a. the passport office here is only open from 8:30-1pm and
b. there are only around 25,000 Canadians living in Hong Kong (we thought)
that the passport office would be dead and it would be a piece of cake! After all, how many of those 25,000 Canadians could actually be at the passport office on the day we picked?
Apparently all of them! AND-we found out that there aren't 25,000 Canadians living in HK, there are 250,000!!! It was busy. And, we had a couple of other issues. First of all, for international passport applications your guarantor still needs to be either a lawyer or a mayor or one of those people. Back in Canada we were the guarantors for our kids and have been guarantors for friends of ours too. But, overseas passport applications require a "professional" guarantor. We have also only lived here a year, so even if we did know a lawyer or notary public over here, we couldn't have known them for the 2 year minimum.
They also needed our old passports which meant that we would be trapped in Hong Kong and unable to return to Macau-our blue card info is stamped in our old passports.
So, these little glitches resulted in extra paper work and some "solemnly swearing" business. And, after what seemed like 8 hours in that little passport office, we were on our way. Let's hope we get them back soon! It's tough being trapped in Macau-how am I expected to keep up with my twice weekly China massages? Think of how stiff and sore I'll be!
I'm not a fan of Hong Kong. Every time I've been there the weather has been crappy and I've had to piggy back Kaid around. Amanda loves the place and heads over about twice a month, and I avoid going as much as possible.
So, when Amanda announced that we would be spending the day there and exploring a little island that can only be reached by ferry, I admit that I wasn't thrilled.
But, I ended up having a really great day. We headed over with our friends Dane and Kirsten and Nick and Gill. We spent the afternoon exploring Cheung Chau (which is only about 2 square km big). We rented little tricycles and the boys biked the girls around for the afternoon. We had lunch at a Thai restaurant along the waterfront and checked out a beach there. Here are a couple pics:
Kaid loved that Nick would pedal and he could steer. This "configuration" caused many near accidents (and several small heart attacks for Gill)-
We hiked to an old pirate cave which wasn't exactly a cave as far as we could tell? We may have been able to lower Kaid down into the "cave" a la The Rescuers, but we didn't have a bucket. So, we weren't able to hunt for booty as we had planned. We did take some pictures, though. You may notice that one of the Kiats is missing from this pic-the early ferry ride over to HK was not to her liking. Take note that I also chose to wear jeans that day. It was cloudy. Apparently I forgot that it can still be 40 degrees even when it's cloudy. Didn't help that I was riding a bike all afternoon either!
There are no cars on Cheung Chau. But, there are PLENTY of bicycles and LOTS of people with training wheels!!
Kaid loved checking out the fresh seafood on the island.
Beef is expensive here, so it's been tough for Kylisha and I who are used to frequent steak consumption back home (especially in the summer). That is why my dreams came true a few weeks ago when the Hildefranklins invited us to Morton's (A STEAKHOUSE) for Kirsten's birthday. It was magical. They wheeled a tray of meat up to our table and I knew this place was for me! My steak may have actually weighed more than I do. And I finished every bite. In fact, the four of us literally gorged ourselves on the greatest feast known to man!
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