Jumpstreet

The first thing that comes to mind is 21 Jump Street, a drama of my bygone youth...but no, it's an indoor trampoline park with patented trampolines. With pay per hour deals, it's a really good deal for the operators. At the same time, the kids do get to let off a lot of steam. As long as they make good use of their hour. J & A certainly enjoyed themselves, albeit in different zones. A and Lucas has their fun in the under 7's area whilst J tagged along with Vivian and Nicole. Ann also jumped in and appeared to have a good time. J also had a dab in the dodgeball pit but very quickly got tagged out by being hit 3 times...he still has to get the hang of dodging in dodgeball. Had McAllister's for lunch, which is sandwiches, soups & salads joint. shui wah again tonight, possibly late night Denny's when Andrew returns for the weekend from Houston....

Reunion Tower

Last night, we went dining atop the Reunion Tower with Vivian and her parents. She will be off to Indiana on Sat and we won't be seeing much more of her this summer. It was a first for many of us and the views were lovely. The boys were smitten by the revolving restaurant and had fun going around. The food at Five Sixty by Wolfgang Puck was mostly tasty, the best scores easily go to the desserts. Menu was,as expected, con-fusioned...like they had "HongKong style" steamed salmon...say what? J & A still not quite over jet lag. Whilst A was able to take a 3 hour nap, J did not and ended up falling asleep midway thru the meal, which resulted in him missing the best part, dessert. One more thing, we had CFA at the mall for lunch! one of our quintessential faves! Today, we are possibly going to take on Jumpstreet...wonder if that would manage to wear the boys out,just a little. The duck pond plus running up and down the stairs plus skateboarding lessons with Vivian did not even make a dent in their energy tanks.

Food

I noticed that my previous entry was almost exactly two years ago when I first travelled solo with the boys. I ham apply to note that the last time went off without much incident either. After arriving here for five days, I note a slight difference in our routine this time around. We haven't yet visited many eating joints...Shui Wah obviously had to make an appearance, Omi Korean grill (all-u-can-eat, but J&A fell asleep half way thru leading SKM to think that they didn't eat anything, thus convincing the cashier not to charge for them two). Lunch at Nordstom's (Northpark Mall) was a first, J especially enjoyed the pizzas. Lunch at home, dad fried noodles, to which A was particularly partial. BBQ at the Lins. What initially was supposed to be simple, just burgers and hotdogs turned into a fancy deal with escargot & ribs, curtesy of sisters Cindy and Winnie (team CinWin). Lunch at sushi robata ( first time having lunch there) their lunch sets are great deals, esp comparing prices in HK. Dinner at home, again (it is rare to seat so many meals at home :D). Tuesday: lunch at Pho Mac, Jerry's face food among other things. Wed: dimsum lunch at Kirin Court (another first, as I don't believe I have ever had dimsum on a weekday here in Dallas). It is surprising how we can still find new things to do here :) Tionight's dinner is also home. I wonder when we start going out?

Summer 2012...

Here we are again, in Big D, Texas. Thankfully, J & A are older and well behaved. At the start, there was a lot of excitement. They discovered a little kiddies area in HK Int'l airport and had a lot of fun rolling on the floor (it's true). When we were transmitting at Narita, AJ has a slight breakdown, and protested the long traveling, which, at that time, was no where near over. After. Short rest and a tempura set, he felt much better (JD had the sushi set, which was equally delish).
Perhaps due to some mistake, or deliberate act, we were placed in the middle 3 seats out of 5. Surprisingly, I was not too upset about that, I think the 2 gents on either side of us got the bum deal. They were very bgracious about moving up and down and in and out of their seats to let us thru to the bathroom. At one time, AJ proclaimed his need to go just as the flight attendants had placed everyone's meals down. I nabbed two blankets from JAL, with the plan of letting one of them sleep on the floor. It worked out really well and they managed to sleep for hours (J for 4 and A for 7).
First meal was at home, home cooking by mom. Sleep came quickly, for me in any case and not a moment too soon, for the boys woke up at 5am.

Summer vac

Summer vacation this year is in Dallas, TX and we are now one week into our visit. I traveled with them solo this year and thankfully, it was a much better trip than I had dreaded. Packing began one week previous to departure and I borrowed a camping backpack to bring in the cabin. I only packed one suitcase for the 3 of us because I didn't want too much bulk when claiming baggage and that caused an overweight suitcase that had to be repacked at check-in. It was only down to an acceptable weight when I gave up my jeans and cosmetics.

