Monday, January 12, 2015

Hong Kong!

Even though we were in Hong Kong almost 9 months ago (where in the world does time go???), I figured it was about time to finally wrap up the final posts from our year adventure living in China!  It is hard to believe that this was so long ago.  It is fun looking back and seeing how much Ava has grown and how happy and excited she was to meet Mickey, Minnie and Donald Duck!  She still LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and we are looking forward to taking her to the Disney in Florida one day!

Overall, Hong Kong was a really nice trip.  I went for work to visit our AP Headquarters located in Hong Kong and then visited a couple customers.  We were then able to extend our stay as there was a long weekend holiday in early May (I forget which one at this point)!  We stayed in a great spot where we could walk a lot, however, our hotel was attached to a huge mall so there were always a lot of people shopping – it’s amazing how many Chinese come to Hong Kong purely to go to shopping!  For some reason we expected that the air would be clean with blue skies, but we were wrong as there was still a lot of smog.  Perhaps a movie gave us that impression.  On the upside, since there is such a strong British influence there, English was very prominent and it was quite easy to get around the city by ourselves.

One day, my coworker (who happened to also be my mentor while on the program), Felix, took us around to Stanley Pier.  We were amazed to see all of the expats there!  It was a great spot to walk around, let Ava play on the playground with other kids and grab some delicious pizza!  Felix and his family also took us to an interesting, authentic restaurant that night for dinner.  We would have NEVER gone there without him, but the food was really good and Ryan enjoyed having some beers (in a small glass bowl) with Felix.  Ava had to try it to (with milk of course).

The highlight of our trip was taking Ava to Disney as an early birthday present!  We had heard that it was small, so we didn’t need a lot of time there.  This sounded perfect since we weren’t exactly sure how Ava would do.  Would she be afraid of the characters?  Would be want to ride any of the “rides”?  She didn’t nap, so would she be super fussy?  As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about as Ava had an absolute blast!  She was a little timid with the first character we saw – Goofy – but she was absolutely ecstatic to see Minnie (it was quite difficult to keep her in line), Mickey and Donald!  She kept singing “E-i-E-i-Donald”!  She was also asking for “toodles”!

Promoting the movie "Spiderman"

our sweet girl

the city

drinking beer in a bowl

enjoying the view!




our first ride - she was a little scared at first!

watching the parade (she was scared and had to sit in daddy's lap)

this single moment made the whole trip worth it








exhausted after a long day at Dis

another view of the city (and smog)

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