A New Day Has Dawned

This past weekend marked a couple of big milestones. I turned 30 on Friday (the 24th) and we celebrated our first anniversary on Sunday (the 26th). So we decided to celebrate with a relaxing beach vacation in Cebu, Philippines. Cebu is actually a province (it's also the name of an island and a city near-by where we stayed) in the Philippines. If you have no idea where this place is, don't feel badly, we didn't really know about it all that much until we heard about it from our travel agent. Here's a map of the Philippines and where things shake out in this region.
Fortunately, I didn't have any major anxiety about entering "middle-age" as our HK friend, Daniel, refers to the ages 30 to 60. I've accomplished a lot so far in my life (other than recently quitting a good job that I liked but it was for a very good reason), am married to an amazing guy, am on an adventure of a lifetime and have amazing family and friends. However, I have to say that I always imagined ringing in my 30th birthday with a big party, surrounded by a lot of friends and family. Being on the other side of the world from the majority of our friends and all of our family made that dream a little tough to fulfill. The good news is, I had some really great things happen that I never would have dreamed of last year at this time.

We left for Cebu on Thursday morning but Wednesday afternoon I was planning on meeting up with my friend Sophie for lunch. Much to my surprise, I met her and two other good friends I(Lorraine & Alex) that I have made here for a very delicious lunch. It was a complete surprise and really so sweet of them to do for me. I was really touched and a very embarrassed when the entire wait staff brought me a cake and was singing happy birthday very loudly! Here's the picture to prove it. (Bilot, please note that that is a beaded monkey on tank top - you just can't make it out in the picture)

Cebu is very convenient from HK. Just over a 2 hour, direct flight on Cathay Pacific, and it's in the same time zone as HK. We stayed at the Shangri-La resort not too far from the airport, and it was really an amazing place. We mostly just relaxed, enjoyed the pool, had very good food and hung out quite a bit at the resort. We went on a historical tour the last day that we were there. I'm incredibly ignorant about a lot of history (it's not something to really be proud of) so I didn't realize that Ferdinand Magellan 1. "discovered" the Philippines (or rather, discovered it to the Western world on his journey around the world) and 2. was killed there for trying to Christianize the islands. Actually, he was killed only a couple of blocks from our hotel. We were staying at a small island off of Cebu called Mactan. The king of Mactan at that time was a pagan and didn't want to be Christianized like his counter-parts on Cebu island. Magellan thought he could take the King but attacked during low tide. Not so smart. During low tide, the location is a bit like the beaches in Normandy so Magellan and his men really didn't have a chance.

Enough about the history. My main point was that there really was a purpose to the historical city tour and Chris and I really enjoyed it.

On a lighter note, here is a picture of the two of us on my actual birthday. We ate at a very good Italian restaurant in our hotel and my entire family called me in the Philippines (including my grandparents). That was a real treat! My sisters even figured out how to do 3-way calling so we got to talk to each other all at the same time.

While we were ordering that night, Chris made a comment to me about my birthday ( I think because I was ordering sparkling wine). Well, at the end of dinner, the wait staff came out singing (very loudly) and brought me this cake. I just about killed Chris but it was actually our very good waitress. She overheard what Chris said and did this all on her own. Unfortunately, I only have pictures of 2 of the 3 birthday cakes I got this year. I say 2 of 3 because Thursday night when we got to Cebu, we just hung out at the bar on the water and had some drinks. Well, actually, more than "some" drinks but at midnight the bar / restaurant staff brought me a cake and sang me Happy Birthday, which also was playing over the bar speakers. It was quite embarrassing, especially when the 6 Koreans who were there started singing as well. That was all Chris. He got the bartender to arrange things.
We thought you'd enjoy this picture. The beach was decent size but apparently you could only build your sand castle in this very small, designated spot. It's funny but there just seem to be rules for just about everything in Asia. Very odd.

