Good Bye, Old Friend

Today we said good-by to my beloved dog, Inca.  It is, hands down, the hardest day I've had while living abroad. 

We came here as a family, all five of us.  No sooner than Eugene got his official marching orders for Asia, I was on the phone arranging travel for Inca.  And when he got word of our early return to the US, much of the same.  But as the clock ticked through this summer and fall, I began to notice oddities in Inca, things that were just not her norm.  So those thoughts began to creep into my mind, was Inca's time drawing near?  There were days when I was sure of it.  She wouldn't be able to see or smell the doggie treat on the floor, was fearful of taking the step down from our bathroom back into the bedroom, and woke in the morning just to sleep in a different room, in a different position.  It's easy though to sweep those thoughts away, blame old age.  For the love of pete, she was 14 years old already! Cut the old girl some slack.

But her behavior when the movers came from the air shipment last week caused me to take her to the vet immediately.  She was so lethargic, never once raising her voice, as she was known to do, to the commotion inside our house.  Never even getting up from the spot on the office rug she had planted herself on earlier that morning.  I was afraid she wouldn't get her health certificate to travel and if something could be done, let's nip it in the bud sooner rather than later.  So we talked, the vet and I, about Inca what her days and nights were like.  And when we were done, he gently suggested that perhaps the best thing for Inca was a well-deserved sleep.  Along with old age and having gone blind, Inca exhibited signs of kidney failure. 

Every night Inca slept on our bed, her furry body huddled against mine.  The past week, knowing that this day was coming, has been agony.  I found myself waking in the night, trying to capture the sensation of Inca sleeping at my feet, trying to memorize the little sounds she made while sleeping.  I'd reach down and scratch her head or rub her little belly and in the morning I'd tell Gene once again "I didn't sleep well last night". 

One particularly awful day, my daughter, the wise old soul she is said to me, "Mama, what if you were so tired and someone told you you couldn't sleep?"  And her sage advice has rung through my head all day long.

After we had our good byes with Inca this morning, Gene and I walked the quietest walk through Stanley Plaza together.  "Do you think you'll get another dog?," he asked me.  "No," I tell him blotting drippy tears from my eyes, "I won't get another dog, but maybe the kids will."  Because you see even though Inca became the family dog, she was in all honesty my dog first and foremost.  She joined us as newlyweds just six months into our marriage.  It was this little Yorkie that kept newlywed me company as Gene sequestered himself, studying to become a CPA.  It was her silky fur that caught my tears as we sped away from the shores of Lake Erie in 2001 to live in North Carolina.  She snoozed in slivers of sunlight in the dining room of our first home, walked the block with us as we chatted about the new life we discovered in the south.  When Mia was born, it was my little dog who paced the floors with me and my terminally ill child.  I will never forget the sight of her perched on the arm of our sofa, peering quizzically into the empty bassinet after Mia had passed.  She joyfully welcomed both baby Reagan and Tripp and endured countless hours of tail pulling, dragged about the house by chubby toddler arms, being thrown into doll strollers, wrapped up in blankets.  But after the adventurous or down right torturous day, she happily spent her nights asleep on my bed, cuddled together, me and my furry baby.

So maybe when all this raw hurt passes, and I know it will, the family will welcome another animal to live in our home.  But it won't be my dog.  It will be the kids who choose their pet.  It will be that dog who absorbs the tears of Reagan's first heartbreaks, comforts Tripp when his team doesn't get the big win.  That dog will play fetch with the kids and their friends, walk with them to the ice cream stand, lay at their feet while they study.  And of course I'll love that dog too but it won't be my dog, because after my Inca dog, nothing can compare.  Lots of people have dogs and lost dogs, but I assure you, really, nothing can compare.

Good-bye sweet girl.  You are so missed.

Last Friday Night

I always knew it would be about the people I met, the friends I made. And God sent the best of the best my way.  This is what I will miss most about Hong Kong.  My friends, my ex-pat family.

 

I will never find the words.  I just know I am a better person, my life is better, for knowing you. And don't you ever forget, if there is ever a time when you feel lonely or lost, when you really need a friend, you just never know who is going to get out of the taxi in front of you.  She could turn into your HK bestie.

 

So, to my Hong Kong crew, to my beloved Southside Girls, this one's for you to commemorate our last Friday night.  Saying thank you feels so inadequate, but thank you!

 

(And because I am an IT idiot, if this video keeps cutting out on you, put your cursor in the corner of the video screen and keep moving it around.  Weird, right? But it works)

 

 

Making It Count

Scribbled on a page of my notebook is my Hong Kong bucket list.  A list of stuff that I jotted down this past July of all the things I wanted to experience before December's departure.  My catalog of stuff I had heard about, stuff I wanted to do again, stuff I want to do bigger and better the second time around.  The list isn't that long really and it has stuff that's big and stuff that's not so big. So, I started to check off those things I've accomplished and when I was done, only five items remain. 

