Saturday, August 15, 2009

Our Apartment, Our Balcony & Our View(s)




































































An Ounce of Prevention

The people of Hong Kong seem to be very public health minded.

There are hand sanitizer dispensers mounted in almost every train station and shopping mall. Many people choose to wear those disposable medical masks whenever they are in public which makes many of the commuters on the train look like they are ready to perform an appendectomy at the drop of a hat. I have yet to figure out if they are wearing the masks because they fear picking up a virus from the rest of us, or if its because they are under the weather and are trying to protect the rest of us.

In the midst of the 94 emails we received from the school in the two weeks prior to our departure, was one email reminding the four of us to wear face masks on our fourteen hour flight from the States.


Which of course we did.

All four of us.

The whole flight.

All fourteen hours.

And because of the H1N1 virus, this spring our school started taking the temperature of every person who enters the building. I ran across the street this morning to pick up a quart of milk for breakfast and sure enough, when I came back in through the parking garage, I had my temperature taken just in case I had picked up the H1N1 virus at the QuikMart and developed a tell-tale fever in the eight minutes I had been out of the building. In the spirit of all things high tech, the security guard at the school uses a Star Trek phaser-inspired devise that he or she puts to within a centimeter of your forehead and then pulls the trigger. The gun clicks and then gives an instant temperature reading.

In Celsius of course.

Hong Kong has a disproportionately high occurrence of the H1N1 virus. But conversely, they have had among the worlds lowest death rate due to H1N1. Must be all this preventative action they take.


Maybe the rest of the world should considering wearing those blue medical masks when they go out in public. Besides, you never know when you will be called upon to perform an emergency tonsillectomy on a moments notice.

-Jack

The United Colors of Benetton

The “I” in ICS stands for international. They did not misname the school.

While the school is an English language school that follows an American curriculum and an American calendar, the staff is definitely international. While about half of the staff is from the States, the remainder comes from around the globe. ICS has staff from Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zeeland, The Czech Republic, India, Nigeria, and of course, China. We have on staff one teacher who is Aussie through-and-through, but he is Nepalese by birth.


While the vast majority of students are Chinese, ICS has a small, diverse minority. We have a handful of Korean students, and a few Japanese. For the most part, the only western students are children of teachers. So in a school of 900 students, I would say there are less than 75 Anglo, western students. Annika and Elise are definitely getting a taste of what it feels like to be an ethnic minority in school.


Elise is the only non-Asian in her 4th grade class. Annika is one of just three non-Asians in the entire 8th class of 75 students.

For the most part, my students seem to speak perfect, idiomatic English. In fact many of them –I’m not sure what percent- seem to have lived in either the States, Canada, or Australia at some point in their lives.

I have no problem understanding my Chinese students, it's trying to understand my Australian colleagues that is proving a real challenge!

-Jack

I’m Sorry, Your Name Once Again

We’ve completed out first three days of school. Our school celebrated the start of a new year by having a celebration banquet at the Regalside Hotel on Friday night. All school staff, their families, and the school board were invited. The school had arranged for two charter buses to meet teachers and their families in the parking garage of the school. I would say there were about 150 people in attendance.

After a few opening remarks by the superintendent, we had a large buffet dinner of western, Chinese, Indian, and Japanese food. The sushi was great, but the girls and I took a pass on the pigs’ feet.

There was no programming planned for after dinner, so we were free to mingle. Considering the fact that we’ve only been here eight days, we still have a lot of people to meet. The staff at the school –both the local Chinese staff and the international teachers really are an amazing collection of outstanding people. Everyone of them has such an interesting back-story and to a person they are all so gracious and helpful.

The best part of the evening? Everybody had name tags on.

We stayed too late chatting, so we missed the charter bus back to the school/apartment. So at 9:40 at night we decided to figured out the HK bus system. By “we” I mean Julie, me, Ruth, and Tony. Okay, Julie and I had nothing to do with it. It was all Ruth. We just followed her like lost puppies.


(For future reference, it's light bus 67a.)

In Hong Kong, we've ridden trains, subways, taxis, and now a city bus. The girls are itching to ride one of those double-decker buses we keep seeing around town.


-Jack

Friday, August 14, 2009

I’m Eating What?