The one thing we did notice is that everyone in Asia smokes. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. I personally think it's way worse than Europe, and I didn't think that was possible. I guess we haven't really noticed it all that much because we haven't spent that much time with local people. The resort, however, was obviously packed with Asians from all over but mostly Korea, Japan & China. Being by the pool or in the restaurant was a little bit like what the U.S. was like in the late 70's and 80's. Back when everyone smoked, all the time, and did it everywhere, with little regard for non-smokers but mostly with little regard for kids. It really was very disgusting.

That was really a small thing though. We had a great, great trip. Chris got some well-deserved time off and we got to see a new part of the world. Chris made my birthday really special and we had a very romantic first anniversary. It's hard for us to believe that it's already been a year since we celebrated with most people who are actually reading this blog, but indeed it has. Our move has been a bit surreal for us at times so being in the Philippines on our anniversary has only added to that feeling. The funniest thing Chris said all week was "I wonder if on our 10th anniversary when we're staying at the Motel 6 in Door County, we're going to think back to our first anniversary in the Philippines and wonder what happened?" I'm not a good gambler but odds are good that there is "yes" answer to this question in our future.

We also got some fantastic news while on our trip. Our friends, Bud & Jessica DeGraff, welcomed their second baby. Warren Dale DeGraff III was born very early in the morning on Thursday, Aug 23. Congrats to Bud, Jes and big sister Brynn! I was hoping that he would have held out until the 24th but I know that Jes was more than happy to have him on the 23rd since she was a week or so overdue. We were on Skype with our Mke friends for the fantasy football draft and got to see both Warren, Brynn and Taylor Hannon and they are all very cute. That was a lot of fun. I have to say, especially for people with kids, Skype has been amazing and we highly recommend it.

Hopefully you've enjoyed our update. Believe it or not, it's after 6:00 and I have to get ready for a dinner with a bunch of expat women. If I could explain, I would but that is an entire blog posting by itself so maybe I'll save it for another day.

Mail Call

Yesterday Chris and I had a tiny insight in to what it must be like for soldiers in the military: we received our weekly mail shipment from the U.S.

Now, I say tiny insight because we really have no idea what it's like to actually be in the military. I mean, we've never been to boot camp, never had someone barking orders at us 24-7 and definitely never had anyone trying to actively kill us. But we do know what it's like to get "mail call" which I know is always a big deal to the soldiers who are serving overseas.

The great thing about having your mail forwarded from the U.S. is that they filter out all of the junk mail so we just get the stuff you actually want to see. Everyone likes getting "good" mail and it feels even more exciting when you're across a large pond. Yesterday was quite the mail call for us. We got TONS of cards in the mail and I was so excited. I'm not sure how Chris didn't open them up on his way home; I would have for sure. I guess that's one of the reasons it goes to him at work. And, according to Chris, every Monday a Chinese guy (please note that I have no idea why we continue to feel like we have to refer to people as Chinese since we never referred to a guy as an American guy when we lived in the U.S....but I digress)...every Monday a Chinese guy drops off the DHL package at his desk and says: "Package."

What is a big bummer right now is that this story isn't nearly as funny in print as it is when Chris tells it. His accent really makes the story but I'm sure he'll share it with you next time he sees you.

Moving on. We got lots of mail yesterday and it was a bit like a small version of Christmas really. For those of you who don't know, it's my birthday on Friday (#30, hard to believe) and our anniversary on Sunday. I was half expecting birthday cards but I really wasn't expecting anniversary cards. It was very nice to know that all of these people were sweet enough to think ahead and send cards.

We got some really great cards. One of the b-day cards that I got said: "Don't think of yourself as 30...Think of yourself as $29.95 plus tax." That was from my Aunt Kim & her fam. The greatest thing about this card is that in HK, there is no sales tax so I'd still be <30! Erin Bilot also sent me a very funny one about hamsters snacking and napping but I think you actually have to read it to get why it's laugh-out-loud funny.

We also got a very nice anniversary card in our local HK mail from Chris's Uncle Tim and his family in D.C.! That was so fun! We never get anything good in our mail here so it was a real treat, and all in one day. Ah, it's the little things, isn't it?