Call it vanity or whatever, but I'm proud of myself. So very proud! Because so many people come here and do nothing, nothing at all. They are turned off by the unfamiliar, afraid of the adventure, so it's just easier to slip on a pair of yoga pants and complain. But I tried to do everything, everything I could so that when I went home I would never look back at this time as wasted time. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't have my days where I've just had it. I'm pissed about waiting for a taxi in the rain, annoyed at the Chinese mainlanders touching my children's faces, disgusted when somebody spits on the sidewalk in front of me, and throwing the mother of all hissy fits when I find out my shipping allowance is way over. But when those moments pass, and they are just moments, I do look around acknowledge an experience that has been a blessing. An opportunity not everybody gets. You get handed a situation and you can either let it get the best of you or you can make the best of it. It's all about making it count, right, Jack Daswson?

Check out my bucket list, some with photos, some without.

1.  Great Wall of China

 

 

2. Big Buddha



 

 

 

3.  Horse Races

 

4.  Thai Cooking Class

 

5.  Run a 10k Race

 

 

 

6.  LKF on Halloween

 

 

7.  Macau

 

8.  High Tea at the Peninsula

 

 

 

9.  Rent a Junk Boat

 

 

10.  Shenzen Again

 

11.  Girls Weekend in Singapore

 

 

 

 

 12.  Ziplining

 

 

 

 

 13.  Smoke a Hooka Pipe

 

 

 

 

14.  Fish Foot Spa

 

 

15.  Karaoke

 

 

 

 

And what didn't I get to?

 

1.  Jumbo Floating Restaurant

2.  Hike the Twins

3.  Ocean Kayaking

4.  Dim Sum with a Cart

5.  Hagan Daas Ice Cream Fondue

 

It's not entirely impossible that I won't knock a few more of these off the list in the next two weeks.  Who's up for ice cream? 

 

 



5 Mondays

I countdown events by the number of Mondays until the date.  I guess it's because Mondays are the hardest day of the week, lazy weekends over and the rush of a new school/work week beginning.  Once the week starts, it's like racehorses out of the gate, off and running.  But it's Mondays that you need to get to and get through before the week can fly by. 

And so looking at the calendar today I see that we have 5 more Mondays here.  That's it, that's all.  Five.  I can count them on one hand now.  One, two, three, four, five.

There is a growing list of things that need down before I walk out of The Lily for the last time on December 15.  Some days I shoot out of sleep in the morning with the realization that there are things I've forgotten or things I can accomplish sooner rather than later. "We can apply for drivers licenses with our new addresses now,"  I gushed to sleepy-eyed Eugene early one morning.  On another morning I accost him while shaving, "The cable!  I'll have it hooked up while you are in the US next week.  We'll have phone, internet, TV as soon as we arrive!"  I remember when we've moved in the past, the realtor handing me a check list of to-dos before we close one door and open another.  I wish we had a check list now, but this move is so very different.  I don't think anyone could easily and comprehensively catalog it.

With all I've tried to get accomplished, there are also those things that are screaming for attention and I have no patience for.  Instead, I'd rather watch the last season of Desperate Housewives that I picked up for a few bucks over in Shenzen, China.  (I know Mike dies during the last season, but I'm not there yet.) Numero uno on the detestable to-do list?  Sorting through what stays and what goes. 

We went through the same process when we came here.  Walked through the rooms of Lake Edge and scrutinized what we really "need" to live for a few years and what could go into storage to be retrieved at a later date.  I think I did an ok job but I didn't get it totally right.

"Remember that story, mommy?  The one with the snake and the mongoose?"  "Rikki Tikki Tavi,"  I say.  "Yeah, can you read it to me?"  And looking at those huge saucers of brown eyes, I have to say "Sorry, baby, it's in storage."  Every time I make soup, I long for my soup cups with the Campbells soup kids on the sides.  And when Tripp comes home from school with a teacher's request for baby pictures, I just feel like a bad mom. 

