A Peak of an Adventure!
From our guest blogger, MoZiLLa…
Below is a rendition of our great time with the kids yesterday:
I who never ever gets colds (well, almost never) got a cold upon arriving in HK. I did this last year and I wonder if there is a little something that affects me here. Yesterday I said to Blake, "I am so glad as my cold is almost 100% gone." Whereupon……. a left sided sore throat began which by day’s end was one of those that cause you to scrunch when you swallow. Salt gargles, swollen tonsils, hmmmm – praying for healing as there just is not time for this type of silliness. My greatest concern is Blake as he is not a good candidate for this type of thing and woke up this morning with a clogged head. Again, hmmmm.
Yesterday was a day! We got ready and took the gang over to the Queen Mary Hospital to pick up the #54 bus, after having checked with Tess’ friends as to what buses we catch to go to the Peak. Off we tore and for a while were the only passengers on the bus and what a ride! We were all seated at the back of the bus and I now know why kids race to the back – we were FLYING as we hit bumps at ridiculous speeds. The driver seemed quite a nice normal man but had no concept of safety for his passengers!! Fortunately there were seat belts. The kids loved it and I only let my mind wander once to the eventuality of this crazy ride causing little stomachs to erupt. Fortunately, none of that.
Reached our destination and the ‘normal’ driver was very helpful and showed us exactly where we could connect with the next bus. But! … there is always a ‘but’!… by this time I was already up with three of the kids in the aisle thinking that he had stopped to let us off.
Oh no, he decided to floor it and take us to the connecting point. Very nice but I was desperately holding onto these kids and furiously doing physics in my head trying to position my body so that when the next screeching stop came I wouldn’t fly down the stairwell with my charges in tow. Thankfully, during a short lull, I threw all four of us into a seat and we held onto each other. All six of us came off the bus alive and I kept remembering the now famous words – "If you deliver them back alive you have done your job." Phew.
Next bus – waited quite a while but the kids were great and the sights were interesting as this was also the Star Ferry terminal. (Blake was having the most trouble at this point as taxis were whizzing by beside us and he was understandably worried about the small gang stepping off the edge at the wrong time). Finally got into the next bus with only one lady jumping the queue ahead of us. She was carrying such a cute baby that it softened the blow! We even sat on the open upper deck – great fun, great view and only Sela was in a funk because she couldn’t sit at the inner edge of the seat. Then, big surprise! We had been told the wrong bus to get onto so were unceremoniously tossed off the bus at the Peak Tram Station where as little as 775,000 other tourists and Chinese New Years’ travelers lined up. It was pretty awful as the crowding was huge and keeping track of the four so that they did not put a toe on the road was a challenge.
We decided to cab it to the Peak from there but of course that was more easily said than done. We flagged down a cab and just as we approached the cab another party jumped in. I looked at Blake and was so proud of him as he was cool and not losing it. We eventually got to the Peak by cab, wandered a bit along with many, many others and then tackled lunch at McDonalds – again, another difficult challenge as most of HK’s population was doing the same thing. Grandad Blake braved the ordering… and reordering…. the trips and I sat and sang songs and miraculously it all came together and we munched through our lunch with me eating an Egg McMuffin at 2 in the afternoon, which should have been a cheeseburger. 🙂 Had visions of it having been made at 8 that morning and ptomaine poisoning having set in!
Our coup de grace was the walk home – we walked the whole gang down from the Peak to 122 Pokfulam and of course the kids ran the whole way. It was a treat as the wide path is surrounded by the wonderful foliage, birds sang, the sun was out quite often AND we were using up their energy – YIPPEEE. Jasper was an artist at attempts to be carried – "Mo, I don’t feel well. I need to be carried." The best quote of the day was when he said, "Mo, I need a piggy back." My reply was, "Gosh, JJ, I would love to give you a piggy back but there is problem because I have only one back and there are four children who would like a piggy back." His reply to me, "No, Mo. You have one back and I am one children." He is a hoot. We collected walking sticks and impalings came close but fortunately nothing extreme happened. Everyone was fed, watered and in bed by 7 pm and 7:40 respectively.
I was in bed by 7:50 and Blake shortly thereafter 🙂
It is now 2:12 p.m. Sunday afternoon; had a great time at church with amazing and good behaviour from the kids; home and lunched; Blake walking to Chi Fu; and in 48 minutes a birthday party for one of the kids’ friends starts downstairs on the playground. Chuck just phoned and has landed!
Much love, M xox
