Hong Kong Part 3

Day 3 we were off to Ocean Park. It's sort of an amusement park that is dedicated to saving wild life and the rain forest, ocean and anything else you can think of. Part of your admission actually gets donated to one of those things, I can't remember which. (Sheesh! I'm having a hard time spelling these days)
It was actually pretty cool because this place is waaay more popular than Disneyland (so far). Everyone that was going in was so excited to be there and take picures with the characters (all endangered species of some kind), which were actually (I think) mechanized! They weren't real people and they were walking around like they were. That was cool. That reminds me, there was a garbage can that was talking to people at Disneyland. It was actually pretty funny. We got some video of it. Too bad I can't post it.
So, it was cool that this kind of a theme park was so popular. I thought it said a lot of the people of this area in the world. There was virtually a small zoo inside the park, something that I mentioned to BJ on the train ride over that I would like to see, seeing as we were in China and we could probably see some cool stuff. Well, Ocean Park didn't disappoint. As you can see by our first pics of the day, we were able to see a few real giant pandas.
These pandas were actually rescued from an earthquake that destroyed their refuge in 2002(?). One of them died. They had pictures of the before and after. It looked like these ginormous boulders rolled down the mountains and basically buried their home. It was really sad. This panda that we have pictures of is my age. Seriously. Born in 1983. I can't remember his name, though. This was definately a highlight of our trip. I've never seen real pandas before. We also saw the chinese red pandas in a separate area.
I don't think we got pics, though. Wait, nevermind. Here it is. You have to look kind of hard to see them because they are sleeping.
Here are the Chinese Aligator (right) and Chinese Salimandar (left). The aligators were really small.
The Salimandar was the coolest of the two. The info on it said that they lived among the dinosaurs and are by far, the largest salimandars on the Earth today.
They had every species of goldfish imaginable. I had to get a pic of some chubby ones. They were so weird looking. As we kept looking they got weirder and weirder. It was crazy! I've never seen anything like it. These were fairly mid-sized compared to the rest. We saw the giant ones out in a pond outside, but we'd also seen those in Hawaii before (I think maybe my Aunt V has(d) one, too.
Ocean Park has two parts. There is a lower park that where the wildlife is a bunch of fun stuff for little ones (Livi would've loved it). Then there is an upper park that is more geared toward adults and teens. You have to ride a cable car to get there, a surprisingly fearsome thing... not as cool as the crystal cabin, of course, but we had a nice view of the bay. So this is us in line for that.
This is evidence of my undying love for my husband. I went on a ride with him called "The Abyss". Much like "The Rocket" at Lagoon. Having gone on the rocket before, I wasn't anxious to do it again, but it really wasn't so bad (I think they actually controlled the drop instead of just dropping like on the rocket because I could actually scream on this one. I couldn't scream on the rocket because of the velocity). I made sure we weren't sitting on the side that faced the ocean because the ride was on the cliff side of the mountain. I don't think I could've done that. Apparently thrill rides are not big there. They were the shortest lines we ever ever saw. Soooo the opposite here, don't you think? Then again, the US is kind of the thrill ride capital of the world. We also went on a roller coaster called the dragon. The worst roller coaster I've ever been on. That's all it deserves.
I bet you'll never guess what this is. A mariachi band! HAHAHA! This was the opening act for the water show (like sea world). BJ looks at me and says, "I went to China to get away from Mexico!" lol. So hilarious.
(This comment is derived from his mission to San Diego. He thinks of Mexico, he thinks of Tijuana--not that he went there, obviously against mission rules, but you know... just to clarify)
Here are just a few highlights of the show. This is another funny thing we observed. We stumbled on this auditorium inside the park and thought it would be fun to see a show so we went in to get some seats. Everyone was sitting waaaay up at the top and nobody was sitting in the front.
We're thinking, "Awesome! Front row seats!" so we took 'em. The auditorium literally filled up back to front, and was completely filled by the time it started. Isn't that weird? I told BJ it was like Church.
(He loves to sit in the front, so even if we are late, we will take the front row bench. Many of you may cringe at that thought, but I actually love it about him. We come, and I'm confident we will be blessed for our efforts. Okay, totally off subject! Typical me) We didn't stay for the whole show because I started getting too hot and we were worried about heat stroke, so we headed back to the hotel.
On our way back to the hotel we saw a decepticon. Looks like they need to revamp their gear. Okay seriously, the only domestic type cars we saw were toyota or izuzu, and they were all public transportation or worker cars. Every car we saw other than that was like really nice, like... really, we're talking, Mazarati, Jaguar, Rolls Royce...etc. We (for a 1/2 second) thought about getting a ride to the airport in one, just to be in it. All cars were clean. I hear this is not typical of China. More just Hong Kong and Singapore (not in China, but close to it :))
We headed to the roof top pool for a quick dip after Ocean Park and relaxed for awhile. I had a nice little chat with an Aussie lady. We saw absolutely no Americans until the last day, that story will come. It's funny... seriously.
This is the view from our room. We were upgraded to a room with a partial harbor view after we told them we were on a second honeymoon. We could still see some of the buildings from the laser show, but we couldn't see the actual show from our room.
Tired BJ is ready for bed. Meeee tooo. It was a long day of lots of heat. We were planning on swimming all day because we'd heard Ocean Park also had a water park. Not the pool for the dolphins, but with actual water slides and stuff, so we were a little bummed, but we still had fun over all. So that's the end of Day 3. More to come!

