Weekend Getaway: Hong Kong (Day 4)

(again, belated post to finish the series on the Hong Kong trip)

For the last day in Hong Kong, we spent our time in the Mid Levels.  We headed off first to the Central-Mid-Levels escalators, the longest escalator system in the world (800 meters long, and ascending 135 meters).

On the way to the escalators on Sunday, we found a pocket of the same “maid’s day off” gathering that we also see in Singapore.  Here you can see an indoor garden, lined on one whole side with domestic helpers who have created their own “private” area using umbrellas.

The escalator system is a series of a bunch of outdoor escalators that are all covered.  Originally conceived as an innovative way to address increasing work-day commute traffic.

The 20 minute commute (actually much faster if you actually walk the escalators, unlike Jackson’s preferred mode in this picture), is a fraction of the time the nearly 55,000 daily users would spend in the car.

Predictably with that kind of foot traffic, the escalator corridor has filled with restaurants and other services.  We caught lunch at this delightful little Mexican place called Taco Loco.  The kids thought Subway would be a much more delightful treat, so they sat on the street and had some sub sandwiches (this picture shot facing out the the doorway of Taco Loco from the parent’s lunch table – you can see the escalators on the right side).

At the top of the escalators, we headed towards the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, one of the oldest such parks in the world (opened in 1871).  The walk from the escalator to the park reminded us of the amazing integration of green and city in Hong Kong, and the extreme vertical layers of the city.

The zoo is small so you won’t find the big animals (nor will you find the amazing habitats that we had come to take for granted at the Woodland Park Zoo); we saw lots of monkeys, turtles, small cats, birds, and such.

One of the entertaining bits was the ringing song of the Siamangs, as captured in this video.

Here we are taking our last photo with the Choksi family, before they had to head off the the airport.  Great 2nd Trip guys – we’ll travel with you any time!

We had a little time to spare, so we decided to check out Hong Kong Park, where we found a super cool aviary.  This place was a massive area, enclosed by a net, giving the birds a chance to fly around freely.  There is a raised platform walk that goes through the middle of the aviary, providing lots of neat little spots to view the birds feeding and preening and doing what they do.  We didn’t have much time before we needed to head off to the airport, but we felt we could have hung out there for a much longer time.

So here is a recap of our great walking day through the Mid Levels…

And thus ends the recount of the Hong Kong trip from over two months ago (until Kirsten and the kids regale the story of Disneyland).  We had a great time there, and will no doubt return.

-Mark

Weekend Getaway: Bintan

Hello everyone – been a good long while since my last post.

We’ve had a couple of weekend getaways over the past few weeks.  Last weekend we went to Sibu Island in Malaysia, and I’ll blog about that soon.  The weekend before that we went to Bintan Island in Indonesia.  Bintan is a popular weekend retreat for Singaporeans since it is just a 1 hour ferry ride away.  As such, it is an island defined by the expensive beach-side resorts.

We left right after school on Thursday since Friday was a day off for the close of the Ramadan holiday.  Our cab driver to the ferry terminal was Muslim, so we got to talk to him in a lot of detail about Ramadan, and the fasting that happens for a month.  I get mean when I don’t eat, so the idea of going all of the daylight hours with no food or beverage (even water) for a month is incomprehensible.  We even talked about how he is training his young children how to participate in this intense show of faith.

We managed to turn the 1 hour trip into a nearly 2 hour one with problems at immigration.  In a demonstration of true bureaucracy, we were were in a small group of about 15 people at the end of the line held up because they ran out Visa receipts.  Mind you, we are not talking about the Visa sticker which they place in the passport, we are talking about the receipt they issue when you give them the USD$25 payment. There is a desk where you make the payment, receive the receipt, walk about 10 meters away, hand the receipt to the immigration officer, who then puts the sticker in your passport and hands you back the completely untouched receipt.  The receipt has no function in the process other than to show that you made your payment 10 meters back.  The idea that they could actually come up with a temporary work-around process for our small group was completely lost on them, so we stood and waited for a new batch of receipts to get delivered.

We stayed at the mega-complex the Bintan Lagoon.  The room worked well for us as it had a day bed that both kids can sleep on (one challenge in Asia is that most of the accommodations are structured for a family of three).  It had two big pools, one of which was designed for family fun with water slides and a variety of activities.

Here is the water slide.  In the pool, you can see the kids with two school friends, Brynn and Ethan Kent, also from the US.

Here you can see the kids inside big beach balls at the pool.

  

There are also trampolines next to the pool.

Here is the gang of four preparing to go into battle in the Laser Tag arena.

We spent pretty much the whole weekend inside the boundaries of the Bintan Lagoon.  We managed to make it out for a wonderful dinner at Baan Aarya, a beautiful and tasty Thai restaurant on the beach.  We shared the dinner with the Kent family and the Norberg family (one of Kirsten’s students Hugo from Sweden and his family).

 

The other outing was a mangrove swamp tour.  You can see the kids in the boat we took as we get ready to embark.

Here is our tour guide – notice the clouds starting to gather over his head.

