Monday was the first rehearsal of the Hong Kong Community Wind Band that Tim and I joined. It is held here at school and was started by one of our colleagues. He asked us if we wanted to conduct and play and we said yes! Tim is playing oboe and I am on percussion. It is also fun to conduct a band and keep the skills of working with winds and brass sharp. :)
Tuesday I took it easy (stayed home and caught up on some tv shows) and Tim ran off to the island to go hear a piano concert. He said it was a wonderful concert and so worth going on a school night.
Wednesday we experienced the dentist for the first time in Hong Kong (man our lives are thrilling aren't they...). It was time for the every 6 month cleaning. I am not sure what they used but it only took 10 minutes to clean my teeth. I think maybe it was some sort of ultrasonic thing? I don't know - it made a horrendous noise but thankfully didn't hurt. The noise was way more grating than what they did. The dentist stayed in the room and did the actual cleaning while the assistant just held the suction thingy so there were four hands working on my mouth at a time. We got some dinner at New Town (Tim got a baked potato thing that was awesome and I got my fav - the grilled shrimp burger), got some fro-yo (that was cheap thanks to groupon!) and headed home.
 |
| Hanging out with Linus after getting my teeth cleaned :) |
 |
| Hello Kitty flower arrangement at the mall |
 |
| MEGABOX!!! |
Thursday we went to a movie! Pause for a second and rewind back to this spring. I love watching America's Next Top Model (and Tim got sucked into it too). While I could pass on the petty drama, I absolutely love the photo shoots and watching the photographers go through the process of setting up the shoot, directing the shoot and then seeing what the results are at the end. Last spring they went to Hong Kong as part of a challenge and they worked with an actor from Hong Kong for one of the challenges - Nicholas Tse. Tim and I watched those Hong Kong/Macau episodes super closely since we knew we were moving here :). Fast forward again to about a month ago - there were posters for a movie called "The Bullet Vanishes" all around Hong Kong and who was in it? Nicholas Tse! It was almost like seeing an old friend! There are always new movie posters here but I don't see a huge amount of familiar faces. Anyway fast forward again to about 2 weeks ago and there was a groupon to go see "The Bullet Vanishes" and so we purchased it. That is the long story of how we went to the movies and saw a movie in Cantonese (with English and Chinese subtitles). Anyway, it ended up being an awesome movie! It is a murder mystery with some old school western-ish/steampunk-ish qualities and was really well done. Even though we didn't understand anything in Canto (other than the 6 or so words we know from Canto class), it was a very entertaining and enjoyable film that kept you guessing. I REALLY liked it and I highly recommend you guys looking for it on Netflix at some point in the future.
 |
| Tim in the 40 person Theatre |
Going to a movie in Hong Kong is different than going to one in the US. Tickets are about $10USD each and when you purchase your ticket you actually choose the seat you want to sit in and watch the movie from. They have theatres of varying sizes too. The one we were in only had 40 seats in it (while others with brand new movies are more the standard size that you find in the US). The theatre we ended up going to is a mall called MEGABOX (yes all in caps) and every time I saw it I wanted to say it like a transformer would. It really was a giant futuristic mall thing with a billion stores and was very cool. We had some dinner at Ikea afterwards and sat outside on the rooftop patio watching the harbor.
 |
| Food from Ikea |
 |
| :) |
Friday we had a nice dinner with some colleagues and then had a low key SSR night at home and read books and the newspaper :) The newspaper that we get (The South China Morning Post) is pretty good but I think one of my favorite parts is that it runs old Calvin and Hobbes comic strips :)
Saturday Tim went to an Orff workshop (elementary music drumming thing) and I went to yoga and then hung out in Victoria Park until he was done. It was good to have a low key day. While I got some good exercise and walked around a whole bunch, it wasn't a frantic pace which was nice. I also discovered the public pools of Hong Kong :) (more on that on Sunday). We had dinner at a favorite place at the IFC mall, wandered around with our ice cream cones and then headed home.
Sunday Tim was at his workshop for a second day. I went to church and sung in the choir (and had a good time hanging out with everyone). After that was finished I headed up to Tai Po to go see the Hong Kong Railway Museum. It is a free museum that started when they preserved the old station in Tai Po. Even though Hong Kong has been around for a VERY long time, there is not a lot of preserved history here. For the most part everything is quite new so the fact that there is something saved from the early 1900s is unusual. It was a neat place and I enjoyed just sitting in an old coach while figuring out my next move.
 |
| Tai Po Market Station (Hong Kong Railway Museum) |
 |
| Some artwork on the station |
After the railway museum I decided to check out the Tai Po Swimming Pool. I discovered that there are quite a few public swimming pools here in Hong Kong when I was in Victoria Park and I was intrigued to see what it was all about. I found the free observation area and discovered that the Tai Po pool had 1 lap pool, 2 "training pools" (shallower ones), a water park (similar to Kamp Dels where we go camping with my sister) and 4 water slides! Using my trusty phone I discovered that there are 3 pools in Shatin (the area where we live) and one of those happens to be a few stops down the line from where we live. I went home, grabbed our swimming stuff and met Tim at the pool. The pool in Ma On Shan had about the same facilities as the Tai Po one and it was a lot of fun swimming outside. The water slides were nice (more relaxing than thrilling) and I think about the only thing that would make the pool better would be a lazy river to float around on. :) After swimming we ate some delicious ramen and headed home for laundry and getting ready for the week.
Walkathon is coming up next weekend and I am looking forward to some more adventures that next weekend will bring! Thanks to Walkathon on Saturday and a public holiday we do not have school on Monday and Tuesday. Yay for more exploring :)
We hope you all are doing well and that you have a great week :)
Christine and Tim
No comments:
Post a Comment