That's all for now. Chris and I are off to a beach in the Philippines from Thursday morning to Monday night for a birthday / anniversary celebration. We're looking forward to our first trip out of HK and are hoping that the weather holds up since it is the rainy season around here. Either way, it'll be nice to see a new place and even more nice for Chris to have some time off from work.

I'll post pictures when we get back but if you're looking for something to do over the weekend because there aren't any blog entries to catch up on :), feel free to swing on over to Doylestown, WI for the 8th Annual Dustin Raley Memorial Kickball Tournament (or KBT as it's better known) at Raley's Green Frog bar. Not only are there some of the best kickballers around, there are raffle prizes, great food and plenty of beverages.

I am very sad that this is the first year that I won't be with Team Tryers since the tournament started but I am sure they are going to win it all! Team Sabotage likely won't make it to Sunday but Camp Sabotage is definitely worth a visit. (I had to get a little smack talk in)

In all seriousness though, KBT is a phenomenal fundraiser put on by the Raley family to raise money to fight meningitis. It's hard to imagine that there is anything else quite like it in the U.S. To date, they've raised $96,771.16 and are looking forward to breaking the $100K marker this year. Congrats to the Raleys and everyone who supports KBT. http://www.dustinkickball.com/ Check out the website for the KBT story and entertaining pictures.

Cheung Chau Island

Here are some pictures from our trip to Cheung Chau Island on Sunday. We headed there with some friends for an afternoon at the beach and some amazing seafood. It's only a 30 minute ferry ride from Central Hong Kong. We took a swim in the sea (inside the shark nets of course), had some sun and a little relaxing. It was really a great day.

We ate at the Hong Kee Respaurant. Thankfully, spelling wasn't their specialty. Chris and I were also laughing at the similarities between Hong Kee and Honkey as well. The Brits we were with didn't really get that joke though.


Chris took this picture of our little group at lunch. From left to right: Me (hopefully that's pretty obvious), Richie, Lorraine, Sophie & Daniel. Richie & Sophie are dating and both from England. Lorraine & Daniel are married. Lorraine is originally from Belfast but has been in England for 10 years or something. Daniel is also from England. Chris and I are learning tons of new vocabulary such as, "Brilliant!", "Wicked!" "Bloody hell!" "knickers" (that would be underwear for a girl) "pants" (that would be underwear in the UK) and "trousers" (this isn't really a new word but it's what they use for the US version of "pants").

I see dead people

No, this is not about the movie "The Sixth Sense". This is about my day yesterday, Wednesday Aug 15. The real drama didn't even start until later on in the day, about 3:30.

I had just gotten home from lunch with Chris and doing a little shopping. I was making our bed and doing some stuff in our bedroom when I looked outside and noticed that there were several emergency vehicles (fire trucks, police vans, ambulances) on our street in front of the building across from us that were not there 5 minutes ago when I got home.

Chris and I have this sort of quasi-joke that neither one of us better have a heart attack in HK because people do not move over for ambulances here. It is actually sort of scary but people just keep driving and don't make any effort whatsoever to get out of the way. This is sort of a problem in the middle of rush hour traffic especially in the Midlevels where we live where there is a lot of traffic and relatively narrow roads.

So my first thought when I saw the vehicles was that "Gee, I hope someone didn't die because I'm sure they called 999 (the HK version of US 9-1-1) about an hour ago and they are just getting here." Then I noticed that there were a bunch of policemen standing around on the podium level / patio (this is really the ground floor for apartment buildings but then there is a bunch of parking underneath) and I thought to myself, "hmm, they have it pretty good. Just sort of hanging out."

This is where Erin Bilot would have reminded me that I am not an policeman, fireman or paramedic and I really don't know what these people should actually be doing. And it would have been well deserved because as I was looking outside, I noticed that a policeman was dragging a big black tarp (one of two) that was on the patio. Much to my very serious surprise, I saw legs sticking out from underneath. And then he pulled off the other one and there was the other half of the body uncovered. Fortunately, it was all in one piece but there is a reason that CSI Miami has bodies lying on the ground the way that it does in its episodes. It's because that's how the bodies actually look sometimes. It was incredibly freaky to see a body lying there with one arm sort of up and the other down and blood all around the upper half of the body.

