brand merchandise because it’s not made well, but I loved it here!  Everything was made well and was so colorful and fun.  I wanted one of everything!  I bought a beach bag and some makeup bags, because I will never spend more than 10 bucks for either anyway and they might as well look nice!

 
Even Adam got in on the action and got something fun!
 
 
We took all of our wares and headed home.  Adam went to bed and leaving him with our trusted babysitter we headed out to the Hong Kong Club for some yummy fajitas.  We were all a bit tired from our escapades the night before and since sleeping in for Adam is 6:15 we were home by midnight. 
 

Don’t worry we bought you all a little something at the airport!  Duck tongue and kidneys anyone?

And for when you need some duck tongue on the go, single serving packets.

Where do you find the duck tongue you ask? Right under the Toblerone and KitKats of course!

 
Thank you Hong Kong for being so awesome and thank you Gavin, Kate and Otis for letting the Alis stay with you!  We’ll definitely be coming back soon 🙂

 

The Big Buddha

Our first day in Hong Kong we were up at 7:15 (thanks Adam) so we had a full day to explore.  We had a long yummy breakfast with Gavin and Kate and got our sweaters (!) on.  I forgot how fun it is to dress a baby in sweaters.

 
We dropped Kate off at work and went to meet our friend Joni and her adorable kids Conor and Clara.  We decided to head off to see the Big Buddha!  We took the MTR, the super clean, super easy and super fast subway to Lantau Island.  From there is was a quick cable car up to see the Big Buddha.
 
 
 
 
Oh wait, that’s right it was the longest cable car you could ever imagine taking.  See those tall buildings on the right?  That’s where we started.  When we neared the top of this hill we thought we were there, but we hadn’t even gone halfway.
 
 
See the buildings on the right, that’s where we started!  After two more mountain ranges we finally caught a glimpse of the Big Buddha. 
 
 
You can catch a glimpse of the Big Buddha way off in the distance behind the wire on the left.  Luckily, everyone on board loved every minute of this.  We also opted for the glass bottom, which led to some stomach flipping at times but was beautiful.
 
 

 
This looks like Adam is standing on a mountain of broccoli
 
 
The boys were a little wary at first and who can blame them!  This was a high and long cable car!
 

 
But after a couple of minutes we all relaxed and enjoyed the views.
 

 
Every time another cable car would pass going in the opposite direction, this would happen.

 
It’s pretty rare to have three children looking at the camera at the same time, well done Randy.

 
By the end of the trip, this is what the car looked like.
 
  
Once we were off the cable car we walked around and took some pictures. 

 
 
 
After Randy explained to Adam that these poses were definitely NOT zen like we tried again.
 
 
But it turns out Adam just wanted to pose with the better looking group.  Rightly so Adam, that’s where you belong.
 

 
We walked around a bit saying hi to the locals and taking in the sights.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
Then it was time to walk up a couple of stairs to the Big Buddha.
 

Can you tell we were all up until 2:30?
 

 
 
After  a yummy vegetarian lunch at the monastery (well yummy for 7 bucks) we headed back down.
 
 

 
What a fantastic day and such a great way to spend time with our friends!  We later found out that the Big Buddha was actually built in the 90s…i guess that solves the riddle of how the monks got all that bronze up all those hills.  This maybe should have tipped us off.  But this was still a great day out!
 
 
 
After this it was home to bed for Adam.  With a trusted babysitter, the adults got to out to a delicious dinner at Restoration.  When Kate and Gavin first mentioned we were going out to Creole in Hong Kong, Randy and I were both a bit curious.  But this was by far the best meal we’ve had since New York.  Amazing food and amazing company.  After dinner we headed out for a nightcap, so much fun…and definitely worth it even when Adam woke us up at 6:15 the next morning! 
 
 
ps- you’ll all be glad to know that thanks to Kate lending us her camera charger (I forgot to pack our charger and it’s currently sailing on a boat with the rest of our stuff somewhere in the Pacific) this is the last of the Iphone pics you’ll have to suffer through 🙂 Thanks Kate, one more reason we love you 🙂

The Long Road to Hong Kong

With Adam, traveling is always about logistics and timing.  We’ve had some flights at the wrong times which resulted in some tears, so we try to fly at times where Adam is not too tired (if of course we have the option).  We had planned to fly to Hong Kong at 7pm on Thursday night.  I was a little nervous because Adam is asleep by 7:30 every day.  I figured we would get to Kate’s by 10 and hopefully Adam would fall asleep before that on the plane. 

We packed our bags and headed over to the airport nice and early.  We got to the Manila Airport at 5pm for check-in, only to be told that we had no tickets to Hong Kong.  It’s still unclear what happened but apparently we did actually purchase tickets but for some reason the ticket was returned and our money refunded.  Note for future flights- confirm, confirm, confirm. 

So now it’s 6pm on Thursday.  We’re sitting in the airport with all of our luggage, no tickets to anywhere and a toddler who is nearing dinner and bedtime. The earliest flight we can get on is at 9 pm.   It was only hour one and we already had to break out Olivia to buy us some time.

My impulse was of course to head home and to try to leave the following morning when we were all refreshed.  After a lot of back and forth we decided to just go for it.  This is another one of those times where I’m glad I listened to Randy and just took a risk.  Adam, thankfully, fell asleep while we were checking in and stayed asleep until we landed in Hong Kong. 

 
Thank you Manila for not having air conditioning in your airport.  It was much better for Adam and me to sweat off a couple of pounds before eating up a storm in Hong Kong.
 
We landed in Hong Kong at 11pm and Adam woke up.  Luckily, he was in a great mood.  There are two ways to get into Hong Kong, a cab or a train and a cab.  We decided to just take the cab….which led to sitting for 30 minutes in standstill traffic..while we watched the train whiz by.  I was starting to think that someone didn’t want us in Hong Kong.   But Adam was amazing the whole time.  He has a new word- Wow.  When he says it it sounds like- wooooooow. He said this over and over on our cab ride in.  There were tons of cranes and tunnels and lights- all worthy of a wooooooow.  There were also tons of trucks in our traffic and truck drivers who all loved waving back at Adam, also worthy of a wooooooow. 
 
I knew we weren’t in Manila anymore when Kate sent me an email with directions to her place and attached this picture to show to the cab driver.
 
 
 
Thank goodness she sent this.  The cab driver spoke not a lick of English.  We’re so spoiled in Manila where everyone speaks English.  I forget it’s not the same in the rest of Asia.
 
We finally arrived around 1:30 in the morning and were so happy to see Kate and Gavin and their comfy apartment.  We were also happy of course to see Otis the dog.  In fact, Adam was so excited about seeing Otis that it took another hour to get him to go back to sleep.  He kept crying every time Otis wasn’t in the same room.  But don’t worry, he gave us all a break and slept in until 7:15.  And really who could blame him- look at this face.