We got to see fishing villages along the bigger part of the river (notice the clouds starting to look mean), before it started to collapse down to a much smaller river with the Mangrove forest on both sides.  We got within a few meters of some cool animals, including snakes in trees, and a crocodile (look closely in the middle of the third picture).

And here we are as those mean clouds turned wet.  We got absolutely and laughably deluged in a demonstration of just how hard it can rain in SE Asia.  It pretty much chased all of the wildlife back into their holes and made for an anticlimactic finish to our tour.

On the final analysis, fun to get away for the weekend, but not sure we’ll head back to Bintan soon.  It was a pretty expensive weekend (including charges for most of the activities and very high food prices for very middle of the road food), and much more “resorty” than we typically like to do as a family.

Talk to you soon.

-Mark

P.S. – based on popular demand, a signature Jackson goofy face from the Mangrove swamp tour.

Koh Samui = heaven on earth; food, beach, vibe – all perfect.

The title above is my tweet from the day we arrived back from Samui in Thailand (Koh means island in Samui), and it’s exactly how I felt.  We went on a Tuesday evening, and came back on a Sunday evening, and it was pretty much the best 5 days we’ve had in SE Asia.

Note, it wouldn’t be right to post about our travel in Thailand without recognizing the challenging political situation the country is facing right now.  15 people died yesterday in clashes with the government.  One month ago, things looked like they could stay peaceful.  Shortly after the demonstrators shocked people by pouring their own blood as a symbolic gesture of spilled blood.  But now it seems things have gotten ugly.  Our best wishes are with the Thai people to return to a state of peace and calm.

I currently have the following picture as my computer desktop background, and it makes me happy every time I look at it.  It’s from a day long speed boat outing we took into some neighboring islands.  But more to come on that in an upcoming blog post (it’s going to take me a couple of posts to do justice to the full Samui experience).

Here we are arriving and taking the “fun bus” (as the open air shuttle was appointed by the kids) from the airplane to the terminal.

The place we stayed was Chaweng Regent Beach Resort, a really nice place right on one of the main beaches (you guessed it, Chaweng Beach).

One of Kirsten’s key search criteria for vacation accommodations to ensure a good trip with the kids, are the pools.  I’ve started to embrace the logic – it makes a lot of sense when you watch how much fun the kids have in the pool, including the chance to meet other kids.  And Chaweng Regent did not disappoint, with two great pools.  The first one is next to the beach, and the second one had spitting turtle fountains, a nice troll bridge, and (most importantly) a pool bar.

The hotel also had lush grounds with the shades of green that require tropical weather and monsoon rains. (we were there at the right time of year though, it only rained once for an hour, so the grounds crews we’re having to water the place).  You can see us here finding a nice hut to play some cards and feed the Coi fish.

For me though, the very best feature of the hotel was it’s location on Chaweng Beach.  As you can see, it’s the quintessential white sand, turquoise water beach that Thailand has become famous for.  Part of the beach has a breakwater built about 100 meters out, so the waves are very light.  The beach is great for running – firm enough sand to run on (really works the calves!) and a bit of a breeze from the ocean – and there is a steady stream of runners of all ages.  There were also the expected hawkers on the beach (3rd picture), but they were certainly less omnipresent and over-persistent than their hawker brothers & sisters I’ve met in Bali, Puerto Vallarta, etc.

One of our favorite things to do was to walk down the beach from our hotel and pick a spot to eat.  There was a different dining option every 50 steps, and you got to eat right on the beach.  Pictured here is a seafood place that we ate the first night.  They had the seafood sitting on ice and you pick the ones you want, and then they BBQ it.  Cameron and Jackson found some excellent alternative uses for the napkins provided.

When we finished our dinner, the kids could just sit next to the table and play on the beach while Kirsten and I chilled.  This particular night, a big full red moon came up over the horizon (you can see it over the kids’ shoulders) and it was gorgeous in one of those ways that photos never quite seem to do justice.  Also that night, a man with a monkey strolled by (add that to the list of sentences I never thought I’d type).  His gig was selling you a picture from his Polaroid with his monkey; my shrewd wife convinced him to take 20 baht (about $1 Sing) and let us take a picture with our own camera.  Meeting that monkey was the absolutely highlight of the trip for Cameron.  Kirsten and I at one point suggested we could see ourselves spending a year or two in Thailand after the kids head away to College, and Cameron responded “sweet, you guys will get a monkey and I’m coming to visit often".

Another night found ourselves at the Lucky Mother, for some great Thai food, tasty Margaritas, booming Reggae tunes, and the Manchester United v. Chelsea football match.  What a wonderful way to take in one of the most anticipated BPL matches of the year.  The Lucky Mother proved fortuitous as Kirsten won a bet against Jackson on the match, picking Chelsea as the winner.

 

The beach at the Lucky Mother also provided other entertainment, with fire jugglers doing some sort of practicing next door, and a whole family of cats to play with.