Last Sunday, our third full day, my across-the-hall neighbor Tony asked if I wanted to join him as he went shopping for some electronics he needed. I had a few things that I needed to pick up and I wanted to scope out DVD players for the apartment. So I said sure.

Now Tony had gotten the word that you could pick up electronics cheap in this one older section of town. Now please realize, dear reader, that Shatin, the section of HK that we live in is rather new and modern as is much of HK –but not all of it. The neighborhood Tony took me to was definitely the older part of town. It’s wasn’t bright and shiny and would never be mistaken for an oversized shopping mall which so much of HK seems to be. There was laundry hanging from every available window on the ten-story buildings. Image if you would, that in addition to all the shops that make up the first floor of every building, there are also homemade, ramshackle booths that appear to be made from found materials postitioned half on the sidewalk and half in the street. On both sides of the street. On every street. As far as the eye could see. With the exception of a few main arteries, all of these streets were closed off to cars. This whole section of town is one big pedestrian walk way.

One booth was selling all used power tools. Another booth was selling nothing but used power cords and adapters for computers and cell phones. Lots of meat hanging in the open air including a few goose heads and necks. Deer antlers seem to be a big seller.

It was noon and Tony suggested we get some food. At this point, I had been in China for over 48 hours, had eaten several meals, but hadn’t gotten close to anything resembling Chinese food. McDonald’s yes. Chinese no.

So when Tony suggested the Happy Together Chinese diner, who was I to say no? Thank goodness for menus with English. Thank goodness for menus with pictures. When the server came, I confidently ordered -by pointing and smiling- my bowl of broth with wide noodles and beef. Pretty safe right?

When it came, I said to Tony that it looked good and that the thin medallions of beef looked tasty, but that I had never seen beef with this particular pattern of wavy marbling. When I had my first chopstick full half way to my mouth, Tony asked “Well, you know what it is don’t you?” Before I could stop him, he answered his own question “It’s cow tongue.”

Cow tongue. I could have done without that piece of information.

But when in Rome . . .

So after a deep breath, I ate up.

I managed to eat about half of the "beef."

The wide noodles were good though.

Maybe eating at McDonalds while you’re in Hong Kong isn’t such a crime after all.


Tony never found the electronics he was looking for.

-Jack

Note to self: its time to start learning Cantonese so I know exactly what I am ordering.

Too Legit to Quit

Yes! After going through Hong Kong's version of the DMV (Kafka would be proud), we now have our HK i.d. cards -well at least our temporary cards.

Cell's phones and internet access in the apartment can not be far behind.

For a guy who hasn't bought an electronic highway pass because it's a little too big brother-ish, it was a little rough filling out multiple forms, getting photographed, and being fingerprinted just so I can carry around town a card proving who I am.

-Jack

This is Key

Yes! The girls have their school i.d. cards which means that they can let themselves into our apartment. Once small step at a time.

Buffy, Jody, and Mr. French

I would estimate that about half of the teachers here at ICS have a live-in helper. Invariably, the helpers are young, Filipina women who have come to HK to live and work. Typically, they send a portion of their money home to the Philipines. Hong Kong regulation requires that all Filipina helpers live with the family that employs them. These helpers typically do the grocery shopping, cook the evening meal, tend to young children, do the laundry, and clean house. Rumor is that the cost for all this is about US$500 a month. And the reason we haven’t arranged for a helper yet, would be . . . ?

The typical arrangement is that the helpers work six days a week. Sunday is their day off. Last Sunday, we were out grocery shopping at a sort of strip mall with a courtyard. Clustered together in the courtyard were several groups of helpers chatting, eating their picnic lunches, and spending their Sunday afternoon together.

There’s got to be a fancy British word for these helpers, right? Something akin to “nanny” or “au pair,” right? So I asked a colleague the other day “So what do you call these helpers?” She gave me a confounded look, as if I had just asked her what year it was and replied “Why, they’re called 'helpers' of course.”

Of course, silly me.

-Jack

Up the Down Stair Case

Our school building (and therefore our apartment) is brand new -less than two years old. The building is "L" shaped.” One wing is the secondary wing and houses grades six through twelve; the other wing is the elementary and houses grades one through five. Kindergarten is at another location in town. On the second floor, bounded by the two wings is a large, brick courtyard; except nobody calls it a courtyard. Everyone refers to it as the “podium.” Must be a British thing (?).