Hong Kong Part 2

The train had a seperate car that took us from Sunny Bay to our next destination. Can you guess where we went after we visited Budha?

Disneyland Honk Kong! It just opened recently and I've never been to Disneyland so we thought we'd check it out. (Plus we are going to Disneyland California for Christmas with the kids so we wanted a chance to just do what we wanted.)

The price was just a little more than you'd pay to get into Lagoon, so we figured it would be worth it. There was a mini parade just as we were walking off of Main Street. They sang in English and spoke in 3 other languages. Pretty fun.
I was really missing the kids and wanted to have a picture with Tigger and Pooh (Olivia loves them). I couldn't find the actual characters at the park, so I settled for this pic of my head with them just before boarding the ride.
Here we are on the river ride. Our guide was hilarious speaking in his Chinese English :) This was our last ride before leaving the park. We were pooped after cramming our day and were also suffering from jet lag.
At the end of Day 1 HK, I was starting to get a blister on my foot. We walked everywhere while we were there, so this wasn't surprising. I think I did pretty well seeing as I didn't need any bandaids until the very end of the first day.
After a good nights sleep we were off to start Day 2 with great expectation and intending to fill another day. We started with a stroll down the "Avenue of the Stars". The umbrella BJ is holding is to shade us from the sun. It really really does help with the heat. We observed that a lot of locals use them and thought we'd give it a shot. After the first day of it, we decided it was nice, but a pain in the patuti to carry around.
This avenue is off of the pier just a short walk from our hotel. It's the Chinese version of the one they have in Hollywood so it was fun to find a name we recognized! As you can see from the wear, they love him there, as well. We actually had to wait in a short line to get this pic.
Jackie's hands are surprisingly very large. I could barely stretch my fingers to fit his hand span! It was crazy.
We were also able to find this legendary icon... fairly easily. They have a statue of him ahead of it on the edge of the pier. His handprints aren't there, because the "Avenue of Stars" wasn't built until 2003. (If you don't know who Bruce Lee is, he is considered by many as the most influential martial artist of the 20th century as he helped bring Chinese martial arts to the west. He was born in the US and raised in Hong Kong) I was thinking of my dad when we took this one. He was fascinated by martial arts and Bruce Lee is obviously a big part of that.
This is downtown Tsim Cha Tsoi (Like the West Jordan of Hong Kong--where our hotel was) on our way to lunch at a super fancy place... really. :) We wanted to check it out to see if they had a dress code (it was super close to our hotel) and they did. The men had to wear jackets and BJ hadn't packed one. He'd packed everything else, but that. So we decided to forego it and went to TGI Fridays.
Maybe this is a story of a little bit of culture shock, but it's funny so here's the experience: It was the worst american food ever...lol and the drinks were the most terrible thing ever. We typically love TGI Fridays back home, but something must've gotten lost in translation with how to make the stuff. It was quite interesting. I know they typically don't like sweet things there so maybe that's why our drinks were like water.
HAHA! The chef brought us our drinks and was walking around in a dirty white tank-top and an apron. Then there was this really mad little chinese lady who walking in with us and she yelled at the hostess as we walked up. The hostess looked at her like, "Who are you?" and stared after her for awhile. The lady just took off into the resaurant and up to the managers (I think) office and then stormed back out. It was hilarious! We were the only patrons there, but every employee that we saw was totally stunned at first and acted like they had no idea who she was. The only mad people we saw wer old chinese ladies, lol.
We headed back to the hotel to take a nap (that blasted jet lag) and laid down for a couple of hours, which turned in to many many hours. We didn't wake up until 8 PM. We were a little bummed, but my second thought was, "I haven't had a guiltless, let alone, good and long nap in 2 1/2 years. This is great!" So we lost a day. Well, a half a day. We headed back to the Avenue of Stars to see the biggest laser show in the world, which we missed. We tried to catch it a second time, but kept missing it, so we just bagged it. The buildings still looked cool because they still had the cool lights on them aftewards.
We headed to temple street after that to see what kind of stuff we could find. Temple Street is a really popular flea market. They had some fun electronics and the other typical touristy stuff you'd see in a flea market. There were hole in the wall resaurants lining the streets with card tables and folding chairs set up all over the street to accomodate the crowds. We were a little tempted to try it, but I was scared of what we'd eat, and told BJ and wanted to stick to "safe" places. I'm not that brave. :) To end the night we headed back to the hotel and ordered room service for dinner and watch Rush Hour.
That was actually really fun, too. Our hotel had really really good food from all over the world with strong asian influence, so it was interesting to try it all. Don't forget to check back for part 3! We did so much and had so much fun! If you don't want to, my feelings won't be hurt. I'm mostly posting this for memories sake and wanted to get it on here while it's fresh on my mind.