I have absolutely no idea what happened because I can't find it in the paper and I didn't see any windows open at a high level of the building. I of course called Chris to tell him what was going on. He told me to stop looking but I couldn't! Oh, it was seriously so awful.

The reason the policeman took the tarp off? Well, so the forensic photographer could take pictures of course. That was all a bit odd to watch as well. I'm pretty sure I was living through a TV episode.

My luck, however, hadn't yet run out yet. At about 6:15 I caught a bus with a friend to go and meet some people for dinner. I said to her "Should we sit on the top or bottom?" but she wanted to sit on the bottom because it's just easier to get off. So we were able to get seats that were facing backward.

A few minutes later we heard a very loud thump on the bus and two seconds later we saw a massive tree branch fall behind the bus on to the hood of a very nice mercedes heading the other way. It really wasn't my day.

Everyone started getting off the bus so we followed and saw that the front of the second story of the bus had clearly collided with the tree branch. Glass was smashed in a bit and the TV screen in the front of the bus had fallen down. Luckily, no one was hurt but here we were in the middle of a very busy road in rush hour and all traffic was now blocked going both ways. What a nightmare!

We decided not to take any more chances and caught a taxi to our dinner spot. Needless to say, the day had way too much drama for me.

We have, however, had some fabulous news from the U.S. Two different sets of our friends gave birth to their babies. We are really so excited for them and so sad that we can't be there to congratulate them all in person. We have done pretty well so far about missing our friends and family but this is the stuff that is really hard to miss.

Bryan and Fran Hannon welcomed their new baby girl, Taylor Rose, on Aug 15 at 7:07 a.m. and she is just as sweet as can be (we know because we've seen pictures). Bryan says that both Fran and Taylor are doing great.

Amy and J.P. Fassbender welcomed their second child, a baby boy, Jack Steven, as well. Because of the time difference, I can't totally tell but I think he was born at 5:20 on Aug 14 and everyone is happy and healthy.

Congrats you guys! We're so excited for you! 2 down and 1 to go. We're hoping to hear the good news from the DeGraffs in the next couple of days to complete the trifecta.

The Bus Ride from Hell

Hello everyone, this is Chris.

I know over the past month or so Erin has kept you filled in on her weekly exploits. I’ve wanted to write a few things also, but just haven’t gotten around to it. I will try to be better going forward.....

Now on to the Ride:
On Friday around 2pm I had just gotten back from lunch when I noticed everyone in the office standing in groups talking loudly. This isn’t that uncommon, and since they were all talking Chinese, I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Anyway I didn’t really think twice about it. After a few minutes one of the finance managers came up to me and said “Chris, the national weather alert has just informed us a level-8 typhoon is about to hit Hong Kong, you need to finish up what you are doing and go home”. I agreed to finish up and shut down.

For all those who don’t know, a typhoon is a hurricane in this region of the world. They are not all that uncommon; in fact, a level-1 typhoon had actually passed through Hong Kong that morning. Basically it was rainy and windy. Not really a big deal. Apparently what had happened was the level-1 passed through Hong Kong, went out to sea and got stronger, then turned around and came back at Hong Kong.

When a level-8 typhoon is declared, everyone must go home immediately and you are not allowed to stay in the building. The winds are very strong, so it is very dangerous to be outside. Basically as soon as they know a level-8 typhoon is on the way, they send everyone home.