The school cafeteria is also on the second floor so students can eat on the podium if they choose. But this time of year, most of them choose to eat inside due to the heat and humidity.

Because it never gets extremely cold in HK, buildings here are able to blur the lines between indoors and outdoors. For example, the two wings of our school building are connected at every floor, but they are connected by an open air walkway. While most of the stairwells in the building are enclosed, there are several staircases the students use throughout the day that are also open-air. A little unusually to this boy from west Michigan where it isn't uncommom to have 30 inches of snow on the ground.

The classrooms are air conditioned, the halls are sort of airconditioned, and the staircases are hot and humid. So in the course of going from one class to another, students get to experience all the variety that Hong Kong has to offer.

The school has elevators which we as a family can use as we go to and from our seventh-floor apartment. But students are not allowed to use the elevators during the school day. While most of their classes tend to be clustered on a single floor, students do have to go up and down throughout the day. For example, at one point in the day, Annika has to go from the fourth floor where most of her classes are, down to the first floor for band, and all the way up to the sixth floor for science, only to return to the fourth floor for her next class.

The school has a beautiful 500-person theater that is housed on the fourth and fifth floor. The school also is home to two full-sized gyms which are necessary because the school has nothing that resembles a playground or athletic fields (those would be a luxury in a very crowded HK. The high school sports teams rents fields just down the road.) The school also has a beautiful, indoor pool.

On the ground level between the two wings is the parking garage which can house about 25 cars. The parking garage serves as the main enterance for most people -our family included- comming and going. But if we come back at night after 9:00 p.m., the big metal, rolling garage door is closed. Then we have to ring the bell and security will open up the little entry door that’s been cut in the metal garage door.


And once security has taken our temperatures to make sure we didn't pick up the H1N1 virus while we were out eating icecream, we are free to head up to our apartment.

-Jack

Excuse me, Nurse

Julie seems to be settling into her job as part-time school nurse. Recognizing her need to get her family settled in, her boss Jerry told her not to worry about reporting in on the first day ofschool even though the school had 900 students returning from summer break that morning. Jerry trully is one of the sweetest men you could ever hope to meet.

Julie is working opposite Fanny, a Cantonese (and English)-speaking local who is also part time. This spring, Julie was tenatively told that she would be working from about 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. But when we arrived, it had been flipped. Julie will be working from 1:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. or five hours a day, or 25 hours a week. That's a little more than half time (62.5% to be exact).

This will actually work out pretty well. It will give Julie the morning hours to take care of a few things like running errands. It makes the dinner hour a little tricky (heaven forbid that I learn how to cook), but recognizing the need to tend to her family and because she lives upstairs, Jerry has proposed a beeper system where Julie will be on call for the last 90 minutes of her shift. So as long as she's still in the building, starting at 4:30, she is free to go up to our apartment, get the girls started on their homework, and get the rice cooker coooking.

It's really pretty cool all working and going to school in the same building. I love having Elise come bounding into my class room at 3:30 to play on the computer. I love getting little clandestine waves from Annika as we pass in the hall.

And today on my lunch break I went downstairs to the nurse's office to get a little schmooch from my wife.

-Jack

When you’re Hot, You’re Hot

Hong Kong Weather Report:

Yesterday: hot and humid
Today: hot and humid
Tomorrow: hot and humid
Day after: hot and humid

See a pattern? Hong Kong is actually in the tropics. I’m told the weather will break in November. Thank heavens for air conditioning. Almost every building is air-conditioned in HK. But never with central air. It seems as if almost every window in HK –or at least in our section of the New Territories- has an air-conditioning unit mounted in it.

One of the things that takes a bit of getting used to is the contrast between the hot and muggy outside and the cool inside. You can be walking down the street a huffin’ and a sweating. Three minutes later you can be in a store shivering and wishing you’d taken your wife’s advice to bring a sweat shirt.

-Jack

In Case of Emergency, Do Not Use the Lift

Living in the same building you work in rocks!

I highly recommend it.

You Only Ever Have One First Day

Wow. Our first day of school. And we all survived. Barely. It seemed as if each of was trying to be in two places at once -and didn't know how to get to either one of them. On this first half-day, classes were only twenty minutes long. While this meant that I didn’t have a lot to prepare, it also meant that the day was moving at a break-neck pace. I think I learned a grand total of three students’ names.