The good thing is, all that stuff still exists.  In fact, this Saturday it will be yanked from the confinement of storage lockers and, under the watchful eye of my husband, will placed inside the rooms of our new house, our Bella Casa. The bad news is, the same cannot be said of our stuff here.  Turns out, we are more than a little over our shipping allowance to go back so now I have to go through our apartment, room by room, and make some hard decisions.  I need to decide what is important enough to load on a cargo ship and send back. Need to decided what parts of my Hong Kong life I want to keep.  Need to decide what to leave behind, throw away, give away.  And though it's only stuff, it bugs me, bugs me big time.  It's kind of like throwing pieces of your life away and who wants to do that?  I reason with myself and tell myself the only things I absolutely need to take home are my family.  I know this.  But it still sucks.  Sucks, sucks, sucks!  So that is why instead of making list for the packers, I'm watching Bree Van de Camp become not only an alcoholic but a bit of a tramp of a housewife.

What it all comes down to is this: time is going to keep on passing and whether I am ready or not, December 15 will arrive.  Five Mondays will become four, then three, then two and one.  My kids will run down the ramp into Hong Kong International one last time, watch our luggage chug away on the conveyor belts.  I will have my traditional mimosa before take off, look at Gene across the aisle and ask "What movie are you watching?"  And it won't matter what is crated and on its way to Apex and what is in a donation pile for the needy Chinese of Hong Kong.

There are so very many things I look forward to when I resume my real life in North Carolina. Having my foot on a gas pedal, the red trimmed doors of Target sliding open to welcome me, the cashier at Harris Teeter telling me "y'all have a good day".  The happiness of surfing through channels and finding a re-run of Happy Days on TV, sipping on Gnarly Head cabernet from my favorite flowered wine glass, sitting on our screened porch at night, listening to the crickets chirp.  Praying during Sunday mass at St. Mary Magdalene and sub sandwiches from Jersey Mikes on the way home.  My phone ringing and hearing my best friends southern drawl saying "Hey, you got a minute." The sound of the garage door opener rattling to life as Gene comes home from work, sitting down to eat a meal I made with my own two hands and listening to Brian Williams re-cap a day of world events.  And flipping through Tripp baby albums, my empty soup cup on the table in front of me, while Reagan tugs on my arm, "Please, read me Rikki Tikki Tavi again. Please, just one more time!"

After 5 more Mondays.

A Drop in the Bucket List

It was a Sunday while we were in the US this summer for home leave.  The four of us were speeding down Route 5 towards my brother's house.  The roads were lined on both sides with grapevines, the sky was crystal, the sun, I swear had a big smiley face on it like in Reagan's drawings.  The kids were strapped in car booster seats in the back and Carly Rae Jepsen was blaring from the radio "Hey I just met you...".  It was a perfect moment that I wanted to freeze, capture in a photo frame and tuck into my pocket so I could pull it out and relive it every now and then.  Especially those times in Hong Kong when I'm missing the US.

And then, plop, we landed smack dab back in Asia a few weeks later and it was an all together different experience then when we had first arrived the summer before.  Where last year was dedicated to establishing a life in Hong Kong, this year, or should I say, these months, are all about making it count.  Doing it all before we pack it all up and go back.  The goal is to leave here with no regrets.  Not a one.  Thus, the bucket list.

You know what a bucket list is, right?  Those things that you want to experience, want to accomplish before you kick it.  I sat down in early August and literally jotted down my Hong Kong bucket list.  At the top of my list, rent a junk.

So, what's a junk?  This is a junk

 

 It's not the exact junk we rented, but it's pretty darn close.  I had never been on a junk before, but people that have told me you just rent the boat, sail around, eat, drink, swim, whatever.  The company we used had an awesome package: 7 hours on the boat, heaps of food, open bar for practically pocket change.  Some companies have add-ons like speed boats for wake boarding, Thai masseuses, and mahjong tables.  But we chose the basic package, rounded up some friends and some friends of friends and even some friends of friends of friends, 25 in all, and on an overcast but warm Saturday morning, jumped aboard a junk. 

 

As I sit and write about it now, it's like big deal, you went on a boat.  And no matter what words I conjure up to try and make you understand, you won't.  But there was something magical and special about being out on the water for the whole afternoon with your friends.

Sitting on comfy cushions as the boat powers out to sea, you really do feel like Kate Winslet, arms outstretched on the bow of the Titanic.  You can't help but lay back on your elbows, tilt your head back and let the wind tangle through your hair.  It's an amazingly carefree feeling.

And when you see just how vast the sea is, you realize just how small you really are in this great big world. How all that crap you are stressing over and worried about just really doesn't matter in the big scheme of things.

 

 We dropped anchor just off a small island and were told to have at it, but beware of the many sea urchins populating these waters.  And in the blink of an eye, people were in the water, climbing down the ladder, floating on foam noodles.  The junk crew went to work filling empty water bottles with their own special cruise blend called Sea Breeze and throwing out bottles to swimmers below.  Some of us swam to the beach, hunted down a few shells and some beach glass and then headed back to the boat. 