As I was finishing up about 20 minutes later, the same finance manager came back to me and saw I wasn’t ready to go yet. She informed me I had to leave NOW. I got the message and left with my boss and two Chinese finance managers. As we walked outside I could see we were going to have a problem. I work in Kowloon Bay, which is across the harbor from Hong Kong Island.....I will now give you a minute to Google a Hong Kong map........Kung Tong (where Kowloon Bay is located) is one of the most densely populated places on earth. Something like 100,000 people per square meter live there. I don’t know if that’s correct, but I do know when I walked outside and everyone was trying to go home at the same time, it was chaos. We managed to get into a bus and get a seat. Getting a seat doesn’t seem like a big deal until you realize you can’t stand straight up on a bus unless you are under 5’10”, sort of a problem for me. After 45 minutes of sitting on a packed bus in traffic I could still see our office building 2 blocks away. We had only gone around the block. It was during this time I found out they had no idea when the typhoon was actually scheduled to get to Hong Kong and because there are so many people, they make everyone leave hours early. Just to be safe.

After another hour or so we made it through the tunnel and back to Hong Kong Island, where I had to transfer to a train to get me closer to home. Because I live the in the Midlevels area (basically halfway up the mountain) and there were no cabs to take us, we walked home. The good news was since it was Friday at about 430pm we decided to stop at Lan Kwai Fong, which is a big bar district on our way home. Since it wasn’t even raining yet, the place was packed with expats also on their way home. The final line to the story is this, we stayed at Lan Kwai Fong for about 2 hours or so before I went home. The level-8 typhoon never came back to Hong Kong, and, other than a little rain, Erin and I ended up with a quiet night at home.

The next time a level-8 warning is issued I’m going to wait an hour at work, then hop on the train home (of course stopping by Lan Kwai Fong on the way). No more 2 ½ hour bus rides for me.

Take care, talk to you soon!

My first singing lesson

Erin Bilot told me today that I need to do a better job keeping our blog up to date. She's definitely right but I just seem to be so busy! I know - it's hard to believe.

I've been meaning to write about my singing lesson that I had on Tuesday morning. And by singing lesson I mean Cantonese lesson. There are 9 different tones in the Cantonese language which means that one word can be pronounced 9 different ways. The pronunciations are differentiated by the "tone" or "pitch" in your voice. Fortunately, the 9 tones have been grouped into 6 in order to make things easier. Isn't that just peachy?!My teacher's name is "Minnie", as the in mouse, and she told me that people who speak Cantonese are good singers. Thus, the title of my blog.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't add a whole lot to the St. Matthias School choir and things haven't gotten any better since then, that is for sure. The singing lessons made that abundantly clear.

I spent an hour and a half trying to pronounce words at the right pitch to get a feel for the language. Most of my class went something like the following (imagine this in the singing tones of Cantonese):

Minnie: Is this a pen?
Me: This is a pen.
Minnie: Is this a book?
Me: This is a book.
Minnie: Is this the floor?
Me: No, this is not the floor.
Minnie: Is this a pen or a book?
Me: This is a book.
Minnie: Is this a sheet of paper?
Me: This is a sheet of paper.

I think you get the idea. It is all a bit ridiculous and there were quite a few points where I had to just start laughing. I was laughing at how insane this language is but also at how dumb I sounded saying things like "This is a pen" for an hour and a half. Fortunately, I did learn how to say one valuable thing: 70 Robinson Road. That would be our address. Surprisingly, it came in very handy over the last couple of days. I guess it was worth the sore vocal chords.

Tomorrow is my next class. I'm going to try and get them to change the structure a little bit so that it's more conversational. I think I could do without knowing how to say "This is a cat." That really just isn't going to help me in a taxi. We'll see. Hopefully I'll be more in tune tomorrow!

That's all for now. We had a very long day. Chris didn't get home until 9. I painted all day and then made an actual dinner since I'm trying to be more domestic. It's now 10:20 p.m. and Wedding Crashers has just started. I, however, am off to bed.

A few pictures from the weekend

Saturday afternoon we went to the Hong Kong Museum of History. It's quite a good museum that gives a very good description of this history of Hong Kong from ancient civilization to the cessation of Hong Kong from China to the British to the Japanese occupation during WWII to life and culture here today. Here are a couple of pictures we took during the day. It's hard to see it in this picture, but this was a hunting "axe" used by the "cavemen" who used to live on Hong Kong Island. Chris is convinced that this is just some random rock that the archaeologists just picked up and put in the display. We're just not sure that this could be used to kill anything.

