FASCINATED BY THE INAPPROPRIATE STATUES AROUND MY COMPLEX

I have been wondering how to bring this up.  I certainly don't want to insult the new place or people where I live but "WHAT'S UP WITH THE NAKED GROPING STATUES EVERYWHERE?"  First, let me say, I love where we live and am so grateful that despite not really knowing much about our options, we could not have found and chosen a better place for us to start our life here.  Bel-Air is perfect for us...we have a comfortable, though small, condo with amazing views of the South China Sea.  Our complex offers amazing gyms with sauna and steam, a spa, game rooms for pool, foosball, ping-pong etc., indoor and outdoor pools that make you feel like you are at a resort, two restaurants, pizza delivery in-house, fun events,  and beautifully landscaped grounds. It is a very family friendly community, with many playgrounds suited for young children.  Considering the family feel, I have to ask again..."What's up with all the naked statues?"

  NAKED CHUBBY GUY GRABBING BOOB OF NAKED CHUBBY GIRL

This is in the lobby of the building where many of the children come through after playing at the waterfront park.  I see this everyday when I take Aspen for her walks. 

THIS COUPLE HAS SOME BEAUTIFUL ADAGIO MOVES THOUGH THEY TOO ARE NAKED!

(Stephen Jackson I know you can appreciate this move, the extension and form!)

We have had some friends over and when you drive into our complex it is dramatic.  A large water fountain feature with dramatic stairways up to the buildings and chrome palm trees (we live in a tropical area so I'm not totally clear on why we have to have fake, chrome palm trees but I am gonna learn).  Someone told us it was a bit like arriving at Ceasars Palace! LOL!  This is the statue that greets you in the traffic circle as you enter...

You can also see parts of the chrome palm trees...



YEP...THIS ONE IS GRABBING HER BUTT!    

May I be totally honest as well, and say that Joe does not appreciate the male representations on the various statues?  You know what I mean..?

Now I can't close without a moment to appreciate the artistic lamp in our own tower's lobby...

Joe waiting to catch a taxi as he ponders the night this horse must have had if he ended up with this lamp shade on his head!  Note:  in the evening, the lamp turns on and everything. 

Don't worry, Joe and I will be attending our cultural training soon so maybe we will start to behave ourselves and better appreciate art.  Hey!  No head shakes or eye rolls from you!  We CAN behave.

Just so you know how much I DO appreciate everything I get to see in my "neighborhood," I will leave you with a few other pictures around the complex...





Looking down from our balcony at the various areas of
the Bel-Air complex.

The outdoor pool area as seen from our 36th floor.

The two guys in the middle are Joe and Alex swimming while I spy
on them from up above in our house!

Hong Kong Food Poisoning, A Different Kind of 16th Birthday, a Rejected Visa Request and a Pneumothorax!

After I reached my 1 month mark and thought I was starting to gain some control of a new "normal" life here, I was reminded that control is not really what I need to seek! What I need to always remember is to just be IN THE MOMENT and if I am not in charge of what happens I am still in charge of how I handle what happens. 

We got through a typhoon.  Kinda exciting and figured I am really having some new experiences here!  Cut to next new experience...HK Food Poisoning!  Joe and I spent a wonderful afternoon in Stanley drinking Sangria and eating lunch on the water, watching locals perform for National Day (the China version of 4th of July), and wandering through the Stanley market.

.

STANLEY MARKET...GREAT SHOPPING FOR USELESS STUFF AND SOUVENIRS.  CAN EVEN NEGOTIATE PRICES.

After this lovely afternoon, we headed home on the city bus.  It's about a 40 minute ride, narrow curvy streets and bumpy roads.  I thought I was getting motion sickness.  Wanted to get home and get off that bus real BAD!  I made it home but the next 30 hours made me regret my lunch selection! (I had tuna) No pictures to post for this lovely event.  Glad I got that out of the way and boy was I grateful and happy when I got to feel good again. 

Now it was time to think about Alex's 16th Birthday!  We were struggling with how to celebrate it because this is a big one!  I couldn't help but feel the distance and just how far away we were. Though we are building relationships and he is meeting a lot of new friends at school, we are still very new, and sharing this day without our close family and friends-who-are-like-family was going to be tough. PLUS, this is my son who came out of the womb talking about cars and trucks.  He said "loader" and "backhoe" before he said "mommy" and "daddy" and I know one of his biggest sacrifices in moving here was being able to drive at 16.  People say, "So let him drive in Hong Kong!" but 1st:  We don't have a car! 2nd: You can't drive until you are 18 here. 

I think we did okay.  The Sunday before his birthday we had a nice family day with the 3 of us.  We had foot and shoulder massages and pampered our boy (sorry, but he is always going to be my baby boy though I know 16 puts him in the young man category). On his Birth Day...we started with special birthday breakfast and ended with dinner out at Bombay Dreams for Indian food.  Weird, but my picky eater likes it!  He felt comfortable enough with a new friend to bring him along and it was a really good day.  Joe and I managed to find birthday wrap and a card but no candles or ribbon.  I put a tealight on his ice cream cake (made by mom).

B'DAY PAMPERING WITH THE AMAZING HK FOOT MASSAGE AND REFLEXOLOGY, HOT TEA AND SHOULDER MASSAGE.  90 MINUTES OF HEAVEN FOR ABOUT $40USD

ALEX'S 16TH BIRTHDAY DINNER WITH THEO AND MOM AND DAD.