 

I'm not sure who took the first jump off the top deck of the junk, but it was a blast watching people jump.  Some went straight down like the straightest pencil, some flailed wildly, others splashed down in cannonball form. After watching everyone else, I decided to give my fears a smirk of a smile, and then closed my eyes and jumped.  But just once....

 

 

 

 I don't know how those hours on the water passed so quickly.  One minute we were drinking beer

 

And dancing on the top deck

 

 

And the next we were back on the pier again

 

 

And once again I was wishing that I could freeze that feeling, capture it in a photo frame and tuck it into my pocket so I could pull it out and relive it every now and then.  Especially when I'm back in the US missing Hong Kong.

 

Renting a junk.  Just a drop in the bucket list.  

 

Week of Good-Byes

It's been a week of good-byes here in Hong Kong.  Good bye to school, to the bus mother, to after school activities and routines.  Bye to speech class and uniforms to packed lunches and repeat play dates.  But it's also been good bye to people.  Some for the summer, some for, well, ever.

Ex-pats generally don't stay in Hong Kong for the summer.  They go home, to the mother land, to the places they came from to begin with.  Husbands go too and sometimes they are lucky enough to stay the whole season, but more often then not, they fly back themselves after a few weeks and wives and kids follow later. School ended yesterday so today began the mass exodus.  Tomorrow it will continue and we will be among the families that follow. 

And when we return things will be different for us.  Just a few months ago I expected that we would return from summer home leave refreshed, proud and somewhat glad to have our first year behind us.  When this adventure began Eugene told me that it would be a year of figuring it out, a year of living, and a year of preparing to return home to the US.  But as we discussed last time, butterflies flapped their wings and BAM!, back in the US earlier than we anticipated.  So that year of just living was annihilated, and we've moved straight on to prep work.

When we come back in July, we will be (fingers crossed) home owners again.  When our feet hit Asian soil the countdown will begin.  Time will be limited. And though I am excited to have a home of my very own again, in a place where speaking English is the norm and Target just a short drive away, I am oh so very sad to see the clock tick away to final months, weeks, days, hours of our time here in Hong Kong. We were prepared for three years.  We were not prepared for 18 months.

I have a tendency to look way too far ahead in all situations, with all things, so I can't let myself do that now.  What matters now is that tomorrow morning my family will board a plane in Hong Kong and when our feet touch ground again, we will be on American soil, glorious, familiar American soil.  And we will see family that has been so far from us and we will eat cheap pizza and chicken wings, indulge on Denny's ice cream and run together at Presque Isle.  We will pick strawberries with the kids, swim in the pool and watch fireflies dance in the evening. Great times will be ours and wonderful memories will be created.

 And when we get back, we'll have six months to do it all right. To tick off all the items in that Hong Kong bucket list.  To enjoy it, really enjoy it.  The goal: no regrets.

To my family and friends and my BFF in Holly Springs, NC, can't wait to see you all!! And to my Southside family here on the island, safe travels, rest up.  We're gonna do it up right when we all get back.  No regrets.  Not a one.

The Butterfly Effect

As much as I love order and control, planning and organization, there is always one factor fluttering through my brain that I am consciously aware of -- the butterfly effect.  Are you familiar with it?  It's a theory that states that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world will result in a tornado in another part of the world.  Similar to the ripple effect or maybe the domino effect, it's just another one of those reasonings that every little action causes a big chain reaction.

 Like maybe that grocery receipt that unknowingly falls out of your pocket.  Maybe it becomes the scrap paper that a young woman writes her email address on to give to the man she met in line at the store.  Maybe they start dating, maybe they fall in love, they get married, they become parents to the kid that will eventually discover a cure for cancer. 

Or how about when you're cleaning your garage and discover a deflated old basketball stuffed in the corner.  You think about just tossing it, but instead put it into the pile for Goodwill.  That ball ends up in the hands of a youngster who now, with a basketball of his own, can practice his jump shot at the park whenever he wants.  And he practices so much he makes the high school team, and then gets recruited for college ball.  That old roughed up ball from your garage paves the way for a kid who once could only dream of becoming a doctor or a teacher or an engineer.

