It's an early 4:41 a.m. here in Hong Kong, and this is when Charlie allows me to post - ha.ha. Only kidding. Jet lag still is affecting us. Somehow, you become wide awake around 2 a.m. and then hit the wall around 2:30 p.m. Dylan has now logged almost 14 hours of sleep! Post our Buddha exursion yesterday, he went down for a 3 hr. nap (highly unusual), was awakened for dinner and was NOT happy so we put him in the stroller where he immediately fell back to sleep.
He was totally asleep (with puppy in hand) as we navigated the thousands of people on the streets in HK on Friday night. Then we came back to the room, where he raced back to bed and fell asleep immediately. This is the child who avoids sleep most of the time, so we must be wearing him out quickly. Poor Kyle was hitting the wall quickly last night, too, but we only had one stroller, so he was the trooper and walked along right beside me until Charlie hoisted him for a bird's eye view on his shoulders.
Now with respect to yesterday, what Charlie neglected to mention was that the cable car is not just "feet" above the tree tops; it is hundreds and thousands of feet above land and water as it goes up the mountain tops. Of course, Dylan thought it might be fun to try and stand in his seat as I was almost having a heart attack. It was hard enough not to monitor the extreme heights while watching monkey child have no fear. Luckily, there was only a gentle breeze so the car was not rocking.
As most of you know, germophobes beware with Dylan. He is definitely the child of experience, so if it could be touched, jumped, poked, climbed, smelled or possibly even tasted yesterday, then Dylan tried it! While he and Kyle were examining the ground closely yesterday, Charlie looked down and yelled "snake!" Sure enough, there was a little guy just slithering away quietly from the boys. I will assume that he was just one of the friendly keepers of the Buddha.
Word to the wise - those with little boys and very few clothes (due to luggage restrictions) in travel need to have a stain stick. It's my best friend as the boys have literally stained their clothes within seconds of starting the day each day! A few quick swipes of the stick, and the clothes are ready for a brand new day - ha.ha.
We have been lucky to date with the weather. There is some kind of huge storm that has been sitting off of South China for the last week or so bringing more rain and overcast skies than usual, but yesterday it was only cloudy and probably in the high 70's. It made it much more comfortable vs. trying to climb the Buddha in the heat and the humidity. It's nice to be in shorts and t-shirts again for the next few weeks.
Hong Kong is extremely clean (i.e. they wiped the cable cars after each party departed from them and there is no trash on the streets) and the transportation is extremely efficient. We rode a speed train out to the Buddha yesterday. Philadelphia could learn many things from those here! Last night, Rita saw a "mall concierge" at the local shopping center, standing at the Directory sign, whose sole job was to tell you where to go in the Mall and answer any questions that you might have -- just like our local malls, right?!
Also, different from the past, hardly anyone is smoking here anymore. There are large "no smoking" signs in most public places and there is no spitting. Years ago, both smoking and spitting was everywhere. Last year when we were here, everyone was wearing a mask due to the H1N1 issues. This year, hardly anyone has a mask on which makes you feel more comfortable.
We are off to Stanley Market today by ferry and bus. The boys are definitely living their own "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" movie adventure.
We are still trying to get some pictures posted but we have had a few technical difficulties so once we can get that working, we'll get them posted!
L
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