Hong Kong Part 1...

Here is a step by step picture guide of our trip to Hong Kong. I hope you all enjoy!
This is me at the airport in San Francisco as we are boarding our flight to China. The plane behind me is an example of the plane we were on. One of those 747's with an upstairs portion.

This is our first glimpse of Hong Kong as were were being "shuttled" by the airport line of the city transit train.
The Hong Kong MTR goes approx 80 km/hr. You can make it from one side of Hong Kong to the other in a matter of minutes. It's made up of a series of islands and is very spread apart, so I would think this is quite a feat of accomplishment. We were very impressed by how organized it is and how easy it is to navigate. It carries approximately 2.3 million passengars a day. This is me, so excited to be in Hong Kong! We both were. It totally blew our minds that we were there. It was awesome! Although we were extremely exhausted from our 13 1/2 hour flight. :)
They offer a free bus to your hotel when you get off of the train so we took advantage of that. By the time we got on the bus it was completely dark outside. I, at least was surprised by this. This is a picture of our driver, who it was unlawful to speak to.
It was also unlawful to do these things as well. Throughout the city there were signs that spitting spreads disease and the fine is up to HK$5,000 which would be approx. US$700 or so. You couldn't spit in the garbage either.
Here we are again, totally stoked to be in Hong Kong! I love this picture. It's the first one we have had together in a looong time. Isn't he cute?
Here we are on the pier by the harbor after a good night's sleep. Hong Kong (obviously) has one of the biggest trading harbors in the world. This is almost right in front of our hotel.
BJ looking good in the hot sun and humidity. This was almost exactly the view we had from our hotel room.



This is the first pic with a smaller sky scraper. When we got back we were almost surprised by how small everything looks here.

This is us just before boarding the "Crystal Cabin", a gondola ride that takes you to the Ngong Ping. The biggest Budha in the world sits at the top.
There were a couple of places we rode things like this. The views were spectacular. Some of the best on our whole trip.
This is one of my favorites. You'll have to click on it to enlargen it. Because we were located by the airport (you can see part of it in the bottom of the pic) when this was taken, it looks like the city goes back into the mountains. From other views you see how it lines the shore. I love how it sits back in the mist.
Here comes "Big Budha" (there is a sign that actually calls it that), the biggest Budha statue in the world. Once we got off of the ride, we hiked up to it and visited the monestary that sits just below it.
This is just before we hike up the 268 steps to see Budha face to face. It was a lot harder than it looked. Especially in all of that humidity.
We made it to the top. BJ got some good video footage of me just after panting like a hot wet dog. :) I don't know how to get that stuff on the computer from our dvd camcorder, so you'll just have to use your imagination.
Here I am--after my breath returned to normal, that is. The peace sign is a big thing in China. So here is my due.
This is the view we had from Budha. I think that there is a beach just below us that is the most popular in Hong Kong called, "Repulse Bay". We wanted to go there, but we just had so much other stuff to see, plus we kind of lost a day, but I'm getting to that.
Here is BJ on the literal road to enlightenment on "Wisdom Path". I don't know if we actually saw it because there was a lot of construction there. At least we got a fun picture of the sign, though :).
This is where patrons come to burn incense to Budha. These areas were all around the monestary. It was interesting to see how they worshipped.
Here we are in front of the Monestary. We were surprised they didn't require us to take off our shoes like the one in Hawaii. Maybe it was Japanese there..?
This was amazing. I had to stop and take a picture. The first thing I noticed about the people there was that they were always running or walking really fast. Everyone was constantly going and this was the first chinese man I saw sleeping on the job! We actually saw it again when we went to Ocean Park (same scenario, digger with chinese man's feet up). Maybe it was the same guy. We watched him for awhile and noticed that he had a guy working with him that was constantly working. He didn't seem to be bothered by his sleeping partner.
This picture was actually taken on the way up the mountain. I wanted to wait to put it up because well, this is looking down on me inside the "Crystal Cabin".

