Weekend in Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong yesterday and will be spending the weekend here before returning to Shanghai on Sunday. As usual, we are having a good time in Hong Kong --- sane, civilized, logical, English speaking Hong Kong. After checking into our hotel, we went to the grocery store to pick up some provisions --- milk and fruit for Sydney, wine and diet cokes for me. There is a Toys R Us around the corner from our hotel so we stopped in to get Sydney a new toy for the flight home. The straps in her stroller were barely able to keep her in as she tried to grab everything that she saw. Somehow we managed to leave the store with a package of balloons and a sketcher.

We spent the afternoon today at Ocean's Park, which is an amusement park with games and rides for kids of all ages. It was a blast!!! But you will have to take my word for it because the battery in my camera gave out when we arrived at the park. I bought a disposable camera to capture the magic moments --- you wouldn't believe how much I had to pay for it.

There is a section of the park call Kid's World that is dedicated to kids Sydney's age. We rode all of the rides, some of them multiple times, and ate junk food all afternoon. There is a Panda exhibition with 4 of the cutest, cuddliest panda bears. Sydney was so excited and happy watching them eat and roll around. There are shark and dolphin tanks, a raging river ride and a roller coaster, as well as live shows such as the dragon dance, kung fu demonstration, etc.

My only complaint about the park is that they have souvenir shops located every 20 or so steps. As a result, Sydney and I spent a lot of time engaged in exasperated conversations involving these words: "MINE, MINE, MINE," "I like it," "Pleeeaaase," "No," "What did I just say," "Let go of it," and "Do you want a time out".

We arrived at the park at 10am when it opened and there were many people there with us. By noon, the park was so crowded that Sydney had to stay in the stroller. We did go on a Saturday over a holiday week so I was expecting the worse. Even so, it was a bit frustrating navigating around the crowd. It didn't help matters that Sydney was taunting me with "Mamma, slow. Mamma, slow".

After 3 hours, Sydney fell asleep in her stroller so we left to return to the hotel. After a short rest, we went to IFC mall so Sydney could run around and to stock up on books. I'm hoping that Sydney will be tired enough for an early bedtime. She hasn't been going to sleep before 9:30pm all week.