So the birthday was bittersweet.  He got a lot of great messages through email and technology so he knew he was thought of but it also made us miss everyone.  Mail is so slow to arrive here that even the cards sent from Grandparents didn't arrive in time.  One was sent on the 28th and didn't get here until the 12th!  That Slow boat to China is  REALLY SLOW! Through it all Alex continues to amaze me with how much he is embracing this opportunity and experience.  He ended up finding out that he was going to be put on the traveling X Country team and he would have opportunites to travel to Mainland China and Guam for races.  Thus began visa applications and paperwork.  Living internationally is nothing if not paperwork intensive.  A lot of fun rules and regulations!  We scrambled to get him a multi entry visa to participate only to find out he was rejected because his passport expries in March.  Scramble again...going to consulate for passport issues.  Joe also made him a doctor appointment for vaccines to make sure all of that was in order.  Phew...this is a lot to think about all the time!  LOL! 

While all this is going on Alex has mentioned to us a few times that it hurts to breathe sometimes.  Well, there is constant smog here and we thought, much like when Joe and I were in college in LA, he was probably feeling the effects of that smog when he took deep breaths.  He runs for Cross Country, is still biking, and goes to the gym almost every single day so he didn't seem like he was sick.  Even his coach said running on a bad smog day is like smoking a pack of cigarettes so we were concerned but didn't think there was anything to do.  WRONG...PARENTS OF THE YEAR AWARD EARNED HERE!  Joe was taking Alex to the doctor for the shots so I said to the boys, "Make sure you mention that it hurts to breath."  Didn't really think anything of it, though. 

Next thing I know, Joe is texting that they are on their way to hospital for a possible pneumothorax, he needs an immediate x-ray, and they are putting an operating room on hold for him just in case.  WHAT?  HUH?  WHAT?  It's probably a good thing Joe was on duty for this one.  To make a long story a little bit shorter, he did have a pocket of air in his lung or lung sac...but it was small enough that they felt monitoring through x-ray was enough. It wasn't caused for any specific reason and tends to occur in tall, thin men. It would hopefully heal itself, the air would be reabsorbed and the lung would re-expand to normal. I guess now we don't have to worry about the visa being rejected! He's not going to be racing any time soon. We have bigger fish to fry!

We just went back for another x-ray on Sunday and it seems to be healing itself.  Another week of rest, no physical acitivity (which is torture for Alex), no PE or Cross Country, etc.  He is going to school but otherwise taking it easy.  I think he is going to be fine, especially since he already asked if he could go wakeboarding this weekend!  Note:  headshake and eye roll by me takes place here! 

So how's that for the first part of October in HK?  Not really any exciting stories of adventures and explorations in China, just stories of REAL LIFE.  I have proof that life happens no matter where you are or if you are ready to shake it up!  I wanted time to settle in, ease in to this new country...silly Tammy!  What if I just decided NOT to struggle? There will never come a time in life when you can say "I am done now." Each of us is a work in progress. What if I just allowed myself to BE okay with it all? Including being okay with the sad days when I'm homesick or the chaos I felt when they diagnosed Alex.  I tend to want to strangle life into submission.  But strangling doesn't allow for letting go.  Struggle allows me to feel but also let go, learn and embrace what life has to offer more gently...Yes? No? I'm working on it!

"We don't see things the way they are...we see things the way WE are."  Talmud

Typhoon Nasat

I survivied my first typhoon!  What have you been up to?


  IT'S GOING TO BE A STORMY DAY

On September 29th we awoke to find out we were in the midst of a Level 8 Typhoon!  We had gone to bed with warnings at Level 3 and had definitely heard the howling winds whistling in the night but we got up as usual to get Alex off to school and Joe off to work.  Alex takes Aspen out about 5:30am and since he is half asleep it didn't make him wonder when one of the guys at the guard stand was waving and motioning to him.  He just nodded and continued with his task.  Upon his return he saw the signs posted that we had been upgraded to Level 8.  A Level 10 is a direct hit!  Soon we were finding out just what this meant...schools were closed, buses and taxis were not running, and we were in for a new experience!  The buildings here are built to withstand this kind of weather so Joe tried to go down and get to work.  No luck!  If a taxi was willing to risk taking you, they were charging whatever they wanted. They were no longer running under any rules and regulations and just taking fares at their own risk because they were really not supposed to be taking fares. One of the parents of a friend of Alex's was able to get a taxi only to be returned back to home when they couldn't get to their destination because of the conditions.

THE WATERFALL GROWS!                                                                STORM CLOUDS

WE USUALLY SEE TONS OF SHIPS ON THESE WATERS...NOT TODAY. 

So, we had an unexpected day together and a new experience to share.  The winds were howling and there was rain but overall it was not a life-threatening, scarey situation.  I ended up breaking open a bottle of champagne to celebrate our first Typhoon.  We could watch the water and the storm from our house but it was not like what you would expect.  I took pictures but it is hard to capture wind!

THE WATER NEVER LOOKED
THAT CRAZY OR ROUGH.


 THE COAST GUARD WAS OUT TO PATROL.


Three different times Joe tried to go into work because his store was open and those who could get to work were part of a record-breaking day.  It turns out that all the people who couldn't get anywhere decided to shop.  All the ferries to Macau were canceled so there were a lot of people with a lot of nothing to do!

By late in the afternoon/early evening we were able to go outside and take Aspen for a walk.  Nothing was quite back to normal but the storm had definitely eased.  We could see a bit of the damage the winds had caused.

Mother Nature reminding us that she is still in charge! 

Our island escaped any real tragedies from this typhoon.  We later found out that it had been two years since a storm at this level had occured.   Considering we live on the 36th floor of a high rise, I must thank the engineers and builders who know what they are doing and kept us safe and comfortable.  I can cross this one off my "To Do" list!