Chris and the Hong Kong "cavemen". Thankfully, there isn't much of a resemblance.
Here we are on the Kowloon side (where the museum was) with Hong Kong Island in the background. This is right before we took the ferry back across the harbor back home. The ferry is a fun and cheap way to get from one side of the harbor to the other. For HK$2.20 (US$0.28) you get a fun little boat ride.
A view of "Central" Hong Kong. The tall building is the IFC (International Financial Center) tower, the tallest building in HK. Our apartment is about a mile or so up the mountain from IFC and a little to the right. We took the escalator home once we got to the other side.

The Rules of the Pool

I have to apologize for being a bit of a slacker this last week and not updating our blog. I've been very busy :) I sort of laugh when I say stuff like that right now, especially after taking a two hour nap in the middle of the afternoon on Friday, but it's actually true.

In a lot of ways, my life in HK isn't really all that different than my life in Milwaukee. How, you ask? Well, even though I'm not what most would really call a good "housewife" in the traditional sense of the word, I do have a distinct inability to sit around at home and relax. This really isn't something new - I get it from both of my parents - but it's much worse in a place where I have little else to distract me. So, what do I decide to do to keep myself busy? I decided that I am going to paint our apartment.

I'm not even close to finished yet but it has been a bit of an adventure in and of itself. I actually contemplated naming this blog entry one of the following:

1. "Why my cousin Jake could paint our flat better than me" - for those of you who don't know, Jake is in grade school right now. I am pretty sure he would have had a smoother transition painting than I did because he's young enough to know that you need to read directions instead of just jumping in to something. If only you stayed that smart as you got older...then it wouldn't have taken me painting an entire wall before I read the directions on the paint that said "add water to thin paint." I had never heard of such a thing but sure enough, when I did that, the painting went much smoother. It's like taking some standardized test and failing to read the direction so you get the entire section wrong.


2. "You get what you pay for" - here in HK, you can either buy pre-mixed colors or custom mixed. The pre-mixed are limited to the few colors that you generally see on the pamphlets from the paint company. The custom mixed are the colors that you can pick from the sample cards that have the same color from light to dark. I hope I'm describing that correctly. (However, please don't think that you can bring those color strips home with you to see how they are going to look; nope, you have to pick them all out in the paint store) The pre-mixed colors are about half of the price and I found a color I liked for our bedroom so I thought I'd try that. Not so good. I had a liter (everything is in metric here) delivered so I could test it out on our wall. Well, the can had rust on the seem and when I opened it up, there was a layer of dust on the inside of the can. Not to mention that there was a layer of oil sitting on top of the paint. I'm thinking it must have been sitting on the shelf for a while. Needless to say, I returned the can and got the more expensive kind.
3. "It's the little things" - this doesn't really have to do with painting but more to do with our apartment. When I got home Wednesday night at 9:30, there was a sign in our lobby saying that a pipe had burst in the street and our flush water was going to be turned off. That was it. No details as to when it was going to be turned off or when it would be turned back on. Talk about frustrating, especially since they were going to turn off our "fresh" water on Friday from 9 to 5. Don't ask; I have no idea. Thursday morning, I was on the phone with my entire extended family to take part in our August Birthday celebration when the toilets finally started flushing again. Actually, I was on the phone with my cousin Katie when I realized that my life has taken sort of an interesting turn. In a sick sort of way, I was almost more excited about our toilets flushing again than being able to talk to my cousin! Sad, so sad.

Really, though, even after everything this past week, you're still probably wondering where the title "The Rules of the Pool" came from. On Saturday, we received the monthly newsletter for our complex called "Robinson News." And there, right on page three are the rules for the pool. We couldn't stop laughing so I wanted to share them with you:

Keep the Pool Clean, Please Be Co-Operate!

1. Take good care of children and educate them not to excrete while in the pool.
2. Do not eat or drink milk within two hours of entering the pool. Avoid bread and soft drinks, which may give rise to vomiting and discomfort.
3. Select swim nappy for infant to avoid excreting in the water