Happy Easter!

Have to admit, it felt weird celebrating Easter with just the two of us. But, we had a nice day. Went to Mass at 12:30pm, and it was absolutely packed. Perhaps they need more than one english mass. Got there just in time to get a seat, but there were at least 30 people standing in the back. During the holy water sprinkling part, the priest, who was an old white guy, thoroughly took pleasure in soaking everyone. he'd stand right in front of you, shake the wet palm branch in your face, then grin as you'd have to take off and clean your glasses to see again. When it came time to receive Eucharist, everyone stood up and surged up front en mass. No orderly row filing as in the states. But everyone went back and sat down after that, even the people standing in the back didn't leave early. Finally, the recessional song was the "I love him" gospel song from Sister Act. Asian gospel is one thing I never thought I'd see. :)

After Church, we went out to the new territories to play beach volleyball in a park. They only had one court, but it was very nice. There was only 5 of us, so we got lots of play time. I actually dug one of Drew's hits!

We the had an Easter great of egg yolk custards in little short bread crusts. Might be my new weakness in HK. They make every morning hot and ready. Ty also had like meat filled pies which were also delicious. And what's Easter without chocolate, so we had some truffles. Drew brought several bags of them from the US to give out as gifts, and it's been a real struggle for me to not eat them all.

Now watching the Florida vs. MI basketball game and Drew is getting pretty excited. Final Four, here we come!

Sofa Spectacular and MI Basketball

On Sat afternoon, it was raining all day, so we traded in our beach volleyball shoes for sofa shopping shoes. Took a double decker bus out there that was completely empty except for us for the first 10 min of the journey. 28 floors of outlet madness. I'm surprised we didn't kill each other, so this must be a testament to how our relationship is progressing. All of the floors in a mall are organized by content here, so you get a whole floor dedicated to shoes, a while floor for clothes etc. I still don't understand why they group them like that. Yes it's easy for the consumer, but how does that help the stores to see how their competition is doing? Apparently I missed that day in Econ 101. Is it called the car lot phenomenon?

We found several nice couches that would work for us, but they were all super expensive. As in hk$24,000 to hk$38,000, or $3,000ish to over $5,000. Maybe we just weren't prepared to spend that much money. Anyways, at the end of our 4 hour shopping day, we walked away with a lot of info but no couch. We then found a similar one on Craigslist for only hk$10,000, or $1,500. Drew channeled his inner salesman, and talked them into the sofa, tv stand, dehumidifier, and maybe a massage recliner for hk$10,000. Not too shabby! Our sea shipment arrives this Wed. yahoo! And this Craigslist stuff is getting delivered on the 14th. It's all coming together. It also means that by the end of April we will be ready for visitors! Kirchner b&b will be open!

After shopping, we went out to dinner at a really fantastic Thai place. I got a curry hot pot, which was really curry held in a stone duck bowl covered with a croissant and baked. Delicious.

So the Waldo, or chicken head from the previous lunch picture deserves some explanation. When you order a whole chicken like that, the customers want to know they are being served one whole chicken, not the scraps from several. So, they give you the head to prove it was one whole chicken. People don't actually eat it.

Oh yeah, MI basketball! Yahoo!

Shek'o Beach

Had a really fun day yesterday. Took the Mtr and a double decker bus to Shek'o Beach, one of the prettiest sand beaches on the island to play some beach volleyball! It was a beautiful day, only slight haze, low humidity, not too hot. The beach was very nice. Good sand, and the water was about 70 degrees, so nice and refreshing. Apparently there are legitimate shark concerns here, so all of the public beaches have shark nets surrounding the swimming areas. The waves were fairly nonexistent yesterday, but apparently some days are good enough to surf. We'll have to try that out sometime. Beach volleyball is not allowed on this beach during prime summer months, probably because it gets so packed, so this was of the rare days to play on this particular beach.

Met a lot of really nice people. A 6-4 Danish guy named Olaf was great competition, along with the event host named Gui, and a French couple who live very close to us. Starting to make volleyball friends! Also got recruited to play on an indoor team this May on a team called Kiss My Pass. Should be fun.

Near the beach was a picnic and BBQ area. That seems to be a popular way to spend an afternoon. They have first come first serve BBQ pits, and they just cook and hang out. Add a bit of grass, and you'd think you were in America. There was also a "mini golf" course, aka cement putt putt. I thought it was a weird rock garden at first.

After a few hours of play, the whole group went out to lunch at a local Thai place. Pics are from the meal. Where's Waldo?... First person to find it gets a prize. Needless to say, it was all delicious.

