Cuisine

Hong Kong is known around the world for its fabulous cuisine. Its unique blend of Chinese food and Western dishes gives the food a unique niche.

We were able to experience the greatness of the Hong Kong food on several occasions … in our own personal way.

1. Within three hours of landing at the Hong Kong airport, we had sniffed out the nearest Outback Steakhouse and were munching on a Bloomin’ Onion.
2. The third night, we found a local Italian joint called “Fat Angelos” – with a name like that, you know it was good.
3. When we caught a glimpse of “Mrs. Fields Cookies” out of the corner of our eyes one afternoon, they immediately welled up with tears.
4. We had never dined at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company while living on U.S. soil, but gave it a big thumbs up after having dinner there atop Victoria’s Peak.
5. We all just about had heart attacks when we discovered there was a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop at the airport. Getting a dozen donuts through security and home to Shanghai is no small task, but mission accomplished.

Disney Names

One of the more interesting things we noticed at Hong Kong Disneyland was the choice of “English names” for the workers at both the hotel and the park. We have blogged several times about English names, but the names chosen by the Disney staff seemed much more “American” than we’ve seen in our nine months in China.

Some of our favorites:

Vernon
Ricky
Fanny
Larry
Agnes
Dorothy
Kenny
Yolanda
Vincent
Arthur

Joe and its derivatives also seemed to be very common. We saw multiple instances of:

Joe
Jo
Joey
Joanne
Joseph
Josephine

One poor guy, though, must not have been able to make up his mind because he just went with "Man." We hoped to find "Woman" later in the day, but were unsuccessful.

Maybe it’s just part of the charm at “The Happiest Place on Earth”. It sure does bring a smile to your face when you see a native Hong Kong man in his mid-50s named “Ethan.”

Disneyland - Asia Style

We apologize for our brief hiatus from blogging. We have just returned home from our first family trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth." Scott, Annie, and Juliet just concluded four fun-filled days in Hong Kong at the Disneyland Resort.

The park and hotel are a little over two years old and much smaller than the Disney parks in the U.S. However, it was perfect for Juliet and provided plenty of opportunity for hobnobbing with the Disney characters:

Success – Sort Of

Mr. Chen succeeded in getting keys made for our front door … just not how we expected. On Saturday, he was supposed to come pick us up for errands at 2pm. At 1:15 the doorbell (which plays the Star Spangled Banner by the way) rang. Unfortunately, Scott was just exiting the shower and Annie had not yet donned a brazier for the day. Thus, Juliet answered the door.

A minute later, Juliet screamed, “Mom … Dad … Mr. Chen is outside with a Chinese guy” (which narrows it down to about 700 million possible people). Mr. Chen apparently had determined if you can’t bring the key to the keymaker then you should bring the keymaker to the house.

When Scott was finally able to throw on some clothes a few minutes later, he made his way outside. However, due to the rain, he wasn’t able to see exactly what was going on. All he could see was that the hood was up on our van and he could hear a fair amount of scraping and chiseling. We have no earthly idea what was transpiring, but ten minutes later Mr. Chen knocked on the door with the proudest “I did it” grin you can imagine.

Happy Easter

In case any of you were wondering, the Easter Bunny does deliver to China as the girls made out with a nice bunch of loot. Juliet was quite shocked when she awoke to a house full of eggs hidden throughout. She was flabbergasted the Easter Bunny got the memo that we had relocated halfway across the world. She said it was "magic" - just like Santa Claus!

Below are some pics of our "magical" first Easter in China.

Give 'em what they want...

So after numerous e-mails clamoring for pictures, we finally uploaded the last two months worth of pictures off the digital camera...enjoy!

In February, we celebrated Juliet's half-birthday at school...it's a little thing they do for all the summer birthdays. On your special day, you (or rather your mommy) get to cover a bulletin board with pictures and tell your life story to your classmates. We still can't believe we have an almost six year old in our midst!

At the beginning of March, the entire Kindergarten took a field trip to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. Can't tell Juliet goes to an international school, huh?

Lillie Maud has quickly learned the art of posing and she and Annie often have numerous photo shoots throughout the day. Here's just a few of our favorites...

She loves wearing sunglasses (even here in smoggy and gray Shanghai), but unfortunately, her nose is too flat to keep them up. Luckily, she quickly realized that if you turn them upside down, they stay on perfectly!

And last, but not least, modeling her bunny ears from GiGi...

Finding the KEY to success

We needed a few new sets of house keys made for the front door this week. Since Ace Hardware (the home of the helpful hardware man) does not exist here in China, we had no idea where to begin. Therefore, on Wednesday, Scott tasked Mr. Chen to have a few house keys made.

When Mr. Chen came to pick up Annie later that day, he gave her the keys. Unfortunately they were about 1/8 inch too think to fit in any lock ever created by mankind.