The shorter flight to Tokyo was peaceful and uneventful. Jerry got to play Bejeweled on the inflight entertainment system and Aaron was thankfully more or less entertained with the videos and books that we brought along.

While re-checking in at Narita airport, I had a slight shock when I found out that I should have made an online registration to take advantage of the visa waiver for British passport holders. This is a new requirement that I was not aware of and luckily for us, there was enough time to do it at the airport's Internet cafe. Even more lucky was that American Airlines Japanese ground crew were extremely helpful and had someone escort us to the Internet cafe and wait until our registration was complete. She served as a precious babysitter for those 20 minutes.

Even after having eaten lunch on the plane, Jerry was hungry already, so we stopped by the foodstop next to our gate and had tempura and cold udon and soup soba. (pictures later)

The longer leg of the trip was more taxing on me (I had no room to sleep because collectively, they took up all three seats), but no effect on the boys as they managed to eat and sleep a fair amount. We even brushed our teeth in the tiny bathroom to go through our routine. Aaron also put on pj's to get comfy.

Finally, after 20 hours of combined traveling and waiting, we arrived in Dallas.

We are now 1 week into our trip and we have had the following Dallas favorites:

Shui Wah, Chick-fil-a, Pizza by Marco, Taco Bell, Macaroni Grill, menoodle, Sonics, Papa John's, Yoghurtland, mom's cooking, and more Shui Wah tonight.

The boys have enjoyed swimming at the Yips' and the Lins' (especially at the Lins') and Aaron has grown attached to Lucas' playroom. It's literally the first place he thinks of going to when he wakes up in the morning. We went to the Tom Mullenbeck Swimming Pool today complete with waterslides, water fountains and a lot of fun. Jerry has already decided that when he moves to Dallas (not "if") he will want to live close to the swimming pool, just like how Sai BewYee is so close by. All in all, we are enjoying this trip and Jerry is more convinced than ever that he'd like to live in Dallas....

Kelvin joins us in another week and we look forward to reuniting!

blogger's block

So, I know I haven't blogged about the boys in almost 10 months...but the long delay was not intentional...honest.

Obviously, a lot has occurred within these 9.5 months and it would not make a very interesting post if I attempted to fit everything in today.

Jerry turned six in March and Aaron turned three in April. In Aaron, the transformation was most obvious and luckily, all for the good. No longer did he feel the urge to throw temper tantrums neither did he scream unnecessarily in the middle of the night. Attending nursery also helped him develop a milder temperament and improved his manners altogether.

Jerry's school searching ended in January with acceptance in 2 schools. Luckily, one of them was our first choice, so we didn't have any problems deciding which one to pick. This coming September 1, Jerry will be a Grade 1 student at St. Stephen's College Preparatory School. We already bought the books and uniform...so, we are all ready, I hope.

Aaron interviewed for Jerry's kindergarten in February and was accepted. Aaron has always been in the habit of speaking English more than Chinese, so, during his interview, when the interviewer asked him his name and age in Cantonese, he replied in English. When he was presented with pictures to identify, he continued replying in English whilst the interviewer was still using Cantonese. We believe that but for Jerry having attended there, Aaron's chances of getting in would have been slimmer (because according to some of Kelvin's friends, there were over 1000 applicants for a mere 120 spots.

Jerry graduated from kindergarten and Aaron left nursery. Jerry was chosen to play a part in his school's annual graduation performance and was dressed as a pearly clam. Coincidentally, Aaron was chosen to perform at his school's graduation too. I'm proud to say that they both performed excellently. To our surprise, Aaron received an award for Most Improved! That was a very proud moment too. To Jerry's credit, he received awards in K1 and K2 for Achievement in Academics and Conduct.

What's been up with us?

I didn't intend to leave such a long gap from my last post in August. Since we returned from Dallas, thinks started happening and the momentum to post anything was lost.

Jerry on a school outing (above left) and Aaron goes to school with a schoolbag that's bigger than him (above right)!

School began on 1 Sept for both Jerry and Aaron. Jerry is in K3, his final year in kindergarten. Aaron is just beginning in nursery. Aaron's first week of school was posted on FB; to summarise: he had a little separation anxiety leaving home at first and was also upset when he had to leave school. However, after almost 3 months, he has adjusted well and loves going back.