Today is rainy and windy, and Drew and I spent the morning watching March Madness, in particular the unbelievable comeback by MIchigan. Perhaps I'm still not qualified to be a hard core fan yet, but I thought they were done for. This afternoon, we will be heading to Ap Lei Chau, an outlet store mall on the south side of the island to look for a sofa.

I also managed to cook an edible Asian meal. It was supposed to be sweet and sour pork, but it turned out to be more of a stir fry.

Last pic is of a busy intersection that has this pedestrian roundabout above it. Pretty cool huh?

Trig the Terror

Trig has decided to be a shithead this morning. First, he peed in his kennel overnight. I suppose we still need to be monitoring his water intake after 7pm. I was hoping he was maturing into a responsible adult and would figure that out on his own. He is 10 months old now after all. Second, he's discovered the numerous benefits of jumping up with his front paws on the kitchen counter. Drew had breakfast this morning of yogurt and muesli. He then left his bowl on the kitchen counter. While I was luxuriously sleeping in, Trig decided to jump up to lick the yogurt bowl. You can see where this is going. In the process, he knocked the bowl off the counter and it shattered on the floor. Now, some might be asking, whose fault is this really? Was it Trig's trying to go after a few more licks? Was it Drew's for leaving a dirty dish in paws reach? (Never mind washing it himself) Or was it mine for leaving Trig unsupervised in the early morning hours? The truth is, it was all three of us, but I'm going to blame Trig. Luckily, the dish (which was part of a set included in our rental furniture) is Ikea, and as we all know now there is an Ikea in HK, so I will be visiting again this afternoon to find a replacement. The annoying part is, after I cleaned up the shards, then went in the bedroom to change, I came back to find Trig standing over a bunch of bananas. He is really liking this counter thing, apparently. It's a whole new world up there! Operation teach Trig to don't jump up on the counter has officially commenced. Below is a pic of him looking guilty.

On a brighter side, Drew and I went out to dinner last night with an old coworker named Pavel who has lived in HK for a few years. He is our inside scoop to this place. Last night he took us to Mongkok in Kowloon, the street shopping Mecca of HK. There is a women's market full of clothes (this time it's Karen's turn to get excited), a shoe market with dozens of shoe shops, and many others. The pics are from the women's market. The unbelievable thing is that they pack everything up every night and stash it away somewhere. Those are not small tent things. Do they wheel all this stuff home, or just put it in an alley? The markets also had some sporting gear. Those are ping pong paddles, no I'm sorry, table tennis bats for $100 to $250. Yikes. We also went to a giant shopping mall with a store that would make personalized bobble heads. How creepy would that be?

We also went to dinner at this delicious Taiwanese place. They had this noodles in a spicy peanut sauce dish that was fantastic. They also had bubble tea! I had green apple, and Drew had blueberry.

The $15 dollar mistake

Yesterday I went to visit my company's office. It's located just across the river, technically in Kowloon. To get there, I had to take our mini bus down to the subway, take the subway from Causeway Bay station to Central Station, walk the few underground blocks to the Hong Kong station, and from there take one more subway under the river to the Kowloon station. There were two options I could take for this last step. One subway line was called the Disneyland line, because ultimately it would take you to Hong Kong Disneyland. The other line is called the Airport line for the same reason. Typically for sub fares, you scan your card so they know when you enter, then you scan it again when you leave. They can see exactly how far you've come,and charge accordingly. Well, the Airport line is $15 if you take it all the way to the airport, and I knew that. But I assumed it would work like other lines, and would charge me a normal fare since id be getting off early. Nope. The moment I scanned to enter the train, BAM! Minus hk$100. Oops. Leah is saying, well your real mistake was not taking the Disney line. Who wouldn't take the Disney line? Disney or Airport....

The story gets better. I finally make it to my destination, only to be befuddled by the elevators. I'm trying to go to the 69th floor. Stu, no giggling. I have to take one elevator that only goes to odd floors up to floor 49, then switch elevators to another one that goes to odd floors 49 and up. Who designs buildings that way? I get the evens versus odds, but can't one elevator just go all the way up? I mean, there are 10 of them. Anyways. I finally walk into the office. My plan was to arrive at 11am, meet the office coordinator, meet the editor I'd be sharing a cube with, have her explain to me what she does for an hour, which would put us just around 12pm, Lunch Time! Should we go to lunch? Let's go to lunch.....

But the editor was out sick. Thanks for telling me. The office coordinator points at an empty desk, this is where she would be. Shows me the break room. The view would be great if the building wasnt constantly engulfed in clouds. I'll try to get you an office access card. Great. And that was it! 15 min of nothing for 1 hour each way of traveling.

