You know you've been in Hong Kong a long time when...

...you choose to venture out even though a Typhoon Signal 3 has been hoisted. Maybe umbrellas would have been good to bring, though!

 

Yesterday was actually a Signal 8 weather warning, so school was cancelled. You can see the debris that blew in our neighbours' patios with the strong winds.

You know you've been in Hong Kong a long time when...

...you find yourself taking photos of a rare blue sky.

You know you've been in Hong Kong a long time when...

...you are nearly reduced to tears over tins of apricot nectar.

(You can't buy apricot nectar here. An Aussie friend brought these back from Brisbane so that I could make Craig's apricot chicken dish.)

You know you've been in Hong Kong a long time when...

...you take photos of cows, in case the kids have forgotten what they look like.

You know you've been in Hong Kong a long time when...

...eight minutes seems like an incredibly long time to wait for a train.

Kindergarten schoolwork

 

Wordless Wednesday (twenty seven)

Mooncakes

Two years ago we tasted our first mooncake . At the time we didn't really know much about the delicacy or appreciate its history. We are slightly more knowledgeable now. We know now that Mooncakes are Chinese pastries traditionally eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese tea during the Mid-Autumn Festival. They are round (moon-shaped), measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick, filled with ground lotus and sesame seed paste, bean paste, lard, nuts, dates, fruit, duck egg-yolk, and other ingredients. Mooncakes usually have an imprint on top with Chinese characters.

This is one of the mooncakes given to us this week.

Only one member of the Harvey family liked the taste. Can you guess who it was?

I've heard that Western companies like Starbucks and Haagen Dazs recently cashed in on the mooncake market too, creating popular mooncakes made of chocolate and icecream. So, like the lanterns in my previous post, mooncakes have succumbed to commercialisation. Here are some examples of less traditional mooncakes now available to purchase in Hong Kong.

Lanterns

It's Mid-Autumn Festival...time for the year's fullest moon, sweetest mooncakes, and lanterns galore. The latter adorn estates, train stations, and shopping centres all over Hong Kong. Some lanterns are traditional in their colour and design. However, as you can see from the photos below, lanterns come in just about every shape or style you can imagine.

Carla, you would love these sweet little turtle lanterns.

I think these fish are my favourite of all the lanterns.

And (sigh!) my children demonstrate their good taste by liking the Angry Birds ones the best!

Here are Tirzah and Keegan with the paper lanterns they made at a church craft activity on the weekend.

On Sunday we saw a display in Victoria Park of an enormous fish sculpture made from traditional Chinese lanterns. Later we found that it broke a Guinness Record with its 2,360  lanterns.

Chillin' on our day off

As Hong Kong has numerous ice skating rinks at shopping centres we frequent, our children have spent many an occasion watching the skaters and longing to have a turn.

Today was a holiday from school due to tomorrow's Mid-Autumn Festival. Some ICS friends invited us to join them at a Kowloon mall called Elements to ice skate with them.

Jemilla did very well for her second time ever ice skating.

I rented a penguin for Tirzah to push around on the ice. It was excellent to help her keep her balance.

Keegan's technique involved holding on to the edge for dear life and doing his best to remain upright. It worked...for the most part.

 

There were quite a few falls on the ice by all present; excluding me, that is, but as I have no photographic evidence of my completely dry jeans at the end of the session you will just have to take my word for it!

Girls' Day Out

One Saturday a colleague from ICS had a hankering for a cooked breakfast, so five of us took the MTR to Wan Chai to a famous restaurant called The Flying Pan that serves breakfast 24 hours.

Lauren and Rachel

Sophia and me

Amy

We finished our leisurely and delicious brunch around noon. I was asked to show them around some of the Salvation Army stores.  I said that charity shopping was not really my thing and...who am I trying to kid? Of course I jumped at the chance to go op shopping! We made it to six stores along the Island line.

Here we are waiting for the tram...

And here's Rachel with a few of her purchases.