It has always been observed that Aaron responds more to English, since he was under 2 yrs old. One time, when an aunt called to him by his Chinese name, he did not respond; then she switched to say "Hello!" he said it right back. Now, although he goes to a local Chinese school which only has 20 mins English "lesson" per day, he still responds better in English. In contrast, Jerry has always preferred Cantonese, sometimes even Mandarin, to English.

It is fascinating that whilst both boys are placed in the same environment and are offered similar experiences, they respond very differently. It relates to how they are very different in character and style. It's really fun to watch them grow up together and turn out so differently.

September 2009 also was a month of activity in securing a primary one spot for Jerry. The way the primary one placement is designed in HK is complicated and almost incomprehensible. Basically, there are public schools and private schools (this category actually loosely encompasses 3 categories, but for easy reading, I'll just group them together). Public schools don't have a choice in their students, however, their primary 1 places are split up to go through 2 stages of admission. Stage 1 allows cross-district applications; i.e. you can apply to a school that's not in your school district. The applicants in this stage are split into 2 groups: 1. children with connections (i.e. older siblings in the school, parent teaches at the school, etc); and 2. children with no connections. The school has to admit all applicants in group 1 and if there are more kids than places, then the extra kids take up the places allocated to group 2. All the places left are allocated to group 2 applicants by "lucky draw". Stage 2 is when you have to list in order of preference the schools in your own school district. But it is all "lucky draw" at this stage and there is no guarantee at all as to which school one ends up with.

Having just written the above, I don't even know if I understand.

Private schools, on the other hand, can choose their students and some schools are highly sought-after, either because they are traditionally known as good schools or they have proven academic track-records. Since the public school route is really uncertain, we also took matters into our own hands and selected a few private schools for Jerry so that we have some control over where he'll end up going to school for the next 6 years. Another reason to pick a primary school is that some of them have connected high schools, which means that we will not have to go through another school searching exercise in 6 years time.

In Hong Kong, we observe that many parents take the whole school searching exercise a little too seriously. Not only for primary schools, but already at the kindergarten stage. Kelvin and I took a minimalist approach and did not create "portfolios", nor did we go in person to pick up application forms that were available for download (those are the sort of things that most parents do). We have also heard of kids who had to attend "interview training" for a whole year (2 of my ex-colleagues put their kids through this). Some people also went to extremes and paid 4 figure sums to have their portfolios created for them.

Anyway, to prove that all that crap is not necessary, we deliberately did none of it. Our applications to the 5 schools of choice contained: 1 cover letter, the application form, a one page profile in table format, and a recommendation letter from Jerry's headmistress (which is issued to all the kids on request) only. In the end, Jerry received 2 offers and one waiting list position. All in all, the lesson to be learned is that the whole recruitment process is not as complicated and does not need to be as big a deal as many people make it out to be.

The best thing for us is that Jerry actually got into the school that is our first choice, St. Stephen's College Preparatory School. Not only is the campus next to a beach, it also has a boarding program in 6th grade. Jerry also likes it because he watched a cartoon during the "interview"; therefore, he reckons he will get to watch cartoon when he attends this school. Jerry was not stressed about any of the interviews because we did not make a fuss over the whole thing. As mentioned on FB, he applied the whole process to Nemo of "Finding Nemo" and wondered why he didn't have to go to an interview. He had been re-watching the film and it prompted this question. Kids are so good at applying things observed; hopefully he can continue this attitude throughout his studies.

At one of Jerry's school friend's birthday party over the weekend, Kelvin took some time to chat with the other parents (that's his role, social-king). One thing that got me having a deep thought was that some of the parents, when they considered a school, they also had to consider the cost. It occurred to me then that we are truly lucky and blessed. My sons are amongst the luckiest and more privileged children who can go to whichever school might seem suitable or desirable, without any consideration as to money. Not to say that we are rolling in it, but, at least we don't have to cringe at the idea of going to a private school. Tuition for a year equals that of a local Hong Kong college student's tuition for a year. During the application process, we did make loose calculations of how much it would cost for 6 years total, but the actual amount was not in issue. It only struck me now, that whilst we talked about which school we thought would be "best" for Jerry, we never had to worry about whether that school was expensive. With this in mind, I hope to remind myself and my family not to take things for granted and to be grateful every day for what we have.

Our babies are growing up and I hope that Kelvin and I can really guide them in the right direction to become responsible and contributing members of society.