Just to clear things up, I will be working from home 99% of the time. Just wanted to meet fellow office folks. This is a pic of the night view from our balcony last night. See the tallest building on the left? That's where the office is. The other pic is of Easter decor in a super fancy mall between the subway station and the office building. Why do they celebrate Easter here? Only 12% of the Hong Kong population is either Christian or Catholic. 50% are atheists. Perhaps thats why the Easter decor is all bunnies and no crosses. Still....

Sofa shopping

Yesterday I spent the day going to sofa shops. We are going to try to find something nicer and Asian inspired to bring back with us to the us for our currently empty living room upstairs. For some reason I was expecting an American furniture warehouse/Ikea setup where there would be lots of sofas to look at and try out. However, every shop I went to had maybe 5 sofas, with everything else being online inventory. You pick the style out online, the pick the fabric in the shop, then it's delivered in about a month. Seeing as drew is very particular about the comfyness of his sofas, this will not work for us. Buy it without trying it? Ha. So hopefully this weekend, we will head down to Ap Lei Chau which is also on the south side of the island to check out some furniture outlets. They have larger warehouses down there bc they aren't right in the city.

Below are pic of my lunch. Curried noodles, with chicken kabobs, and pork dumplings, with iced milk tea, all for hk$35, or about $5. Not bad.

Today will be going into the platts HK office which is in the tallest building in the city. The top half is normally completely enshrouded in mist it's so tall. Wish me luck.

Flower Festival

On sun, Drew and I went to a flower festival being held in Victoria park which is really close to us. Basically, they had created large displays made from flowers, along with smaller displays with more unique flowers. Best $2 festival I've ever been to. There were so many flowers, I could just imagine mom's eyes popping out as she tried to take them all in. They made them into some really cool shapes. On top of that, drew and I decided to really experience the whole thing by having a lunch of fair food. Imagine our typical American fair food, hotdogs, turkey legs etc., just Chinese style. We have fish balls, which are basically meat balls made of fish and fried. We had a curry stick which was like a corn dog except filled with curried meat instead of a hotdog. There was crab fried on a stick, and these smaller steamed fish bites. Very seafood oriented as you can tell. For dessert, we had bean curd topped in sugar. That wasn't exactly my favorite. Not sweet enough and a it watery. But at least we tried it!

We then walked around the rest of Victoria park which was insightful. Because it was Sunday, all of the helpers, mostly Filipinos, Malaysians, and Indonesians, have the day off. So they all congregate in the park in small groups picnicking. I've never seen so many women in one place. They were having a great time though. Could imagine if your whole week was centered around your one day in the park....We also stopped by the Ikea. Every single coach was occupied by people just hanging out, not shopping. Apparently that's another fun thing to do on a sun is go hang out at the Ikea.

That evening, we were debating about going to a Hong Kong 7s rugby game, but as it turns out, those tickets are super expensive. The games go all day, and they only sell day passes for $400, not individual game tickets. We could hear the crowd from our balcony though, and our area of Causeway Bay was filled with drunken Europeans. And they dressed up. Superheroes, smurfs, NASA astronauts, lady bugs... Not sure what that has to do with rugby. There were tons of police officers out, which we've never seen before, and traffic was noticeably worse. But, a fun atmosphere.

Instead of rugby, we decided to go home and swim in our indoor pool, which is actually very nice. Good temp for swimming laps, and isn't chloreney at all. Drew needs to get his form down though. A bit trunkish for now. We then played ping pong. Drew is getting the hang of it very fast. I'll have him hooked yet.

Leah's getting cranky

And she's right, I haven't blogged in a few days. On sat, Drew and I first took the Mtr out to sheung wan, about three stops west of us to check out a volleyball meetup that occurs there every sat morning. My idea was just to see if they were any good so we know whether to come back next week or not. In the end, they sucked, so drew and I will have to keep looking. Does this make us vball snobs? Hopefully we can find some more advanced people to play with soon, bc I know we are both anxious to get back into it.

We then had lunch at a dim sum place. It's amazing how difficult it is to get a glass of ice water. The ice part is a difficult thing. They actually charge more for cold drinks than hot ones.

After that, I went back to the apartment to get out wireless Internet installed. It didn't take the guy very long, but we later noticed that unless you were in the room with the modem or just outside the open door, the signal sucked. Brainy Dad asked whether the walls were drywall or concrete. Uhhh.... "Tap on it." Owww, definitely concrete. At least now we know why our signal sucks outside of the room. It was a good thing that the Internet was installed when it was though, bc I had already managed to blow through 4 MBs of data out of 6 in the span of 5 days...oops. Apparently tethering your devices is a major data drain.