Yep, it has a glass floor. It didn't cost that much more so we thought we'd give it a shot. I don't know how far below it is, but it takes you across the ocean and over a couple of mountains--about a 15 min ride if my estimations are correct.
It was especially tummy flopping if you looked at it the way BJ is doing in the above pic. We both tried it. Soooo crazy.

The "Crystal Cabin at Ngong Ping 360" is the first and only cable car in the world with a completely glass floor. It's also got just a hint of a tint to make the colors below more lush. I didn't actually know that about the floor until I looked it up just now :). I forgot to mention that if you want a private cabin, it costs like over US$250. We lucked out and happened to get our own on the way back down... SWEET!

HONG KONG!!!

I can't believe we went to Hong Kong! What's funny is, I ran into a guy at the Wal Mart pharmacy in Logan who told me his son in law (a certain Mr. Steve Wall some of you may remember) just got back from China and I said, "Oh! I wonder if I'm going to China!" But then I totally put it out of my mind like, "Yeah, right. China?" But it was! And I'm so glad! It was the absolute best and we want to go back someday. In some ways I'm sad we are back, but I missed my babies so so much, I was so glad to smother them in kisses and see how much they've changed! I have so much to post, and I totally will. Just not tonight. I have some jet lag to get over. :)

Get ready!

(Little Einsteins theme song) "We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship! Zooming through the sky..." to an unknown destination to me. BJ and I are finally able to go on our 5 year anniversary trip and I'm super excited! I'm really sad about leaving the kids. I'm also a little nervous because of Ethan's allergies, but I know they will be in good hands (Grandmas and Aunt Debbie), so that helps a little. I'm just making some last minute preparations and we'll be taking off! I'm so excited to blog about where we went!

E-Bear, how could we love you more?

Ethan has been such a blessing in our lives and I'm so grateful each day that he decided to come to our family. I was just realizing the other day that he tends to be full of surprises, to name a few: We were surprised to find out he was coming to our family, He surprised us again by coming early
(This morning I said to him, "Exactly one year ago, I was in labor and nobody believed me..." lol), He surprised us again with his anaphylaxis to milk, when he figured out how the gate works, and keeps figuring it out no matter how we jimmy it, when he started crawling he pulled himself up and started cruising (I think he surprised himself that time, too), and when he took off all the way up the stairs unscathed... I could go on and on.
He does so many things daily that catch us off guard and it keeps life fresh. He is always so happy and sweet to everyone, he also loves to play games and have fun. I don't think I've ever seen a baby that laughs like he does.
He loves Olivia with everything he has and it's the sweetest thing I've ever seen. I love my boy, my little E-bear and I don't think we'd be a family without him. He sincerely enjoys life and I think he will teach me a lot as the years continue to pass. Heavenly Father really knows who we need in our lives and when we need them. I'm so grateful each day for my 2 little blessings. They really do fulfill my life and make the days so much brighter. Happy birthday little guy!

Keep those kiddies safe

Just a little reminder to keep and extra eye out! Don't read it if you feel like you won't be able to handle it. (Not graphic, all have happy endings, even, but as a mother, it really hits home).

There have been a few incidents in Bountiful that give us the terrible reminder that summer, though fun, is also a very dangerous time of year. Along with the little boy in our old ward (who by the way, last I heard, woke up, doesn't know his family, is doing physical therapy to walk again, but all of his therapy is going really well. I'm so glad he made it and hope that he makes a full recovery.), the other day there were 3 separate incidents within 4 hours of each other in Bountiful. The first was a little boy playing in his back yard on the swing set. A tree fell over and hit a power line which then fell onto the swing set and electricuted him. the burn went out of his head and his foot. He was flown to Primary's where he was in critical condition and expected to live. I haven't heard an update about that case. The second happened about an hour later. A little boy just about 1 year old somehow got outside and crawled into the driveway where his teenage brother backed the car over his little head. He was also flown the Primary's in critical condition. He is now doing surprisingly well. The doctors say he is making a miraculous recovery unlike anything they have ever seen. I believe he was also the recipient of a priesthood blessing. This was also the family of a South Salt Lake Police Officer. The third came out about an hour and 1/2 later. A 2 year old little girl was missing and they found her at the bottom of the swimming pool in the back yard. She was also flown to Primary's in critical condition. Last I heard she was expected to live as well.

