Room with a view..

Following on from having such a gorgeous day yesterday the evening was pretty impressive too. This photos were taken from our bedroom window.

It's a beautiful day....

I'm a day behind but yesterday was a STUNNER of a day. It was a beautiful summer day AND it was even cool in the shade !! I'm not trying to get too excited about that but three days in a row in the shade and it's cool - well, guess winter's coming !!!

After school the girls and I went out with friends to have an excursion around HK. We went to the IFC mall to see (what I thought would be) a Hello Kitty exhibition. I was wrong - it was just a small corner of Lane Crawford, the most exclusive dept store in HK, with Hello Kitty merchandise. It was rather disappointing. But IFC is located by the harbour and we took the girls out to see the view. And it was a stunner. We do have days like this - just not very often !! The pictures say it all really....

These photos are taken on HK island looking at Kowloon side :

The girls posing..

Looking at Wanchai and North Point areas. The exhibition centre is on the right in the middle

Kowloon side - Tsim Tsa Tsui (or TST)

The building under construction will end up being HK tallest building with over 100 floors.

The shipping area - heading to the airport.

The Central Pier - catch the ferry to TST. In the distance amongst the buildings is where Megabox is - Spotlight !!

New Racing Season

Racing in Hong Kong goes on a Sunday and Wednesday from Sept to June. Sunday it's out in Shatin and Wednesday's it's here in Happy Valley - funny that since we live here. Over the summer months racing stops - which is about 2.5 months holidays for those lucky enough to get them - as it's just SOOOO hot and humid. It still is hot AND humid, and it's likely to continue for the next 6 weeks or so. I just want the temps to drop !! But I digress....

The new racing season has just began. The first race meeting at Shatin was held on Sunday and today or I should say tonight, is the first meeting held at Happy Valley. The photos of the race course are taken from our lounge window.

Before the meeting started...

After starting about race 4 I think - I don't really pay attention....

Being able to take these photos is a real novelty as for most of last year's season our windows were covered. All we could hear was the noise as the horses go up the final straight (in front of the crowd) and the lights shining through the cracks... It's just as impressive being down in the crowds being surrounded by tall apartment building that are all lit up.

As I sit here writing this, the computer is by the window in our bedroom a race is on, I look out the window and can see these horses running, I can hear the crowd going wild, lights start flashing as they near the finish line - I have NO idea what horse is where (as I'm sure you've figured out by now Paul ISN'T home!!) - it really is an impressive sight. From my view point, which I have to say is pretty good, I can even see the horses being paraded round the parade ring before the next race begins.

The darkened area at the bottom of the photos are the sports ground. This whole area gets closed off on race day.

We do have a pretty impressive view - just took about 6 months to be able to see it !!!

A comment.....

It was absolutely hilarious today. The girls and I were on our way home after a FUN afternoon spent in the indoor playground - or the bounce house as we refer to it. It's still FAR too hot to contemplate walking home so the usual method is taxi. The girls helped me hail a cab - actually they do all the work - and we hopped in. Hannah told the driver our address (in Cantonese) and off we went. It was very quiet until Hannah said "Mummy, I've found a hair tie (I'd hate to think where from so am assuming it was left on the car seat). I think the driver has been looking for this for a VERY long time. I'll give it to them". The said driver was male and bald.

FOUR years old

It is just so hard to believe that there is a FOUR year old in the house now. It was Hannah's birthday on the 30th Aug. She was SOOO excited about it - as it meant presents, a party and a butterfly cake. Most of her friends that came to the party were just recently back from their summer holidays so it had been a while.

We had the present opening session once both girls (and Daddy who had worked late the night before) were awake - 7.30am it began - which I thought wasn't too bad. It was a delight to watch the excitement on her face when she opened each gift - accompanied to the sound of a little voice going "where's mine? that mine?" but Victoria did really well too. She understood that it was Hannah's special day and just watched Hannah open presents.

For once, I was very organised. The birthday cake had been baked Friday, put in the freezer, came out Sat night to be turned into a butterfly and iced. Cupcakes all under control too !! Basically all the baking had been done so Sunday was spent doing the usual final touches. Hannah had gone through the birthday cake books and decided she liked the butterfly cake. As per previous years, the last 3, it wasn't a late night the night before.......




It was party time and her friends all turned up. Everytime the doorbell rang she was up and the door opened in a flash. There 8 children in total, including Hannah and Victoria. We had fun playing games and dancing to music. I felt sorry (for about a minute) for the neighbours below us but the party was only for 2 hours - thought they could put up with that !! Once the sugar started to kick in the place started to become very small AND rather noisy. It would have been nice to open doors and let them run around outside but....... Alot of fun was had by all.


Waiting for her friends to arrive


Still waiting for her friends to arrive....


Playing statues. Victoria got into this and when we played musical cushions everytime the music stopped she would freeze !!!



Eating...


Blowing out cake...


The birthday princess - complete with jewells !!!



Two mermaids......