While I was doing Internet stuff, Drew took a bus out to Stanley, which is on the south side of the island, for a dragon boat practice. The team consists of Cigna coworkers, or I'd have done it too. Dragon boat racing is basically team canoeing with 18 people. It's not dragging a boat behind you... :) I later took the same bus to Stanley to meet up with drew and a few team members for drinks. The drive into Stanley is beautiful, as you pass by several gorgeous bays where you can swim. We'll have to do that this summer. Attached are a few pictures from Stanley itself. Felt very western with restaurants and bars lining the waterway. Will get a pic of the dragon boat at their first race in June.

Inspiration: dogs and mold. Mold and dogs. Moldy dogs. Doggy molds?

Wasn't sure what I was going to write about today; the morning seemed very uneventful. But then, inspiration strikes at the weirdest times.

Took Trig for a walk this morning, in a neighborhood next to ours. It actually was full of gated homes, not apartment complexes, so that was unique. Made it seem almost, almost, like the US, except all the homes were gated and had guard stations. Maybe like Cali? Anyways, there were tons of dogs out and about with their Filipino walkers. Imagine something like this (see pic). The funny thing is, I'm sure the helpers are supposed to be "walking the dog" but they really just meet their friends walking their dogs and stand in a big group talking with 10 dogs. And all of the dogs stare at you when you walk by. Feels like a turf war. Poor Trig wouldn't stand a chance.... Saw a legit Chow Chow, who was walking very slowly, probably due to the humidity clashing with his extraordinary amount of fur. Made me miss zoezoe.

I then went to the grocery store to get some laundry detergent, softener, and black pepper for SOMEONE who thought my first attempt at Asian cooking was bland. It was bad; I agree. Anyways, found the wall of Spam and spam substitutes. And I thought Marmite was bad. Could you imagine an Asian version? What's in that exactly?

Finally, I attempted to do laundry, which you might have guessed from my shopping trip, but was immediately thwarted. (Good vocab, eh Leah?) it was a front end loader that apparently hadn't been used for awhile, because when I opened the door, the unmistakeable smell of mold arose. You know how front loaders have that rubber jam with numerous folds that's supposed to keep the door watertight and catch items that weren't supposed to be washed? Imagine all of those folds full of jet black, thick mold. More like gunk. Hold out your hands, vomit into them, then toss it away.... I used an entire roll of paper towels (Chinese paper towels suck by the way. None of American Bounty, use and reuse stuff) just to clean it up. And I ran a mock load just in case. And I put the dehumidifier in the laundry room, it's permanent residence from now on. Bleh.

Love you all.

Trig Arrived!

My freakout was for naught. Trig arrived last night at 11pm safe and sound. Upon seeing us he immediately peed, which, for those of you who know him, is par for the course when his bladder is full. I noticed they didn't feed him the whole trip, so he was starving, but it also meant there weren't any pootastrophes in his kennel either. Just some very pee soaked towels. He did look a bit disheveled. Drew and I think his body went into immediate spring shedding mode the moment he got off the plane; I've never seen him shed this much before. He didn't sleep well at all last night. Not sure if that's because he was tired of being in his crate or if he was jet lagged too and didn't want to sleep. Either way, not many people in the Kirchner residence woke up rested this morning. We did take him for a long walk this morning, and discovered two things.

1. There is a cement dog park (like 15x15ft) only 5min away from the house. Not sure how often it is used, but we can at least let him off leash to sniff around and do his biz.
2. After about 20 min worth of walking up some very steep hills, we got to a neighborhood that's very quiet. As in you can walk down the middle of the road no problem quiet. So that was super nice, as we can take Trig up there without worrying about traffic and crowds.

Trig aside, I got to do some exploring yesterday, which I have a few photos from. Found the neighborhood Catholic Church, which surprisingly was just as nice as the main cathedral downtown. I also walked past the legendary Happy Valley Racetrack which has horse races every wed. and sun. nights. Drew and I will hopefully go check it out soon. The track is grass with Causeway Bay in the background. Finally, I went past a wet market, and one of the stalls was serving seafood, along with fried frog, hence the bucket of frogs in front of the store. Not sure what they do with the turtles... Also today is very foggy; compare this photo with yesterday's view.

Love you all

The first freakout

Last night, Leah was kind enough to drop Trig off at the Denver airport. He was supposed to fly to San Fran and then on to Hong Kong arriving today at 8pm. When I woke up this morning to check his freight tracking number, the most recent post said "From San Fran, To San Fran, H=Freight held off the flight.

AAAAAHhHHHHhhhHhhh


AaaaaAaaaaHhhHHHhHhHhH.......

