The Euler's Hong Kong Experience

     As I type this, there is an Asian man here to fix our gas stove. You might wonder how we knew we needed his services. First I should mention that neither Jeff or myself have ever owned or cooked on a gas stove - problem 1. Problem 2, no directions for this appliance were found anywhere in this house. Though I suspect if we had found them with the others or any where else we probably wouldn't have understood them anyway. The English does not translate well here! 

So a few evenings ago we decided we would make dinner at home - things here get expensive quick contrary to what you might think about "China" being cheap. We're actually in what would be considered the New York of Asia so it's very expensive most of the time. With that established, we were staying in and after a few grocery trips we had what we needed to make a simple spaghetti. I was trying to light the stove and was able to get a small flame to stay lit but I was only using the small burner (I was too afraid to try the big one!). When Jeff came in the kitchen, he decided to try the larger burner himself apparently. My back was turned at the time but as I turned back around I hear this "Whoosh!" and see a fireball and Jeff hitting floor so fast! After making sure he was ok, I could not control my laughter! To make it even funnier, he had singed the hairs off of his knuckles! I mean in the full scheme of things, I was so thankful he wasn't burned and quite honestly if you would have seen this fireball you would have been surprised that this was all that happened! Better that than his eyebrows! LOL

      We shared a sense of relief and a laugh over this one and of course, it was the topic of the evening. At times I couldn't even talk from laughing so hard when I would just think about it! I swear we feel like we're 12 and learning to do domestic chores for the first time.  By the way, we were able to get the smaller burner to do the job and did eat a pretty good spaghetti dinner after all. 

     The "Gas Guy" has finally finished up an hour and a half later. Maybe it was the stove and not us! :-) He tries to tell me what he did or what I need to do or something, but I just watch how he makes it work correctly and nod. "All done," I say (like I say to Ethan - because I feel like a child) and sign his sheet. 

Stay tuned to see if we burn this house down and give in and just go out! 

It's hard to put this view in to words so I figured I'd take a picture of it to share with you. If you come out of our house and go left 1 block, there is a walk way to the beach. This is a view from that walk way. We go this way when we take Ethan to the playground there. There are several stairs and he's learning to navigate them better each day, but mostly I have to carry him. I'm getting quite the work out, but it's so worth it!

I wanted to mention the potluck social we attended last night. We've been here 1.5 weeks and before we knew it we were off to our first party! Of all the things......a Mexican Potluck! It was through a lady, Tammy, that owns the breakfast restaurant we've been going to here (The Flying Pan), that we met Sarah. Sarah invited us to attend this party that her friend was hosting. We were a bit shy of the idea, since we didn't know her very well let alone her friends, but we decided we'd make something and go to socialize a bit. After 3 different grocery stores and 2 days later, we had the best ingredients we could find to make guacamole, and we were off in our golf cart to try to find the party. To our surprise, we found the place on the first try!
Everything was awesome - the enchiladas, rice, salsa, refried beans, etc. were all homemade and the people were so accommodating and comfortable to be around. All of them had kids and most had been here for a while. One couple was even from Atlanta! They've been here for 8 months now. We exchanged numbers and plan to get together again soon. We really enjoyed ourselves and agreed that it was worth the 3 trips to the grocery!

So I promised to share some of the experiences we've had since we've arrived here and since the boys are taking their naps, now would seem like a good time.
On this post I"ll share our trip to Toys R Us. We took a ferry from DB and then a taxi when we were in the city to get to our destination. Our intentions were two-fold, we wanted to go to IKEA and Toys R US and do a little exploring of the Causeway Bay area. When we arrived at the Times Square spot in Causeway Bay, there were paparazzi there! Not for us of course, but obviously for someone famous. I was intrigued but more focused on not getting ran over by the people. Jeff could tell you who it was that we saw but I just saw some Chinese man shopping with his family. At any rate, we begin our journey to Toys R Us and soon find out we have no idea how to get in this place! We see signs, but no entrance at all. We needed to get Ethan a few things for Christmas so it wasn't an option to just "come back another day". We saw no one to ask so we just kept at it until we saw a door that led us to an elevator of the building that we finally figured out it was located in - a security guard quickly came to us and said something, but Jeff just replied, "Toys R Us" and he nodded and waved us on. On the original sign it has said "8/F" which Jeff said meant 8th Floor (makes sense). We push 8 and come out at the Fire Exit of the store and have to knock, get the attention of an employee, and wait for a manager to let us in! Jeff and I look at each other and realize that this can't be the way in to this place, but hey - we found it and we're here! After we find a few things, we look for the right way out and as we take an escalator down we see lines and lines of people outside waiting to get in to Toys R Us! Oops! :-) At least we didn't have to wait 1-2 hours outside with Ethan in his stroller just to get in! Jeff and I decided to have a beer at Outback after that experience. I reflect on this and realize that going shopping the weekend before Christmas in a city of 6.9 million people who are always in a hurry, is not such a good idea, especially with an 19 month old! By the way, IKEA was MUCH easier to find! :0)

The picture on this posting is of that day in Causeway Bay.