So Thursday morning, Scott informed Mr. Chen the keys were “bu hao” (no good). By the time Mr. Chen picked Annie up in the afternoon he had a new set of keys. Unfortunately, these keys were “bu hao” as well which prompted him to get another set made on his way to pick Scott up from work. We guess at this point he determined there was a potential for operator error (because we’ve never used keys before in our lives) because when he and Scott arrived home, he leaped out of the van to try them himself. A few seconds later, Annie (from inside the house) heard a loud Chinese voice let out a big “bu hao” followed by what we can only guess was a couple of “f bombs” in Mandarin.

Friday morning arrived with Mr. Chen clinging to a refund from Carrefour as he decided to take a stab at another store. Tonight he was like a kid in a candy store as he tried the fourth set of keys - just sure this would be the set that would end his frustrating endeavor. A few seconds later the defeated man sighed a “bu hao” again as he went home for what we can only guess was a very, very stiff drink.

Signs Your Foster Child is Ready for Potty-training...

After hearing a massive explosion from across the room, you ask said child if she needs a new diaper and her response is, "Huh...yeah."

When you lay the child down to change her dirty diaper, she says in her most reassuring voice, "It’s OK Daddy, it's just yi dian, dian." That translates to "just a little" for all you non-Chinese speakers.

After cleaning up the blowout and prior to taking it outside to the trash (because it was NOT in fact, just yi dian, dian), said child turns to you and ever so politely says, "Thank you Daddy."

Happy Year of the Rat

One the big events we failed to inform you about in our blogging hiatus was our Chinese New Year experience here in Shanghai. We had a very nice holiday filled with fun, family, and most importantly … fireworks.

We naive Americans thought the 4th of July was the pinnacle of fireworks displays. Little did we know that a few nights of Chinese New Year would put the 4th of July to shame. On the “Chinese New Year’s Eve” the 360 degree horizon was so alight in a plethora of multicolored fireworks displays and “sonic booms” that we didn’t know whether to enjoy the beauty or take cover.

So were these displays “official” gatherings of cities, villages, etc? No, these were completely private showings shot off from driveways, apartment balconies and living room windows. Fireworks were all over the place and “everything” was available. I don’t think any of the 1.2 billion people in China missed the opportunity to light a six feet strand of “Black Cats.” It was pretty surprising the day we went out to the store and saw a fireworks stand that provided the opportunity to buy a $75 crate of fireworks the Super Bowl organizers would be envious of.

Here’s a picture of Scott holding the “sparklers” they sell here in China – looks safe for the kids doesn’t it? Scott wanted to roast marshmallows with these things, but Annie thought better of it due to safety concerns (that, and marshmallows cost about $15 of bag).

Sleepless Mornings

Last summer we were told one of the reasons our grass didn’t get mowed was because they weren’t able to mow on the weekends because it “disturbed the residents.” Today and yesterday mornings (Saturday and Sunday) we were awoken by a man sledge hammering walls in the house behind us at 6am. Like a pounding headache the incessant racket drove Scott from his peaceful slumber to a state of sheer frustration. He thought through his options in his head:

1. “I could call the office. Oh wait they’re still at home sleeping just like all the other sane people around here.”
2. “I could go scream obscenities at the man. However, I am not the one wielding a sledge hammer.”
3. “I could pretend to be a building inspector and tell him he’s violating code. However I left my building inspector costume back home in Dallas.”

Defeated, Scott decided he had no other option but to make a pot of coffee and wait until later when he could call the office and petition to get sledge hammering lumped into the same noise category as lawn mowing.

Bu Chou Update

Bu Chou seems to be doing pretty good. Her new shunt appears to be working well and we haven't had any hospital stays for over 6 weeks now (new record since she came to live with us in November).

She's learning English very quickly and as we type this is singing her version of "Jesus Loves Me" at the top of her lungs:

"Jesus lub me the bible. Yea Jesus lub me por the bible tells me son. Little ones me the bible, the is weak and he is strong."

Blogging

Dear Friends and Family,

We sincerely apologize for the unexplainable absence from blogging. We really don’t have a good excuse for not writing other than we have been very busy at home and work, but given that we live by the motto “sleep is rest for the lazy” we probably can’t get away with the busy excuse.

We tried to come up with a good reason, and tossed around the following ideas:

1. “We have spent the past two months trying to keep the kids healthy through cold and flu season.” Since Scott and both girls all sound like they have emphysema we decided that wouldn’t fly.
2. “Scott ate some poisoned Duck Tongue while on a business trip, and lost feeling in his fingertips so has been unable to type.” If this had really happened, he could have dictated to Annie despite the inoperability of his digits, so we once again opted for something else.
3. “Annie was knocked into a coma by falling Styrofoam during her daily jog.” The falling Styrofoam is very believable but Annie jogging? Not so much.
4. “We had dinner at the new Applebee’s in town and all got the runs.” While this did happen, we didn’t think ya’ll would believe that four people could have diarrhea for that long.

So all we can really say is we’re sorry and we promise to keep you abreast of our “going-ons” on a more regular basis from now on.

Love,
The Richardsons