Busses, Taxis and Trams! The way we get around in Hong Kong - we also use the subway ("MTR"), but it isn't exactly a good photo op.
Jessica and Chrsitina with pastries in Causeway Bay - you can't walk 1/2 block without running into a bakery. Yummy!
Beach at Stanley - not exactly the Caribbean. All the men here wear bikinis (except Mark!).
This is the "ball play" area in the apartment complex. We have lots of fun with friends here!
Hi friends and family –
Thanks for all your prayers - - we finally have a school!
What an uphill battle this has been. There are quite a few big name International schools here with an American or English curriculum (Hong Kong International School, German Swiss Intl, French Intl, Chinese Intl, English Schools Foundation, etc. etc…). Per the advice of friends and contacts here, we have made application to any school that would accept it, and there are simply no spots available. Despite getting on the wait lists a little late, we have been faced with 2 considerable hurdles, the “corporate debenture program” (many multi-national corporations bring expats in and out of Hong Kong quite often, so they hold spots at these schools open for BIG money – AA is not involved as I am the only person with a family who has taken this post in over 20 years, from what I hear), as well has (only in China!), we have a daughter born in year 2000 (year of the lucky golden dragon or something like that…along with a zillion other kids who were born the same year).
It was looking as though home tutoring was on the horizon, and if you know us and our children, you would know that breaking the news to them that they would not be going to school and interacting with other children was the worst, most dreaded option possible.
But, we did finally this August make contact with a real education specialist, Suzie Nuttall, who knows the school system inside and out (has taught here, has 4 children who have been through school here) as well as the challenges expats have trying to get into the system.
So, she began frantically searching for us for any spot open, and she knows the smaller schools as well. She recommended we try the “Harbour School,” which is quite convenient to our home.
Of course I hurried there immediately to put in the application. The first sight was quite underwhelming. Although it is on sort of a charming typical Hong Kong “city” street (complete with Bakery, little cute shops, etc.), you have to enter into a building through a crack in the wall, practically. The school occupies a single floor in this old office building. They have no playground, and the receptionist told me that they walk the kids across the street to the Community Center for swimming and other PE activities (the receptionist was the only one there that day). Further, they are moving to a new facility so the school was in a bit of disarray. Things were looking pretty grim.
Last weekend, though, we got acceptance letters from this school. Since it was looking like home schooling or The Harbour School at this point, I took Mark back with me to take a second look.
It was our lucky day, because the founder of the school was there. Wow! She's a native of Clearlake,Texas, and she completely OOZES fun education! She has a PhD in Child Psychology, her husband has a PhD in information systems and has worked all his life in education technology, and her sister (who develops their ROCKING curriculum) has a PhD in education and is insanely creative. The founder/director/principal gave us a look around the school. They have a neat kitchen – for their very important cooking projects (cooking is math, science and reading, we were taught!), and the new facility has this adorable kitchen with kid size sinks, etc. Each kid has a computer (a small lightweight one – some smart guy thought that they should be affordable so that every kid should have one – these are quite popular here but MicroSoft has hindered their entrance into the US markets). The kids do their own research on the “education approved” internet. They type in what they want to research, what grade they are in, and sift through the content- and age-appropriate information. She explained the program in detail to us. She also showed us photos of the new facility (they will relocate there October 1 - its a couple of blocks away), and it looks adorable.
Jessica will be working in a fascinating social studies program that begins the year studying the dawning of humanity and how it migrated northward and ended up taking two branches – one westward towards the Tigris/Euphrates area and eventually into Europe, the other came east toward into the region of the Yangtzee and Yellow Rivers in China. She will be studying the one that came into China, and up into the 1700s (she’ll take the other path next year). They will top off the course of study with a 3-day trip to see the Xian terra-cotta soldiers (yes, of course Mark and I will be chaperoning)!
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/terra_cotta_army/
Christina, as she is learning to read, will have a special project to complete on “how to be a good tourist.” Her class will decide collectively what things you need to be a good tourist – what to pack, what key words you should know about the place you’re visiting, what research you should do, etc. They will even be interviewing tourists to see if they are “good” or not! Then, they will have to figure out a place they would like to visit and do the appropriate research to be have a successful tour in that location!
Anyhow, we just couldn’t be happier. The school is small and emerging (it is 5 years old), but there’s apparently some really terrific learning going on there! Their energy and enthusiasm is contagious. There’s just a ton of “doing” going on along with the “learning.”
After I win the horse races here in Hong Kong (the preferred method of gambling – they’re not terribly “lottery crazed” here), I hope to retire and apply for first grade myself!!!
Oh, and although the kids do go to the community center for PE (a nightmare to any native of suburban-US), this community center is newly renovated, sparkling, clean, and complete with a water park! [There is one very neat thing about having a communist government in charge (and lots of low cost labor available) …when they want a park or public area, and they want it CLEAN and SAFE, they really make it happen!] Additionally, the school reserves the facilities they use during certain times of day, so it is sort of private. And walking across the street in HK is NOTHING like walking across a city street in Dallas…they’ll be completely safe.
But we’re so happy – if this team lives up to its reputation and its sales pitch, then we’re going to be in for a great year! Good things really can come in small packages, sometimes, hopefully we’ve found one!
Love, and thanks for the prayers! E.J.
We're fine. Thanks for asking.