The last day we were there was Easter.  What a surreal experience – we (and by “we” I mean “Kirsten”) are used to putting out eggs for the hunt at 5AM in the cold rainy Seattle weather.  In contrast, you can see the kids here decorating Easter eggs next to the pool in the bright sunny weather.  Dani is an Australian friend living in Beijing who Cameron met during the trip.

After the egg painting, the hotel hosted several games on the beach, including gunny sack races, a three legged race, and tug of war.  As you can see, Jackson is showing some promise for his future dating years, putting himself in a great position to show off his guns and rippled abs to the well-toned and tanned anchor woman.

Anyhow, another post or two coming from the Samui trip, so see you soon.

-Mark

Another Singapore Hike

Last weekend we took a family hike.  This hike was a little more urban than the last, but still an oasis within a big city.  Singapore is working on connecting all of the major parks with trails, and this is part of it.  This is a part called the Southern Ridges.  One of the features of this hike is a bridge called the Henderson Waves.  In fact, coincidentally my dad sent me an email of “cool bridges” that had pictures of some of the world’s most beautiful bridges, and that was what gave us the impetus to go check it out.  Here is the picture.

So to get started, we took bus #93 down to Alexandra Road and joined the trail about midway through.  Altogether, the trail is about 9km, but we probably did a little more than half of that.  Here are the kids at bridge where we started on the trail.  I’m thinking about starting a collage of goofy Jackson faces based on the pictures from the last 3 months.  What a goofball!

The portion of the trail where we started is a raised metal platform (my fear of heights giving me a little pause).  It winds right though the jungle.

Another candidate for the collage…

Now there’s a couple of good lookin’ ladies.  You can see the “trail” continues to rise up into the forest canopy behind them.

Here we are stopping off for lunch down the road from a cross road that intersected the trail (the niceties of “hiking” within a major urban area).  We ate at a Muslim restaurant, mainly eating Roit Prata.  It’s a a little bit like a tortilla, with a variety of different options to stuff it with – egg, cheese, mushroom, banana, chocolate, etc.  Similar to crepes.

Back on the trail, we passed through some neighborhoods.  These colonial style houses are called black and whites.  I imagine it is very expense to live in a place like that, but doesn’t it look cool?  I think I would have to invest in a white linen suit if I had a tropical colonial house like that though.

Next we saw the monkey’s.  It’s shocking to me that you can be walking in a major urban area, and just start encountering monkeys.  These were sitting on the metal platform, just hanging out.  Seemed to be a family.  Momma was mostly in to grooming her husband, but she would show you a few teeth if you made any moves towards junior there.  I think the Man of the House liked the grooming, because right as I was getting ready to film them with my camera phone (and bring you this show with moving pictures), daddy made a move on momma to get busy.  Cameron looked at us with a knowing look on her face.  In Seattle we have the birds and the bees.  In Singapore, you got the monkeys’.

Here are several photos of us on Henderson Waves.  It’s a wood bridge, with a set of metal girders that are fashioned into waves that go both above and below the deck of the bridge (you can see this better in the picture above).  It gives the effect of a set of waves.  Jackson decided he would ride the way, by running up the steep pitched wall under one of the waves.

The bridge is set pretty high above above Henderson Road (35m?), as you can see looking down over Kirsten’s shoulder.  Henderson Road is another gorgeous tree lined road, typical in Singapore.  Looking out the other side, through the girders of one of the waves, you can see the building lined skyline of a main area of the city.

After Henderson Waves, we arrive at Mt. Faber (standing tall at a full 105m, or 344 feet above sea level).  You can see us walking the forested trails.  Check out that great forest canopy!

At the very top of Mt Faber, there was a Merlion.  I believe this is the 3rd Merlion (one downtown – the original one, one on Sentosa Island – the 100 foot tall one, and this one).

All very tired after hiking in the heat – it definitely zaps you.  But another great family outing.

-Mark

A Few Videos of our Hike

Jackson wrote about our fun experience last weekend hiking at MacRitchie Reservoir.  I had a couple of videos that I took with my camera phone that I forgot to add.

The first video is one of monkeys.  In as much as you actually can see it through a grainy cell phone (or hand phone, as we call them here) video, you’ll see how close the monkeys actually are around us.  One is literally right over our heads.  It’s pretty cool because you’ll be walking along on the trail, and all of a sudden you’ll hear a few trees shaking.  You’ll notice a few monkey’s across the way, but then you start to look around you closer and you are actually surrounded by monkeys.  If it weren’t for the shaking of the trees in the first place, you might have walked right on by without realizing you were a meter or two (I’m going metric baby!) away from these little guys.

It turns out that this is a popular topic on which to post videos to YouTube – you can see a bunch of other videos here.  You can see what teenagers do to entertain themselves in Singapore.

The second video was an attempt to capture some of the jungle sounds we heard.  It actually sounded like one of those peaceful sounds CDs you can buy that are very soothing background music – the music changes as it goes, but very very subtly.  Very similar in this jungle hike, you could walk along and feel the sounds changing slowly around you.  In this case, we stopped to the music of some particularly loud cicadas.  Once again, the quality of the video capture makes it a little hard to hear, but hoping you might get just a little bit of a flavor from this.

-Mark