I've got one more.  A guy sitting on the sand in Myrtle Beach watches his young grandchildren playing in the surf and he's thinking, 'This is a good life. No meetings, no reports, no deadlines'.  So after some thought, he goes back into the office and announces he's retiring early.  This leads to lots of meeting, lots of brainstorming, lots of shifting of staff and talent.  The CFO calls one of her staff members, he's in India at the time, and talks with him about the recent turn of events, which leads to a text message to his wife.  "Spending more time in the US", her phone screen reads.  She is at British trivia night with friends, and doing terribly to boot.  "Oh hell!," she exclaims showing her friends the message. "More trips to the US for him."  They order another round and manage to come in dead last at trivia.  A few days later he arrives home from India, plops down on their bed, stretches and proclaims, "It's so good to be home."  She smiles at him, thrilled he's back safe, but leans against the bedroom door to brace herself for the updated travel schedule.  "So, what is this about you spending more time in the US?".   "I didn't say I was spending more time in the US," he says with emphasis. "We're spending more time in the US."  She cocks her head at him, wanting clarification.  "We're going home, Laura.  I've been promoted.  I'm the new Corporate Controller". 

The butterfly effect in full effect.

We've been detoured again.  But this path will take us back home.  To North Carolina.  In December. 

The Hidden Forbiddens

The munchies got me the other day and as I was digging through the cupboard looking for something yummy to eat, this cookie package caught my eye.

Notice anything weird about it?  No?  Take a look again.  See that big white sticker on the package?  What's that all about?

I won't pretend I haven't noticed this before. It was on one of my first grocery getting trips here that I noticed that random packages of foods have words or phrasing covered.  Sometimes it's inked out with colored markers, sometimes covered with labels.  And I've just kind of thought "Weird!" but never dwelled on it too much.

Well on this occasion the other day, I put my hunger aside and decided to explore what was hiding under that white sticker.  Here's what I found.

Not sure why the lack of trans fat is a secret, but here in Hong Kong, it is. 

So then I poked through our pantry some more and found this, also covered with a label.

And under the label, this:

So apparently the Chinese don't want shoppers to know about products lacking fat.  They want you to think you're getting the full fatty product.

In the fridge, my coffee creamer looks like this.

That big gold dot is metallic marker covering up something.  Perhaps my Coffee Mate is also fat free.  I kind of hope it is since that's what I always bought back home.

So when I did the marketing earlier today, I paid special attention to this label censoring.  I'm quite certain the stock boys thought I was one strange white woman taking pictures of food, but here's what I found.  Can you find the hidden forbiddens on these products?

I hope the food products in the US know how lucky they are to have freedom of expression!

A Big Ole Gray Blob

We were running side by side on the sea-view promenade, a path that traces the coast of the South Chine Sea on the south side of the island.  The soles of our sneakers hitting the pavement together make a nice harmony -- slap, slap, slap. 

"Do you like it here?" 

The hypnotic rhythm of our strides is interrupted.  I look over at my husband who is looking at me from beneath the brim of his blue baseball hat.  He puts his hands out, palms up, and shrugs his shoulders, waiting to hear my answer.

Do I like it here?  The question whirls around in my head.  I can almost see the words swirling around my mind, bobbing up and down like a wooden spoon in a pitcher of lemonade.  Do I like it here? 

It's a good time to be asking since it's now been a year since I first set foot in Hong Kong.  It has been a year since I had all these crazy notions in my head about what my life, what our lives, in Asia would be like. 

I thought that my life at The Lily would be much like college dorm life that I, as a commuting student, never experienced.  I imagined I'd click with a group of gals and we'd just kind of have our run of the building, apartment hopping after the kids had gone to bed, standing coffee dates after the kids boarded the morning school bus.  We'd run together on the treadmill, lounge by the pool, pour a glass of pinot and hang out in the wicker chairs by the barbecue area. Guess what?  Never happened.

I met women in my building but never made that kind of connection with them.  There was a lot of  "we should go here together' and 'we should check out this place some day', but those days never happened.  Just talk, lots of talk.  And it is weird, like the agony of being back in high school, we you start to see females in the building making those coveted connections, seeing them peel off together for tennis matches, shopping excursions and ladies' luncheons.  And it's awkward to smile and wave them good-bye while wondering "why not me?".

Don't pity me yet, I had a few moments.  We had a night out with a couple over in tower 4, but that would-be friendship quickly fizzled when they found me a lightweight drinker who had to go home (heaving) early.  And another women invited me to come shopping with her for the girl scout Christmas gift drive.  On the way to the Wan Chai market she confided in me her disappointment in not being invite to be a speaker at a local women in business meeting.  "I'm a venture capitalist," she stated proudly. "Oh, um hmm, are you?"  I nodded as she spoke.  Over tacos that night I asked my husband, "What's a venture capitalist?". 

But other things have happened that I did not expected.  Like I have connected with wonderful women.  Women who I do meet for coffee, who challenge me in mahjong games, who text me when something funny happens and asks me "can you do me a favor" as only a good friend would.  We say things like "we should check this place out" and you know what? We do.  Our husbands know each other.  Our kids play together.  When the boys travel we look to each other to pass the lonely time and to lean on shoulders.  They are the friends I imagined I would discover.  The only difference between what they are and what I thought they would be, is that their address is different.