Then commenced the tears. We should have never dragged Trig into this. Now he's stuck in San Fran for all of eternity. We are the worst parents in the world. Why didn't we follow Ethel from Downton Abbey's lead and give him up to a loving Aunt and Uncle so he could have a better home and play with his dark furred cousin all day. Tear.

Drew being the level-headed one of us two skyped his dad who then called United who then informed us that Trig did in fact get on the flight. The cause of the trouble was that the flight had been delayed by an hour, so they held Trig off until it was time to go. Whew. At least that's what United said. I suppose we really won't know for sure until he gets off the plane.

Yesterday, we did manage to get our Hong Kong ID cards which only took 20min. Compare that to your local DMV. I think the speediness was mostly due to the fact that they had over 60 booths with workers to process everything. Seems excessive, but my measly 20 min wait means I probably won't be approaching the HK government to give them a lesson on efficient use of resources anytime soon.

We also managed to get cell phones. Drew and I can text each other, but apparently they make you pay for any texts to people outside of your network. I can just hear all of the teeny boppers screaming. NO TEXTING??? Apparently in HK they use an app called Whatsup to essentially text and its free. Never heard of it.

The pretty view from our apartment helped calm me down this morning, as well as this song. Search on YouTube for "without you noteworthy". Pretty cool.

First morning

Drew and I got to Hong Kong at 8pm HK time on Mon. night. The trip went fine; no surprises.

For our first morning, we got up and showered, which was interesting bc each bathroom has its own small water heater that you turn on before showering. The bathroom also doesn't have a fan, which is funny considering the mold problem they have here from so much humidity. However, science question of the day. All of the mirrors fogged up, of course, except a 3x3 ft section in the middle of the main mirror. How is that possible? Any takers?

We then went grocery shopping, which was also a fun experience. We have to climb about 100 steps in order to get to our local grocery store, a very western place with milk, ice cream, and jiffy pb. I think I'll be ok here. Luckily it's down hill to get back to our apartment, arms full of groceries. Bought a dragon fruit just to try it; the pic of outside and inside are below. Surprisingly mild fruit and easy to peel.

Our relocation manager noticed a bulb was out and made an appointment with the complex fix-it guy. I was hoping he would just have the right bulb, so I wouldn't have to go buy it. However, he showed up, pulled out the bulb, and said I need to buy a new one. Thanks... Then he said to call him once I had the new bulb and he would put it in for me. Ha! I think I can handle it.

Finally, I will post a video of our place soon. All of the furniture is rented, as ours should be arriving in our sea crate in two weeks.

We don't have Internet in our place yet, but hopefully that will be remedied in a week. In the meantime, our clubhouse has Internet. Rest of today will be getting cell phones and HK ID cards.

Love to all

Saying Goodbye

Today's the day, the sun is shinning, the tank is clean.... Drew and I are officially leaving this morning at 9am for our big adventure. Said goodbye to the parents last night and Leah and Stu this morning. Stu made us all a really nice goodbye steak dinner, which was delicious as Stu is a chef, not just a cook. Saying goodbye is definitely the hardest part so far. When will I see you again? Make sure to Skype early and often! Please come visit... Tear.

Quick summary of our life the last few weeks. We got our house rented out to a really nice family. As they wanted to move in March 1st and we wanted them for tenants, we have been living in an extended stay hotel for the past 2 weeks. Needless to say, not happy to leave Denver, but very happy to leave that hotel. Trig agrees I think.

Drew has become a used car salesmen and managed to sell both of our cars a week apart. Bring on the sleeze..... Jk. Drew was channeling his Dad who is the best salesmen I've ever met. He could sell you your shoes that you are already wearing.

Finalized Trig's travel plans. He will be coming two days after us on a United flight. Leah will be dropping him off, and a pet importation company will get him through customs and deliver him to our apartment. Hopefully he will make it in one piece and won't be too traumatized or covered in poo. Thanks to Banfield Pet Hospital for helping us get all of this paperwork together.

I finalized with my work that I will be able to work remotely for them. It will be a half time position, which is perfect from a flexibility standpoint. I can work 40hrs one week, then zero the next as I accompany Drew to whatever office he's visiting that month. Sweet! I will be working on a network linear program for them, right up my ally.

When we arrive, we will be heading straight to our apartment. Hopefully, it will be full of rental furniture which we will use until our sea shipment arrives at the end of March. We will still have a few pieces of furniture to buy; Chinese Ikea here we come!

My goal is to blog every day we are not traveling. Hold me too it! I don't think I've ever written this much in my life and actually enjoy it. Must be channeling my inner Leah. Love do.

Love you all, and already missing you.