Showing up thirteen days late continues to have a ripple effect. Because we weren’t here for the bulk of new-teacher orientation, Annika didn’t take here placement tests until the day before school began. Therefore, she did not have a class schedule when school started on Wednesday. Poor kid. She is in a foreign country, far from home, doesn’t know a soul, sticks out like a soar thumb, doesn’t know where to go because she doesn’t actually have a place she’s supposed to go to yet.

Between first and second period, I caught a glimpse of her in the hallway and I could tell she was not doing well. I came along side of her and walked her down to the little open lounge area at the end of the hall. She needed her daddy. The problem was, I had a classroom full of eighth-graders fifty feet down the hall waiting for their new teacher to enter the room. I was torn between my professional responsibilities and my role as a protector-dad. Annika won. My students would just have to wait.

Admittedly, it’s been a difficult process settling in. The four of us have been trying to do in six days what was meant to be done is 21 days. But I don’t think that any of us has second-guessed our decision to be here. But for three brief minutes, sitting there on the sofa with my arm around my thirteen-year old, knowing that I was neglecting my professional responsibilities, I thought to myself, What have I done? What was I thinking? Whatever benefits there are to this whole venture, I thought to myself, they are not worth this moment right here.


I had to get to class, but I couldn’t (or wouldn't) leave my daughter.

And then, as if by by some miracle, Gostick -who is usually holed up in her human resources office down on the first floor- suddenly came around the corner. Gostick thought the reason she was up on the fourth floor was to have me sign yet another piece of paperwork, but you and I both know why she showed up at that spot at that time. After I explained Annika's lack of a schedule, Gostick stepped right in and took over so that I could get to my class. When I glanced back, Gostick had put her arm around Annika and was leading her down the hall.

Gostick took her down to the secondary office and was able to get Annika her schedule. (She is going to be in both her Dad’s English and American history class.) By the time I saw her back on the fourth floor an hour later, I am happy to report, Annika was in much better spirits.

That was Wednesday. It's now Friday and we are in the midst of our third day of school –our second full day- and things are going much, much better for all of us. I’ve actually learned the names of most of my students, Elise really likes her teacher, and Annika has learned to navigate the building. Annika even has a few girls in the eighth grade who are looking out for her. I just noticed that Florence Lau –who is a full twelve inches shorter than Annika- was waiting for her in order to go to lunch together.

Thank God for small gifts.

Remind me to give Florence an A for the quarter.

-Jack

Maybe there is Hope for the Future

This from yesterday's afternoon announcements over the intercom. Note: all of our students wear school uniforms with ICS's logo prominently displayed on them:

"This afternoon, someone from the community called the school to say that she saw two of our students give up their seats on the subway to an elderly passenger. Way to go guys."

Wow.


-Jack

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Meet Florence, Hammond, & CoCo


School started yesterday (more on that later). In the meantime, I would like to introduce you to a few of our middle school students. As my Chinese students explained it to me, they all have Chinese first names which nobody -including mom and dad- uses. Additionally they're all given English names as well. Like so many things in HK, name choices are the result of British and American influence, Chinese sensibilities, and tradition.

Felix
Hammond
Tiffany
Harry
Francis
Desmond
Queenie
Vaughn
Hazel
Ivan
Peony
Quick
Gideon
Julius
Ernest
Yolanda
Theophilus
Leon
Benedict
Wesley
Eugene
Minnie
Oswald
Calvin
Rocky

I also have several 3 Jasons, 2 Jeremys, 2 Hannahs, a Justin, a Natalie, and a Tommy.

-Jack

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Visa Trouble: Resolved

We were just informed that as of today, Wednesday, August 12, our visa issues have been resolved. We have been issued our residency visa . . . which means that we can get our HK i.d. cards . . . which means that we can get cell phone and internet service in our apartment.

-Julie

Confirmed

It would be an understatement to say that deciding whether or not to move to HK was a big decision. In order to ascertain whether or not this was where we were supposed to be, we prayed for closed doors, of which there seemed to be none. It was smooth sailing from the moment I first sent in my resume.

Second, we asked for some sort of confirmation that this was the right descion. As if having our own personal neon sign hanging from the sky saying “go,” confirmation came in the form of not one, not two, but five relational connections. All of these we discovered after we signed our contract. The last one we discovered after we arrived.