It's so hard to answer the question of liking it here.  It's not black.  It's not white.  It's totally gray, a big ole gray blob of good and bad.  There are things I thought I'd hate, that I love.  Things that I'd thought I'd love that I totally despise.  There are some things that I adore one day and curse the next. 

For example, I envisioned that I would love Repulse Bay Beach.  Our apartment overlooks it; it's what I see every night before I close the shades and every morning when I rise and shine.  During our countdown to departure back in Holly Springs, I would daydream about wandering over to the beach in the mornings, sunning myself golden. Guess what? Never happened.  The sand on Repulse Bay Beach is of the rocky variety, not exactly what you want to lay upon to relax.  What's more is this beach is a major stop for tour buses.  It's a steady flow of bus after bus, squeezing through the narrow road, groups of mainlanders following the orange flags of tour guides, tromping through the rocky sand in the oddest variety of clothing you can imagine.

Public Transportation.  There's a serious love/hate relationship going on with public transport here.  I love that I never have to worry about a designated driver.  I love that when I go into town I have a variety of options in getting home.  But, without fail, anytime I'm late, in a hurry, it's raining, or I'm hauling 50-pounds of groceries on my shoulders, all public transportation options cease.  Mini buses hang their little "full" sign in the window.  Red taxis zip by, lights off, "for hire" signs hidden.  Just today I took the kids to the beach only to have a storm break out.  Standing in the pouring rain on a busy, narrow island road, trying to keep two little ones safe and close, while hauling a beach bag, a basket of sand toys and a blanket totally saturated with rain water, not a ride to be found.  You find yourself fighting back tears, reminiscing about soft, gray leather seats, Rock 92 on the radio, children strapped in safety seats just over your shoulder. 

But there are things that I've discovered here that I absolutely treasure, so much, in fact, that I worry about my reaction once they are lost to me back in the US.  Like the streets of Soho lined with restaurant after restaurant after diner after bar after coffee shop. Gene and I pick a street and work our way down, Italian one night, tapas another, and check out this new champagne bar!  They squeeze eateries into any available space, some places just have a half-dozen tables for patrons.  Sometimes I wonder how I will stand it, as I'm home with sleeping children on a Friday night, knowing my friends are bar hopping, dancing to cover bands, doing jello-o shots at Als.  Will they wish I was there?  Will they know part of me will be wishing myself there?

Other Hong Kong loves?  Mahjong.  I've been schooled in mahjong by one of the best and enjoy it so much I had to buy a table and my own set of tiles.  Food! I've been introduced to cuisine I've never sampled before like Thai curry, and Filipino pansit and don't get me started on the wonders of Indian food.  In the winter, I love stocking up on sugar tangerines from the grocery store.  And now in warm weather, small mango kidneys.  "Do you think Harris Teeter carries these?" I ask Gene hopefully and he just shakes his head, "Afraid not". 

So, you see, as much as I like things to be cut and dry, when it comes to this place, this island, it's not.  There's no easy answer. No right or wrong.  It's all circumstance.  All based on my comfort, my likes, my dislikes, my moods.  It's not black.  It's not white.  It's a big ole gray blob.

I feel fairly certain that I will never look at Gene and declare that I love it here, that this is my home and I never want to go back.  But for now, as we run side by side by the sea, I know that this is a wonderful adventure, an opportunity that not everyone gets, and it's a chapter in my life story.  So I look over, into those brown eyes, the same ones I gazed into and promised for better or worse, and smile and say, "I'm ok".  And I am really.  I'm ok. 

The Librarian

"Girl, girl," she would shriek, "come here!".  Her command would send me rushing across the room as swiftly as my little Stride Rite encased feet would carry me.  "Girl, follow me".  And I did, for if I didn't, her claw of an hand would reach out and encircle my forearm and forcefully guide me in the intended direction.  She had no idea of the force her bony fingers inflicted on my tender skin.  No idea that her fingers would leave a rosary ring of bruises just above my elbow, where she chose to grab to maneuver me. 

Who was this demanding old woman using the force of words and gnarled hands to secure my assistance?  Who was this old woman that croaked orders like a wicked witch in a classic fairy tale?  Her name was Sister Sylvia and she was the librarian in my Catholic elementary school the whole nine years I spent there.  For nine years, she was the woman in the black polyester dress and veil that barked an explanation of the Dewey Decimal system, threatened fines for late books and kicked my sister-in-law, Sheila, out of the library for, of all things, whistling.