你好朋友Hello friends!
We arrived safely here in Hong Kong after a 19.5 hour flight. Our flight originated in Atlanta, obviously, and we boarded Korean Air for a 15 hour flight to Seoul, Korea. Jeff and I were anxious about how Ethan would handle this flight but he was so amazing! He fussed a little here and there but only basic kid stuff....that he wanted something or wanted to run around when he wasn't suppose to. We had new toys and snacks, our laptop that doubled as a DVD player, and his pacifiers on hand to help with him along on this flight. They all seemed to help him and us to keep our sanity. Also, Korean Air flight attendants gave Ethan a couple of new toys and a Passport holder that they all autographed for him. They made several comments about how well he did for his age and how cute he is.....so it's an international opinion! :0)
We arrived in Seoul in the evening hours and found the play place for Ethan to stretch his legs and spend some pent up energy. It was a short 1.5 hour lay over so soon after we boarded the flight for Hong Kong. This flight is only 4.5 hours but it's the LAST thing you want to do after just getting off of a 15 hour flight! Once again, Ethan was perfect! He didn't cry once and just slept - we all did. Our body clocks were so off but we just tried our best to stay in to our normal routine.
Our flight landed in Hong Kong at about 10:30 p.m.that evening. At least that's what their clock said - we felt like it was morning time! We gathered our bags rather quickly and headed to the airport hotel for the evening. Ethan slept with us and true to his style, did great yet again. We slept hard in that bed!
The driver to take us to our new home would not be arriving until 10 a.m. so we went to the hotel breakfast buffet. Quite different than what you'd expect as an American.....lots of spring rolls, pork dumplings, seaweed salad, sushi and I could go on and on here. I remember thinking.....where's the cereal, eggs, bacon, etc?!?! Then the realization hit.....we're not in the US anymore and this is just the beginning of everything being SO different.
We gather our bags and head off to Discovery Bay, our new community. The driver seems cautious and drives so much slower than any other driver I've ever been with in HK. This one time when we want to get to our house and we have this guy! :0) Jeff and I are so anxious to show Ethan his new house and quite honestly I was anxious to see it too! I had only seen pictures of this one but I had seen a similar floor plan of one up the road on my October home find trip.
We get here - look around - and we love it, but instantly we missed our things and realize it's going to take some time to settle in here. Our rental furniture and household items where already here and in place but it's just not the same. We are quickly in the golf cart (gotta test drive it!) and going to the grocery with a list of things we need to "live" here. A very interesting trip indeed! We'll write more about our grocery trips on another entry - this is a subject all to itself! LOL
Later that day, we have our cable and internet connected and while the cable worked, the internet did not - but we didn't know this until after they had already left. This became an issue for the past week, but through Jeff's persistence he was able to find someone in the plaza to come out and get it fixed for us. This happend just in time to be able to web cam with family for Christmas. I received an early Christmas gift of an iPhone so I was able to keep somewhat connected this way. (I LOVE that phone!)
This whole time my mind would drift back and forth to wondering how the dogs are doing on their flight over. There journey was different than ours as they flew out Monday on KLM airlines to Amsterdam. They stayed in the airport there for 6-8 hours to rest and then completed there flight from there to Hong Kong. They arrived the day after we did and were at our house by 1 p.m. that Thursday. They seemed a little "jet-lagged" but otherwise, were in great shape. It was so great to have them here with us! Another worry to check off the list as completed.
So much more has happened since we arrived but I'll limit this posting to our journey here. In time we'll share our experiences about going to Toys R Us and learning to do laundry here! LOL
So that's it....our journey in the best words we can conjure up to explain it. We'll do our best to share more of our experiences here in this amazing place in time with you.

Blessings,
The Eulers

Welcome to our blog! Please feel free to book mark this site as we intend to document our experiences here in Hong Kong on a regular basis. So far we have been living in HK for a mere 1.5 weeks. We had a very successful journey here with Ethan and our dogs, Tsunami & Cara made the journey safely as well. Since we have arrived we have been slowly but surely getting settled in to our new house and HK in general. It's difficult to be away from family and friends and from many things that we became comfortable with in the states, but we're looking forward to learning more about this place and ourselves through this 2 year period. Through this blog, we intend to attempt to share with you "some" of our experience as we embark on this experience of a life time! We wish you all the very best.

Blessing,
The Eulers