Home Sweet High Rise

 Time for a tour of our Hong Kong home!  That way you can see where you'll be staying when you all come to visit us.  We'll start from a distance and zoom in to give you some perspective.  This first picture is of our neighborhood from the water (found this on the internet, not sure who to credit other than Google images), on the southwest corner of the Kowloon Peninsula.  We live in that super tall building.  Just kidding, but it would be fun.  That building is the ICC (International Commerce Center) and is the fifth tallest building in the world.  If you look just to the right of it, you'll see our building looking squatty short behind it because it's further back.  All of these buildings (most of them residential apartment buildings) are built on top of a mall called Elements Mall, though you can't really tell that in this picture.

Here is the Mall and you can see how all the towers (15 total) are on top of it.  In this corner behind those windows is the ice skating rink that we haven't taken a spin on yet.  The mall is pretty fancy.  We like some of the restaurants and shop at the grocery store, but other than H&M and Zara, the shopping is out of my price range.  Every luxury brand you can think of.

This picture of our building is taken from standing on the roof of the mall, the common outdoor space all the buildings share.  There are roads on the roof and a playground and open space for the kids to run around, doesn't feel like a mall roof.  Our apartment is on the very top two floors (45 & 46).  If you look at the top row of windows all the way over to the left hand side, that's us. 

When you enter our apartment, the first room you come to is the kitchen.  It's kind of closed off from the rest of the apartment, not open concept like American-style.  The kitchen contains the washer/dryer (all in one) and while it seems smaller than our kitchen at home, the configuration has more cabinet space and counter top space. 

Off the kitchen (to the right of the fridge, not shown here) is the "maid's quarters", very common in Hong Kong.  It is the norm here for families to have domestic helpers, and since there is no such thing as daycare here (because everyone has helpers), we, too had to get a live-in helper to mind the kids while Paul and I are working.  Her name is Jelyn and she is from the Philippines.  The kids love her and so do I as she also does the cleaning and laundry for us.  I think we should build another room in our Minneapolis house and bring her home with us.

After passing the kitchen, you enter the dining/living room.  The square footage of this place is similar to our home in Minneapolis, but is more open and the huge windows bring in a ton of light.  That door straight ahead by the TV leads to your guest quarters.

If you took a look out our windows, you would have this view.  We have the sea and some cargo container lifting rigs, and the ferries park out there at the end of the day.  If we had lived here a few years ago, the view would have been unobstructed as those two towers are the newest on top of the mall.  The land masses in the distance are other islands that contain the airport and Disneyland.  We recently discovered that on a clear night at 8pm, we can see the Disney evening fireworks in the distance.

If you look to the left out the windows, you can see the ICC

Looking down and zooming in, here is the playground the kids run around in.

And here is some of the open space where the kids tool around on their scooters.  I zoomed in to catch a morning Tai Chi group.

 Now continuing on through the first floor, here is the guest room/Paul's office.  Don't worry, the bed pulls out to a king and we're told it's quite comfortable, due to master IKEA craftsman Paul. 

And you get your own guest bathroom!  When you come and stay, I'll remove the kids' step stool.

Next we'll go upstairs.  One of my favorite parts of this apartment is the bonus space at the top of the steps that the kids use as their playroom.  So now the toys can be contained up here instead of our living room (though now the living room furniture is often turned into a fort).  The bottom left hand corner is one of our two dehumidifiers that run non-stop so the house doesn't succumb to mold.

To the left of the playroom is the master bedroom and the best part is that we have our own master bathroom.  With two sinks!  And a lock on the door!  Our 1917 south Minneapolis home does not include these features, but will after we move home...

To the right of the playroom is the kids' rooms and bathroom.  Not a very exciting picture, just a bathroom, there is a tub behind the door not shown in the picture.  Dora potty seat, very important (thanks, Rena!)

Esme's room with the cool old twin bed I snagged from Craigslist in Minneapolis right before we moved.

Onto PE's room.  He loves his room, and the built in desk, even though he doesn't really use it yet.  The big windows and early sunrises here mean that the kids get out of bed too early, even with blackout linings for the curtains.  You'll notice PE has windows on both sides of his room.  The apartment building isn't a square, but a funny shape such that each unit only shares a common wall by the front door wall and the rest sticks out on its own.  I'm not describing it very well, you'd have to see it. 

Both PE's room and the guest room directly below it have the two sets of windows, and the small back windows look out onto a huge construction project.  They are building a big train station for the super fast train to China, a multi-year project that will not be completed by the time we leave.  PE loves looking at the construction view.  The downside is the construction noise.... which may wake up guests early in the mornings (all except Sunday).  But we can supply ear plugs, and it's really more like white noise, just like the airplanes over our Minneapolis house, right?  You'll also notice that our entire 46 floor building is tiled.  Who did all that grouting?!?

That's it for the house tour.  You all are welcome to come visit us.  Print out this blog entry and bring it with you to redeem it for a free "I heart Hong Kong" t-shirt!

Chiang Mai: The Elephant Nature Park

Chandra here to cover my favorite part of our Chiang Mai trip-- our visit to the Elephant Nature Park.  Our fabulous travel agent (aka Paul) found this great park that is a sanctuary for abused, injured, retired, abandoned, and orphaned elephants (though some babies have been born here so they don't all have sad histories).  You can visit for a day trip up to many weeks if you'd like and stay on the property and roll up your sleeves to help out.  It was about an hour van ride from our hotel and as soon as you drive up, you can see the elephants roaming around.  The park has about 30 elephants and they roam around in groups of 5-6.  They are mostly female with only 3 or so males.