Sister Sylvia was an institution at St. Stanislaus, proof being that my grandmother had her way back in her elementary school days.  She wasn't a librarian then, but a teacher, a young one, fresh into her nun's habit.  And even then she was mean as hell, grabbing my grandma Mimi by the ear to discipline her during daily mass, slapping small hands with wooden rulers, not doing a whole lot of smiling, but a whole lot of yelling instead.

The thing was, you were never going to be on Sr. Sylvia's good side.  She was never going to pat you on the head and call you "good girl" just "girl! girl".  And I hated that more than anything.  The fact that she couldn't be bothered to know my name or remember my name, but just called me "girl", like I wasn't so much a person but a gender.  Once in my teen years my father, while disciplining me for one of my many antics, called me "girl" and it bugged me so much that to this day I remember it.  Not that I got in trouble for who knows what, but that he, in a moment of anger, called me by the same "pet" name as Sr. Sylvia, "Girl!".

Anyways, despite the fact the Sr. Sylvia ruled over the school library, all the girls in class always wanted to be picked to "work" there during class time.  It gave us a little joy to find a small bit of favor being chosen to help, but it was also the novelty of using date stamps and ink pads, wielding a little power over kids who had to fork over nickles in overdue fines, secretly adding a couple extra days to due dates for our friends (wink, wink).  And for what it's worth, she did instill in us a certain respect for books, drilling into our young minds that a library was a place for silence and respect, a place to go to find answers to our questions and find joy in words.

So, when a librarian stood up at the parent orientation meeting at Reagan's school and put out a plea for parent volunteers to help out on occasion, something inside me clicked.  Like Sr. Sylvia kicked on a switch in my head.  I could almost feel her thin, bone-like fingers guiding me to the library a few days later where I stood at the check out desk and asked "can I sign up as a volunteer?". And just like that, I fell in love with the library all over again.

So since school started this past fall I've scoured the volunteer calendar, matched up available days in mine and signed up for a couple of hours each week.  It's not brain surgery, just a lot of shelving and straightening.  It's a lot of me standing at the bookcases muttering the alphabet under my breath reminding myself that K comes before L and not vice versa.  It's a little of me throwing my hands up seeing that someone shelved a couple of Williems in with the Williams.  I like handling books.  I like stumbling upon stories my children will enjoy.  Those that make me smile, I stack behind the desk and check out under my name to read to the kids at bedtime.  But I especially like the quiet.  So much so that one day while ending a phone call with my dad so I could rush of to the library I confided to him "I wish they would offer me a job".  And wouldn't you know, just an hour later as I crouched in front of the "D" bookcase filing away picture books, the teaching library stooped near me and asked "Would you be interested in becoming a paid substitute for the library?".

It doesn't get better than this!  Still loads of free time to participate in the kids' activities, to explore Hong Kong, to shop, and lunch and laugh with new friends, but a day here and there to ease back into the work force and earn some "pocket money". (When's the last time you heard that one? Pocket money?)

So now when a librarian has the flu or fancies a day's vacation, you might just find me behind the circulation desk at HKIS lower primary library.  And now there's no date stamp and ink pad, but a little scanner gun that beeps and bings and bongs.  There are no drawers filled with informative index cards, but an online catalogue to scan and search. No nickles for late books, just gentle reminders and handwritten notes sent home. And there's no Sr. Sylvia, croaking out orders from inside her black nun's habit.  But there is this "girl" and she's a very, very happy one.

Taiwan Travels

It wasn't long after we arrived that I learned ex-pats here travel.  A LOT.  And I'm not talking about business trips, though Lord knows there's plenty of that going around.  I'm talking about leisure travel.  And I think there are several factors that play into that wanderlust. 

First, this is a great jumping off point.  Think about it.  If planning a vacation from US soil, would you really want to spent 16+ hours in an airplane to see Cambodia?  Well, yeah, you might.  But in that case, it's going to be a big thing, a big costly thing.  From Hong Kong, it's a puddle jump.  Two, three, four hours and welcome to (insert name of Asian country here)!  You can do it, just like that, easy.  Kids have a 3 day weekend?  Perfect!  In the States you might head to the Outer Banks for a get away, here Singapore.

Second, for the most part ex-pats are living on ex-pat packages from their companies.  So, free from the ties of mortgage and automobile loans, there might be a little extra bank here and there to pull together for get aways.

Third, it's a get away from Hong Kong.  It's a time filler.  It's something to do, to occupy your mind so you're not sitting around missing home, your "real" home, the place with grass, and top 40 radio stations and supermarkets that carry Rotel and Suddenly Salad.

And lastly, you only live once, right?  See the world.