Typhoon Nuri in fact visited us yesterday - - unlike in the US where the hurricanes are measured on their strength (category 1-5, I think cat 1 is about 75 mph winds?), they measure the storms here on impact to us. So, Thursday night we were issued Typhoon level 3, then Friday morning was level 8 (everything shuts down), and then last night was up to level 9 (don't even think about going outside!), and now we're back down to level 3. All this means the predicted impact to our local weather, but I'm still not sure how to translate this into storm strength that we're used to in the US - I think max winds were around 120 mph. (maybe cat 3?).
But yes, we're all fine! The last typhoon that came through broke the lock on our sliding glass doors that lead to the balcony, but since we’re on the 46th floor, we didn’t bother to fix it…so we got to listen to some incredible howling and whistling all night long last night as the wind was sneaking through the crack in the doors!
I haven’t heard from any of my team and I don’t get good local news that I can understand, so I’m not sure of damage at this point, but there was nothing significant here on the western edge of Hong Kong Island.
We finally got a school!!!! Gory details attached. This has taken up probably 50% of my time.
I cannot tell you how much I’m enjoying it here! HK is a really terrific city! And having everything around us being new and different is a really neat experience for our family. We have fun exploring and just trying to figure out what we will be eating. The kids are having a tough time adjusting - -culturally they are used to walking over to a neighbor’s house, banging on the door, and finding someone to play with. Here, this is not done, probably because there are often many generations of families living in small quarters. So we are having to plan play dates at the apartment play areas. We’ve found a few nice friends. Anyhow, it is nice to “regroup” as a family and concentrate on each other and the basics, and sort of get our minds off the last couple of years which have been sort of tough.
Work wise, the job is fun, and I took my first ‘country visit’ to MNL last week. So now I get it! I really understand the market and what their needs are. It’s just as fascinating and fun as you can imagine. Otherwise, I do really odd coordination items most of the day. Like, passengers are misconnecting from PR to AA in PVG, and no one here has the slightest clue of what to do about it. So I call Reid Appelby and he gets PR to fix it. And voila! I’m the hero in the PH!!! Or…AA made the newspapers in TW because an AA agent made a Taiwanese national angry because she referred to the country as “Chinese Taipei.” After doing a few minutes of digging, we found that this erroneous information was being fed to us from IATA, and so I send it to Susan Chambers. Even though it is not yet fixed, Voila! I’m a hero in TW!
Anyhow, it is all great fun, and since the school is now settled (I was really considering 3 one-ways on 176 and sending them home to Flower Mound for school)…I love Hong Kong, I’m learning TONS in my job, and I have no regrets whatsoever.
All the best!
E.J.
Outdoor shopping in Stanley is fun.
Our Apartment. Lamma Island is in the distance.
More Olympic friendlies!
Fung Shui
New Scooters!
Hong Kong is host to the 2008 Olympic Equestrian events - they're quite horse-crazy here, most of it is in regards to gambling on horse races. The amount of money spent here on the horse-racing gambling is a bit obscene, so the government requires a tax of sorts - the profits go to charities in the name of the Hong Kong Jockey club. Every other building here is Hong Kong Jockey Club - I think they have about 10 hospitals, 30 university buildings, on and on and on.
Shopping at the peak.Dear Friends!
How are you all doing? We sure do you miss you! Christina has some big news – she has her first loose tooth! And, we can see the one coming in below it. We also got some pet fish for our apartment.
Our apartment is on the 46th floor and we have a spectacular view of the ocean. Boats and container ships come and go all day long. But when the tide goes out, you can see some yucky trash. We can also see Lamma island which has a giant wind mill on it. We can also see a ton of other islands, and when rain storms come through it is great fun to watch from our balcony. Also, every night we can see fireworks from Lantau Island - - that is where Hong Kong’s Disney Land is. We haven’t yet been to Disney Land because we’re told it is too hot in the summer. Hong Kong is actually a collection of islands, “Hong Kong” island is the biggest one.
Our apartment has an indoor pool that is HUGE and decorated with an Egyptian pharaohs. The ceiling is decorated with a dark blue sky and stars. It also has a room with “mineral pools” which are four smaller pools – one is really hot, two are sort of warm, and the one in the middle is FREEZING cold!
Hong Kong is very fun and interesting. They have a giant park here called Ocean Park which is fun like Sea World. We’ve been there twice. We went downtown to ‘Central’ yesterday for some shopping. We bought new scooters…wish we had brought our scooters and bikes from home. Christina’s scooter has flashing lights on the rear. The bicycle shop was about as big as a shoe box with a billion bikes crammed in. We also went to a terrific Chinese restaurant yesterday. It was the most wonderful food we’ve had since we’ve been here. We couldn’t stop eating it…all except for Christina, so it was a good thing mom brought a PB&J sandwich for Christina.
It is hard for us to get accustomed to the food here, the milk is different, the crackers are different, everything is really different. But, Mommy did finally find an American grocery store that had Welch’s Grape Jelly, so at least now we can eat a PB&J sandwich!
Jessica and Mommy really enjoy shopping in Hong Kong! There really aren’t big stores like Kohl’s or Target here, but there are some nice small shops. Yesterday we went into a Tea Pot shop. It was great fun.
We are attaching some photos. Most of them you can figure out…but one of them is of our apartment building and it has a hole in the middle that you can see. The Chinese find this to be good luck, because if a dragon comes down the hill, it will go through the hole rather than bothering the residents. We haven’t seen any dragons, though.
We hope you are all doing well, and we hope to hear from you soon!
Love,
Jessica and Christina Junginger