1. Rodney Carlson: Sara Carlson has been my photography business partner for the last six years. Sara's cousin Rodney taught at ICS ten years ago.

2. Grant Franke: Julie’s boss at Sherman Hospital in Elgin has a young friend –Grant Franke- who teaches somewhere in Hong Kong. Turns out, Grant and I are on the eighth grade team together. He is in the room across the hall from me.

3. Maria Postma: While not related to my cousin Barry Postma, Maria went to school with him and was close friends with the girl Barry would eventually married. Maria was supposed to stand up in their wedding, but had a scheduling conflict.

4. Calvin College –where Julie and I both graduated- is a small college graduating just 900 students a year. ICS is a modest-sized K-9 school with just 70 teachers on staff. None-the-less, three ICS teachers are Calvin graduates.

5. Ruth Pifer. Ruth Pifer went to public school with my cousin Betsy (VanNoord) Marvin in Jackson, Michigan. Ruth is also a first year teacher here at ICS and my across-the-hall neighbor on the seventh floor.

We've only had a chance to meet a fraction of the staff. I look forward to seeing if there are any more two-degrees of seperation.

Kevin Bacon, eat your heart out.

-Jack


Picture: Annika, her Bible teacher Mr. Grant Frnake, and friend

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Jonesing for a Hit

How is it that we now seem unable to live without technology that didn’t even exist fifteen years ago?

We have not had internet access for four days now ever since we landed. On Friday, our first full day here, Gostick was kind enough to grant us access to her computer just long enough to email our families that we had landed safely. But other than that, we’ve been www-free
for the last 96 hours.

I have to admit, I’m going little crazy. I have found myself to be on edge and a little anxious. Realizing what was making me tap my foot incessantly didn’t help me to take control of the situation. It only made it worse. I felt adrift and disconnected. How did I get to this point that I needed access to feel grounded and ordered?

Tomorrow is Monday, and I know the school has a lot of meetings and appointments planned for me. All I know is that getting me my laptop better be at the top of the list. I don’t know how much longer I can take this.

-Jack

I am happy to report that Jack got his laptop early Monday afternoon and was able to check his email shortly thereafter. His case of the detox shakes cleared up almost immediately.

-Julie

“You awake?” “Yup.” “You?” “Yup.”

It was 1:00 in the morning of our first night in Hong Kong and the jet lag and the jitters of being in a different hemisphere conspired to wake us both up in the middle of the night. Julie and I lay in bed chatting about all that had transpired in the last 24 hours and all that needed to be done in the days ahead. It became pretty evident that Julie was feeling a little overwhelmed. The school was gracious enough to stock the apartment with some food (cocktail wieners, really?). But it was only enough to get us through lunch the next day and Julie had no idea where the grocery store was.

We would have settled for a convenience store, but we didn’t even know where that was. And we’d heard a rumor about an IKEA in town, but we had no clue where that was? And how do you get all your stuff home anyways? On the subway? And let’s not even talk about the need for school uniforms. Does Annika really need to have her school uniform for Monday morning’s orientation?

So many questions, and no answers.

So we prayed. Very specific prayers. Right then. In bed. At 2:00 in morning.

And then we both managed to get a few more hours of sleep.

All four of us were up before 5:00 a.m. (have I mentioned the jet lag?) and were busy unpacking and getting settled into our new apartment. At 6:50 we heard what sounded like a knock on our door. None us moved. Instead, we looked at each other as if to ask, did someone just knock on our door at 6:50? In the morning? Sure enough, there it was again. We opened our apartment door and there stood Ruth. Of course, we didn’t know it was Ruth yet. But we were about to find out.

Ruth is our across-the-hall neighbor. Like me, she’s a first-year teacher and is here with her husband and two boys. While new to the school, she and her family have lived in both mainland China and Hong Kong previously. For the next 25 minutes she talked non-stop. She not only answered all the questions we had been wondering about (The Park and Shop is one subway stop south), she answered questions we didn’t even know we had.

To be honest, it was a little like drinking from a fire hose. We only caught about twenty percent of the information she was giving us (have I mentioned the jet lag?), but knowing that answers to all of our current and future question were 10 feet across the hall, gave both of us -particularly Julie- a tremendous sense of peace.

When Ruth pulled the door shut behind her, the first words out of Julie’s mouth were “Thank you, Jesus.”