So, with all that said, as my 37th year approached my husband asked me what I wanted to mark the glorious day of my birth.  I showed him a flyer.  A flyer for a group trip to Taiwan.  And I wanted to go.

The thing is, how could I not go?  Sponsored by the American Women's Association, the trip was reasonably priced and all inclusive.  Did I have a deep, burning desire to see Taiwan?  No.  But the trip fit.  Many of these sponsored tours are days and days and weeks long.  With two small kids, I can't do that.  Taiwan was scheduled as a 3 day weekend trip that left early on a Friday and returned on Sunday evening.  Couldn't be a more perfect fit!  So, Gene being Gene, he said "ok" and "have fun".  And just like that, I was registered for Taiwan.

So without further ado, here's my Taiwan trip in photos:

We travelled and toured mostly outside of Taipei, in the lesser know areas of Danshuei and Keelung. 
Main mode of transportation here was the motor scooter. I was never camera quick enough, but I saw men riding with multiple children on scooters and even dogs sitting on the "floor" of the bikes as they sped down the street.

We went to a temple. Not entirely different from the many I have visited here in Hong Kong. A temple is a temple. Very smokey with multiple altars to multiple gods and lots of food offerings brought for the gods. Our tour guide explained to us that at days end, the offering where usually gathered up and distributed to the poor.

Check out the "love" bridge, a popular location for lovesick men to drop to their knees and propose marriage.
. 

This is some kind of fort. Had we skipped this part of the tour, I would not have lost any sleep over it. Fort, yay, whoopie! Just in my opinion. Some people may really dig forts, just not this girl.

There were two things I especially enjoyed on this trip.  The first was our visit to Yeliu.  It's an area on the Pacific where erosion from wind,water and rain have carved out these really cool rock formations.  When I saw it I thought it looked like the surface of the moon.  When Gene saw the pictures he said "it looks like the surface of the moon!".  Great minds, right?

My other fav?  One evening we had a couple of hours free before dinner so six of us ladies wandered down to the night market.  There are lots of markets here in Hong Kong, but I daresay they are mostly shopping markets.  Though this market had it's share of stalls selling socks and toys and dog sweaters, the majority of it was food vending.  So interesting to see the cuisine of other cultures!  I'm not a crazy adventurous eater, but I am not afraid to try things, within reason.  The frogs stewed in some kind of crazy gravy in a huge vat?  Not my thing.  But bubble tea?  I'll try that!  Look at this picture.  See the cup on the right with the black beads in the bottom?

That's bubble tea.  It was described to me as a cold, sweet, milk tea with "bubbles" at the bottom, kind of like tapioca.  Well, tapioca isn't black (last time I checked), but I'll try it anyways.  What's the worst that can happen?  It tastes like funk, so you toss it, right?

It was actually good.  And loaded, I mean loaded, with caffeine.  Talk about a pick me up!  But the bubbles, not sure how I felt about them.  They give you a big, fat straw so you suck the beads right up with your drink.  After my first sip, one of the ladies looked at me, "well?".  "I feel like I'm chewing an eyeball," was my reply. 

I made it through 3/4 of the tea before I pitched it.  I just couldn't decide how I felt about chewing my drink.  But if you ask, at least now I can say "why yes, I have had bubble tea".

Here's some shots of the food stalls in the Keelung night market.

This is the froggie place.  Now tell me, would you eat that?

I must say, after this trip, I've come to appreciate one thing about Hong Kong even more.  Here in Hong Kong, you can get by with English.  Most signs are written in both Cantonese and English.  It's easy.  Most people speak English, at least enough to relay basic messages and if they don't, it's easy enough to grab someone nearby who can transfer.

In Taiwan, use of the English language is few and far between.  At the night market, 99% of the vendors signage was written in Mandarin.  It was hard to sample anything when you don't know exactly what they are selling.  Gross food items aside, I have a nasty shellfish allergy so in order to avoid becoming violently ill, I had to avoid most of the street food.  But I did try some skewered, candied strawberries and they were the kind of sweet yummy goodness that makes your belly ache.

Friends and family have asked "how was your trip to Taiwan" and with a bob of my head, I give them a half-hearted "good".  And this is why.  They trip, though very well planned, organized and executed, was group travel.  The last time I did group travel, I was seventeen, a senior in high school, and, yes, filling condoms with water and tossing them out our hotel room window.  It was a lot of on the bus, off the bus, be back here in a half-hour type travel.  And it was Taiwan, a nice place to visit, but no major sites to see, no picture postcard material. 

But the main reason the trip was just good and not GREAT!, was because this guy was missing

And these guys too

Because without them, life's journeys just aren't magic.