Anyway, BJ came home from hearing about these with a new mind set on protecting our children. A new rule that we have implemented, especially now that Sam is living with us, is that we back into the garage and driveway to park. It's less likely that a child will go unnoticed if you are not backing out. That doesn't make it fail safe, but it is a little better. I thought I'd pass it along to any who may also like to adopt the practice.

Neet to update

I need to update here, and I always make empty promises of editing and this or that story is coming, so none of that. Here's the scoop, we moved. The house is beautiful, but has a few... minor issues. Let's just say we'd never buy it. We have the constant irritation of realtors trying to waltz into our house without a knock or ring at the door. BJ finally called the listing realtor and said, "look, it's not a good idea to just walk into somebody's house. You never know what you'll run into and it's really not safe. I'm a cop, so you might just end up with a gun in your face if you walk into my house uninvited." I thought that may have gotten the message across. The realtor said he's make sure they all knew, but what typically happened was they'd make an appointment and the tenants wouldn't be there. There is no way I have the time or the energy to accomodate that, which they are aware of. So he put the message out, but tonight I was getting the kids ready for bed and the laundry folded and the kitchen cleaned and calling Sam to family prayer with us when I hear a guy in my house saying, "Hello? We had an appointment." We have had at least 3 to 5 realtors do this one of which actually started fighting with BJ. Yes, fighting (not physical, just verbal). Like he has a right to just walk into somebody's house. UUUGGGHHH! So frustrating. Supposedly this isn't supposed to be happening every day a few times a day, but that is what's happening. Okay, that's the headache. The rest of it is great. I have more space than I know what to do with, I almost don't like it, actually. So I'm not too worried about the transition to a smaller place. It'll be nice when we can have a yard. This is a super temporary move and we are actively shopping for a new place. We will probably rent another year so we can be first time home buyers next summer again. It has been 2 years since we sold in North Ogden, so one more year and we are there again. The word on the street is that they may extend and even double the first time home buyer money to next year. We are super excited about that and hope it passes so we can finally stop moving for awhile.

Enough of that, now for the good stuff. The kids are adorable. Olivia really communicates with me now and it's the funniest thing ever. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time. She usually refers to things by color so she'll say, "I want my pink water (translation: I want my water in the pink cup)", "I want to see the butterfies (translation: I want to go out on the deck and smell the purple weeds)", "I want a pink in there (pointing to the pantry or the bedroom, usually referring to a pink frosted cookie... contraband in our house these days)". She is also very into dancing and princesses. She loves Cinderella best and so do I seeing as it's the only one that I own that doesn't have a scary dragon or snake in it. All she wants to wear are dresses and "slippers". She took a terrible tumble down the stairs the other day. She was playing and jumping, I told her to stop because it was dangerous and the next thing I knew I heard this super power fast thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud and I looked up and she is rolling down the stairs like a burrito. Luckily I was sitting about 1/4 of the way up the stairs and was able to stop her before she hit anything metal and the wall at the bottom. It gave us both a good scare and now she is very careful and even asks mommy and daddy to come and hold her hand while she goes down the stairs. I wish there was a safer way for them to learn these little lessons.

Ethan is hilarious. His personality is really starting to come out and he is the most charming little guy I've ever seen. He is the biggest flirt! He is starting to stall at bedtime. I'll bundle him up and he'll start jibber jabbing and telling me stories with mostly consisted of the "s" and the "o" sound, and then lets out a little giggle like he's telling me a joke or something. It's so so funny! I wish I could get it on camera. He now says, "Moo", "Da" (for daddy), "Mama", shakes his head for "no" and can figure out every trap I set for him. The gates I have (which really aren't that great) are no match for him. I have a gate that I stretch between the metal ballisters on the stairs by sliding it all the way through from one side to the other. He watches and watches and figures out how to move it himself. The little stinker. He is a master at crawling up the stairs now.

Wow, this really turned into a novel, lol. Hopefully it's not terribly boring to read :).