Over the next two days, Ruth, her husband Tony, and their two boys, quite literally took us by the hand and took us shopping all over our little corner of Hong Kong helping us get all the things we needed to make it through the week.

Now granted, Ruth has been living in Shatin a little longer than we have, but she is one of those people who just knows things in a freakish kind of way. No matter, how obscure your request, she knows a guys. “Hey Ruth, we could really use an eight-foot extension cord. Any ideas?” “Oh! I know a guy!” And sure enough, she takes you three blocks up and five blocks over and yup, there in a store about nine feet wide is a guy who speaks English –granted, he’s bareback, but he speaks English- who will make you an extension cord to whatever length you want.

Oh, and I am happy to report that we now have Kellogg's Honey Nut O’s in the cereal cabinet.

-Jack

Monday, August 10, 2009

Loosing My Train of Thought

Our baptism into our new life in Hong Kong was by full emersion today. We got in rather late last night and today is our first full day in China. We have so much to do, but the first order of business is to make a trip to the immigration office on the main island to fill our some paper work. Thank goodness, we will be escorted by Ms. Gostick Kan from the human resource department at our school. Of course, we will be traveling by train. Six of them to be exact. You see, you can’t actually get there from here. What you have to do is take the brown line to Tai Wai station and then transfer to the blue line and go to Kowloon Tong where you will pick up the green line . . . well, you get the idea. So for almost an hour and half, it was walk, walk, walk, walk, get on a train, walk, walk, walk, get on a train, walk, walk, walk . . . well, you get the idea.

(Before our arrival I was concerned that I would be able to find a means to get some exercise while in Hong Kong. But with all of this walking we’ve been doing, I don’t think that is going to be an issue.)

The trains in Hong Kong are incredibly clean, very efficient, and generally quite crowded. But because we didn’t start our little quest until almost 10:00 in morning –well after rush hour- I suspect we have yet to see what a really crowded train in Hong Kong looks like.

The trains are both high-tech and very user-friendly. Every rider has an electronic card called a “value added card” because whenever the amount of money left on the card runs low, you simply go to one of the kiosks in any of the train stations, insert your card, and put in however much money you choose. Don’t put on too little or you will just have to do it again in a couple of days. Don’t put on too much in case you loose your card. When you get to your destination, swipe your card again and the proper amount will be deducted from your card depending on how far you've traveled. Oh yeah, don’t forget to glance down at the turn-style as you pass through, it will not only display how much it deducted from your value added card, but it will tell you how much you have left.

If you enjoy people-watching, then trains are the place for you. The girls and I enjoyed soaking up all the diversity we saw on the trains. The people of Hong Kong come in all different sizes and shapes. Some are short, and some are tall. Some were nattily dressed and some were disheveled. Many of them were listening to music, playing video games on their hand-held devises, or even watching movies on their ipods. More than a few were on the phone. Some of them were trying to get some sleep. Some of the schools must already be in session because we saw more than one student in uniform.


If you are ever in Hong Kong for the day and wanted to get a feel for the city, you could do a whole lot worse that riding the trains for a morning.

-Jack and Annika

Missed It by That Much (i.e. Visa Trouble)

This spring our school applied for our Hong Kong work visas on our behalf. They were issued on May 8. They're good for 90 days. So far, so good. If we had left July 24 as planned we would have been fine. But because of my accident, we left on August 8 and arrived on August 9 . . . 91 days after the issuance of the visas. Oops.

It didn’t really cause a problem at customs in the airport, they simply stamped our passports with a tourist visa. But is has gotten a little more complicated since then. We spent our first full day in Hong Kong traveling to the immigration office, filling (and re-filling) out lots of paper work, and praying that they could expedite the process.

Coincidently, right about the time we got to the immigration office, I decided it was time for me to air out my right arm. I peeled off my protective bandage and plopped that bad boy right on the counter top. The entire time we were pleading our case to the immigration officer, my beet-red and splotchy arm was sitting there front and center. I was hoping that 1) it would confirm our story about why we were late getting to HK and 2) engender a little good will and mercy. We were hoping that we could get our new work visas issued that day; but alas, it was not to be. So now we wait and pray. It could be a couple of days, or –heaven’s forbid- it could be a couple of weeks.