These first pictures are taken from the main lodge that was our home base for the day.  It's wide open all the way around and elevated so you can be face to face with the elephants.  They just walk up as they please to check you out or to eat if you have a bucket of fruit or veggies handy.  The kids loved feeding them watermelon, cucumber and bananas.  They were skittish of the strong grasping trunks at first, but by the end of the day Esme couldn't get enough of feeding them.

A short video clip of feeding mini bananas.  They are so dextrous with their trunks!

After feeding the elephants their mid-morning snack and getting an overview of the park and interesting elephant facts from our volunteer guide, we headed out from the lodge for a walk around the park.  When walking among freely roaming elephants the rules to keep in mind are: 1) never walk between two elephants as you may get squished, and 2) watch out behind you as they are quiet walkers and can sneak up on you. There is no riding of the elephants here.  Since they all (except the babies born here) have had hard lives prior to coming here, they get to do whatever they want now. 

We met this old lady on our way to meet the new baby.  How do you tell if an elephant is old? The older ones have more pink spots on their ears and the divots above their eyes are more sunken in. I can't remember if this one was the oldest one or not, but there is one that is in her upper 80's.

Next stop was to meet the newest baby, only one month old!  The mama and baby were in a large pen to keep visitors away from the baby to keep the mama at ease.  The baby was sooooo cute, I would have loved to have gotten in there to give her a big hug.  Those tiny ears! The little fuzzy head! The tiny trunk!  Sigh.

As we were hanging out with the mom and babe, this big gal was standing behind us helping herself to a drink from the hose.  You can kind of see in the picture that her back legs look shorter than her front legs.  She used to work in the city and has dislocated hips from a traffic accident and walked with a pronounced hitch in her step.

Here you can see some of the surrounding hills and scenery as we walked around.  The long hut-like structure was an elevated walkway that was connected to the main lodge with seating areas for good views of the grounds, mud pit and river.  It was a hot, hot day as you may be able to tell from Esme's flushed face.

The elephants love to get muddy and use it as sunscreen.  Watch out as they fling it up on their backs.

At lunch time the lodge set up a yummy vegetarian Thai buffet and all of a sudden we were eating with loads of people we hadn't seen around earlier in the day.  There were many college kids in veterinary programs there for longer term visits to help out in the clinic (for elephants and also for the dog sanctuary and some other animals) and other volunteers.  After a leisurely lunch, it was time to head down to the river to help bathe the elephants.  Here they come lumbering down to the river.

This next picture cracks me up as Paul took charge of washing the elephant's ass.  Right after I snagged this picture the guide told Paul standing behind an elephant wasn't a good idea.

To be clear, the elephants are perfectly capable of bathing themselves, but they enjoyed us cooling them off with water while we pretended we were actually helping.

After the elephant bathing we had some free time to relax on the veranda with iced tea and say hi to passing elephants.  Then came the educational video/documentary on the history of the founder and how she started the park and some of her rescues.  There was also footage of how brutally elephants are trained in order to be used as loggers, transportation, amusement/money makers on Thailand city streets.  Too graphic for the kids and this softy so we left the movie room at that point (we were forewarned when was a good time to leave).  It was good timing as we got to see a group of elephants, including one of the older babies, show up at the river to play around.  After they were done, they were wooed up to this slope with big bushels of green grass so people could have a nice photo op.  The third one over is one of the older babies born at the park.

After that it was time to head back to town for much needed pool time to cool down (and a good scrubbing after the kids really got into playing around in the mucky river).  We loved our day with the elephants and would highly recommend a visit to this park to anyone headed to Thailand.  I'll leave you with one last pic, one of my favorites of this old girl checking me out.  Maybe she was giving me that look because earlier in the day I had asked if she was pregnant....turns out she's just fat.  Whoops.  And elephants never forget.

Chiang Mai: Eating and Shopping

I had never been to Chiang Mai,  Thailand before,  but I have been to Chiang Mai Thai so I knew what to expect.   Right?

We wanted to try out some street food and this was not a problem.  On our first day we found some scooters with food carts just outside the Wat Phra Singh.  Here a woman is making a local favorite,  banana roti.   It is a batter doused with butter, filled with smushed bananas, and fried in hot oil.

Chandra approves.

At the next cart,  a man was making little crepes on his tiny griddle and filling them with a variety of fillings,  from sweet creme to sausage and onions.  

Those prices tell you that 5 creme filled crepes are 10 baht,  or 33 cents.   Look at the cute little decoration around the bigger crepe.   A little flair for pennies.

 The night market is a very popular sight in Chiang Mai.   Turns out,  there are multiple places.   The original Night Market was close to our hotel and open every night.   We made our way there via tuk-tuk,  which was a very cool way to see the city.   Essentially the tuk-tuk is a three-wheeler with a seat in the back.   No seat belts and no doors,  so it is not for the faint of heart,  especially with two young children in tow.   But I think it was worth the mild health risk.   Here's a picture from our seat (again,  I wish I had taken better pictures).

That's us being dropped off at the Night Market.

Near the Night Market,  there is a Muslim neighborhood that was offering a variety of street food.   Here we are getting some fresh spring rolls.  They came with a cute little bag of spicy, sweet, and sour dipping sauce.

A few days later,  on the same street,  we found a Halal version of the local specialty,  khao soi.

A delicious meal with chicken and fried spring rolls for the kids, and some iced thai tea for Dad.  All that food for about $8!!!

Our last night we visited another Night Market.   This one was supposed to cater more to the locals, but it didn't look too different to me.  Chiang Mai really has a lot of ex-pats and tourists,  which makes it really easy and enjoyable to visit,  but makes you wonder a little about authenticity.

Here's a little treat for the kids.   Soda pop popsicles for a quarter a pop.

Next post:   the Elephant Nature Park.