Melodie came to visit for two months and spent Christmas with us in Japan. Although lots of photos were taken, including many of each other, there were few of us together. Here's a goofy one at Ocean Park and another at Ocean Terminal Christmas display.

In January, Alex had to have his front bottom teeth removed since the adult ones were growing in behind the baby teeth. You can see in the photos - a double row, empty spots after extraction and a nice smile two months later. Now we're waiting for the top front to fall out.

Family Bike Ride to Tai Po

It was lovely weather a couple weekends ago so the family rented bikes and rode to Tai Po and back. We had a quick lunch and stopped at the park for a popsicle before heading back the other way to have an afternoon snack when we were done with our jaunt. It has been awhile since we did this ride and Alex managed to keep up with all of us although his bike (and tires) were smaller so he had to work harder.

Hamsters!

I finally decided to let the kids, er, I mean Maggie, get a pet so when Alex's friend's hamsters had babies, we adopted a couple. They were supposedly both females, but lo and behold, after not following my vet friend's advice of keeping them separated since they'll fight... They went and procreated! Seven babies - argh! We've consequently purchased another cage for the dad and when the mom weans the babies we should separate her from them. The timeline - Jan 20, adopt hamsters that are about 3 weeks old; Mar 4, babies, sheesh! We really need to separate them since it's so hard to tell the males from females, but hopefully we can find good homes for them so we don't have to buy more cages. Photos below: Mom and Dad nibbling carrots, newborns and 2 week old babies in the last photo.

Sorry for the lack of posts... Recently my microwave oven snapped, crackled and popped for the last time... (it was older than Alex , I believe).

I went looking around for a new machine and was tempted by one of these new-fangled steam/grill/convection/microwave things but I just didn't want to spend so much when all I really wanted was a convection microwave that would be my second cookie baking machine when my glorified toaster oven of a convection oven wasn't enough. I can only bake a 1/2 dozen standard size or a dozen 1.5 inch (barely bigger than bite-size) cookies at a time. A batch of cookies would take the better part of the afternoon.

I went to Fortress, Broadway and Tai Lin and finally, Best Denki and found prices ranged all the way up to HK$4880 - more than $600 US. I found an older model Whirlpool for less than HK$2000 and it's big enough to bake a tray of cookies, although the tray that came with the machine is round... It can also grill (broil) and the usual microwave functions: defrost, reheat, etc.

I made time to bake cookies and then some! The cookies I baked in both ovens and finished the cookie dough in record time! Then, I was craving puff pastry so made an apple tart and sausage rolls for snack time.









Alex's friend Jeremy has been staying at our place the past couple of nights due to an unexpected school suspension due to an influenza outbreak here. After SARS and with bird flu looming, the gov't didn't want to take any chances. So Primary schools and Kindergartens have been suspended until the end of the month, but not Secondary schools, so Maggie still has classes. Alex does have work to do though (actually, quite a bit) so hopefully the school year won't be extended. He's missing a total of 6 days so we have work in every subject to do. (Notice the papers on the coffee table in the photo of the boys playing Wii.) We're hoping to be back in the U.S. in mid-June.

San San came over for a sleepover and the girls wanted to show off their technique on their Ripstik so here's a little video. You wouldn't know it since Maggie is wearing shorts and t-shirt, but it was cold outside so the kids went skating in the carpark. The rest of the time was spent playing DDR, NDS and other games, including Mastermind...

Nagoya, Kyoto, Kobe - Christmas 2007

 

Happy New Year! We celebrated Christmas in Japan this year - went to Nagoya, Kyoto and Kobe. Enjoyed a relaxing trip while walking around the city streets and staying in ryokans on tatami mats and futons.

   

In Nagoya we went to Noritake Garden (home of fine china), walked around Nagoya Castle, went up to the viewing platform of Nagoya Tower (100 m), went to the Pokemon Store but amazingly didn't buy much, shopped a little, ate sushi and noodles (of course)...

   

Rode the shinkansen to Kyoto and relaxed in the double adjoining rooms at a little ryokan walking distance from the station called Nagomi Yado Towa. One of the little gifts they presented were crunchy baked cinnamon cookies called yatsuhashi. I were so delicious I had to buy some to bring home! After trying out the bath (too hot for me so after dinner I ran my own bath in our room), we had a lovely kaiseki dinner in our room and went out walking in the dark for soft serve ice cream - yummy but not nearly as good as Hokkaido (the last couple of years we were there for Christmas). Paul has photos of the dinner dishes on his camera. Hope to get those on the computer soon.

There was breakfast at the inn every morning including freshly made tofu, fish, egg, rice and veggies.

We found Christmas mass in Japanese at the head chapel in Kyoto diocese and after walked around visiting shrines and temples until the kids were complaining. We walked along part of the famous Philosopher's Path and then up above one temple to see the view of the city. We meandered down a different way, found ourselves in a quiet neighborhood, stopped at a little shop for a drink and snack and took a taxi back toward the main station where we were staying. 

Melodie went kimono and yukata shopping before we went back to the inn to rest before dinner. Christmas dinner was a Japanese BLT with the B replaced by E(gg) for Melodie, tonkatsu sandwich for me and noodles for Paul and the kids. 

The next day we rode the shinkansen to Kobe, checked into the hotel and went swimming! No time for sightseeing in Kobe since we were leaving the next morning, but we had a delicious Kobe beef teppanyaki dinner and Paul and I went out for a drinks after, enjoying a nice view of the city and bay from our hotel up on the hillside. 

The only thing bad about going to Japan is the time spent traveling. We left HKG in the afternoon and arrived after dark and on the return it was the same so you kind of waste two days traveling. 

 More photos here!.

Happy Holidays from Hong Kong - Tsim Sha Tsui in front of Ocean Terminal