Problem number one is that without our permanent residency visas, Julie and I are technically not allowed to work and the girls are not allowed to attend school.

Second, without our permanent residency visas we can’t get our Hong Kong i.d. cards. And without our Hong Kong i.d. cards we aren't allowed to do much of anything. We can’t get cell phones. We can’t get internet service in our apartments.

All because we were one day late. Arggh.

In the mean time, people are starting to stare. I better put my arm bandage back on.

-Jack

A Whole Lot of Nesting (or the Apartment, Part 2)

Our apartment is beautiful. And furnished –well, kind of. In addition to all of the big pieces of furniture, the apartment came with . . . well, let’s see, two small garbage cans, two pots, four bowls, four plates, four coffee mugs (no glasses) and two shower curtains. A good start, but not exactly enough to get us through the next year. So while I feel completely unprepared for the classroom and I have ten-thousand things I could and should be doing to get ready, we –on this our third full day in Hong Kong- are setting off in search of a dish drainer. So with some rather vague directions from our across-the-hall neighbor, off we go.

Hudson may have set off in search of the hoped-for northwest passage through Canada and Cortez may have spent his life in search of the elusive city of gold, but these four intrepid travelers are setting off in search of the fabled Japanese Home Goods store in hopes of buying more hangers, some post-it notes, and a clothes hamper.

This was actually our first time riding the trains and navigating various neighborhoods on our own without a guide. I am happy to report that we did quite well, thank you very much. Granted, our destination was only one train station away, and the mall we were looking for is relatively big and lit up with giant neon signs. But none-the-less, mission accomplished. We now have wash clothes and drawer organizers for both of our desks.

We are doing some serious “nesting” here. It reminds of being newlyweds and setting up our first apartment. It has been both stressful and fun –mostly stressful for Mom and Dad; mostly fun for the girls. For the girls it amounts to playing house on a large scale. But admittedly, it is kind of rewarding settling in and making the apartment our own. Nothing brings a family together like trying to decide if the kitchen table should be positioned left to right or front to back (left to right, it gives a better view out the window). When your life seems to be nothing but variables, its gives a sense of satisfaction when you all agree that these three bottom drawers should be for storing shoes.

For twenty hours there while we somewhere over the north Pacific, I had no drawer for my socks. To be honest, it’s a little unsettling when your socks have no place to call home. But, I am happy to report that I now have a sock drawer (second one from the top, black socks on the left, white socks on the right), and I feel a whole lot better.

Well, now that I have know where I am going to be stowing my toothbrush for the next year, I had better find my way down to my classroom and figure out what I and going to be doing with that classroom full of eighth graders I have been told will be showing up in a couple of days.


-Jack

You Carried that 10,000 Miles with You?

We arrived at about 8:00 p.m. last night and did little more than wash up and fall into bed after being up for 30 hours. Because our internal clocks are not adjusted to HK time yet, we were all up at 5:00 this morning. Since we were all up, we decided to start settling in. After moving a few large pieces of furniture (sorry next-door neighbors whom we haven’t met yet!), we helped each other begin to unpack our bags.

After packing clothes, cosmetics, books, and medicine, we had just enough room for each of us to pack a few discretionary items in our suitcases. While helping each other unpack, it was fun to discover just exactly what each of us had chosen to bring. I brought juggling balls. Annika brought her bead kit. Elise brought her sticker collection. But the biggest surprise was that Julie brought her held-held garlic press.

When we arrived in Hong Kong, our kitchen was a little Spartan. We haven’t had a chance to properly outfit our kitchen, so currently it consists of four coffee mugs, four each of spoons, forks and knifes, four bowls, four small plates, two pots, and . . . a garlic press.

I’m glad I married a women who has her priorities straight. She may be willing to travel the world, but not with out her garlic press.

-Jack

Those Ubiquitous Golden Arches

We quit our jobs, packed up our lives, and traveled thousands of miles to a far-a-way land so that our family could see the world and have an international, cross-cultural experience meeting new people, seeing new places, and eating new foods. After being in Hong Kong less than twenty four hours, we had our first meal in a Hong Kong restaurant. And what was our first meal? Wait for it . . .

McDonalds, of course!

At first, I was so disappointed. Really? McDonalds. After we’ve come all this way? Seriously? My first meal in Hong Kong is not going to be dim sum. It’s going to be Mickey D’s? Couldn’t I have had something a little more authentically Hong Kong-esque?

But then I realized, Hong Kong is such a melting pot of cultures. They have absorbed influences from so many sources: Britain, Japan, the Philippines, and yes, the United States. What’s more, Hong Kong is such a thoroughly modern city.


So really, what could be more authentically Hong Kong than eating McDonalds?

Not much.

-Jack

(We've now been here five days and I still haven’t had any dim sum.)

A Room with a View (or The Apartment Part 1)

After we landed on Thursday, a teacher from the school met us at the airport and brought us and our sizable mound of luggage directly to our apartment which is on the seventh and top floor of our school. It was 8:00 p.m. and we had all been up for over 30 hours. We dropped our luggage and were all pretty anxious to fall into our new beds, but not before checking out the place that’s going to be our home for the next 10 months.

Our apartment is fantastic. It –along with the school- is less than two years old. It is very large by Hong Kong standards; I would guess about 900 square feet. Our apartment is actually two studio apartments adjoined by a set of doors similar to what you would have in a hotel suite. One on side, Annika and Elise have twin beds and dressers. On their half is also the t.v., sofa, and chair; a desk, large book shelf, and a mammoth wardrobe, their own bath; and a kitchen –which is currently being used as storage. All the furniture was provided by the school.

In the adjoining studio apartment is Julie's and my double bed, a dining room table and chairs, another desk, another mammoth wardrobe, a dresser, the kitchen we are actually using, and a second bath. Because these are studio apartments, they don’t have separate bedrooms. Instead, the bedroom area is defined by using the mammoth wardrobe and the bookshelf to cordon off a portion of the apartment. It actually works pretty well. Thank heavens though for that set of double doors that separate us from the girls in the evening.

The apartment has ten-foot ceilings and the walls are white. Both the floors and the furniture are blond hardwood. Overall, it has a vaguely IKEA look to it, which isn’t all that surprising since several pieces of the furniture and most of the kitchen utensils did in fact come from IKEA.

Combined, our apartment(s) measures about forty feet by twenty feet; it’s a long narrow rectangle. And the coolest feature of the apartment is that on one side the long wall is all glass –floor to ceiling. It lets in so much natural light and gives us a great southern view. We have a balcony (actually, it’s two balconies) that runs the entire width of the apartment. In the next month or two, we are hoping to by some used patio furniture off of Craigslist, Hong Kong.

We have a great view from our apartment. Our view is framed by two brand new (they're not even occupied yet) 40-story apartment buildings. But in-between these buildings we have a great view of Shatin, which is the region we live in. We can see a big cluster of tall buildings, the canal, and the bike path. We have a great view of the commuter train line that runs right past our home. And in the distance, beyond the buildings, we can see some of the steep, green hill/mountains that make up 90% of Hong Kong. If we look down just beyond the brand new apartment buildings is a small cluster of relatively modest one-story apartment buildings or houses right next to the canal.


Altogether, our view provides a pretty good snapshot of Hong Kong: skyscrapers, green hills, bike paths, and commuter trains.

I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane

The airplane flight could not have gone more smoothly.

Early Wednesday morning, we ran next door to say goodbye to our kitties and then said goodbye to our grandpa and grandma Oskarson. A few minutes later our friend, Mrs. Hrinowich met us in grandma's driveway. It's good thing that she was available to take us because we needed every inch of her twelve-passenger van! Total, we had sixteen pieces of luggage. United Airlines allows each passenger to check two suitcases but they can weigh no more than fifty pounds each. Mom was up until midnight last night weighing and re-weighing the big bags on our bathroom scale and moving things around so that each bag weighed between 48 and 49 pounds. We were also each allowed one carry on and one purse or laptop-type bag.


Checking in and security went very smoothly. They made us take our shoes off!? They stopped my dad and checked him with an electronic wand and took a swab of the palm of his hands. Maybe they thought he was smuggling something under those bandages.

The plane ride was LONG. We were served two meals and two snacks. They showed four movies but none of them were kids movies! Well that’s not exactly true. They showed Hotel for Dogs . . . starting at 1:00 in the morning after all the kids were asleep!

Once we were on the ground, we sailed through customs and it took us less that five minutes to find all of our luggage. We were met by two people from the school who drove us to our apartment.

-Annika & Jack