Friday night had dinner with some fellow Disneyland inmates. They are heading to Hanoi for a couple of days of R&R sans kids.
Hanoi is part of the expat touring schedule in Hong Kong, along with visits to Macau, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and Thailand.

Saturday saw the first wintery day here in Hong Kong. We had a late start as Jackie, our amah, took JC for a walk with Misti, leaving Mrs M, PB, myself and our guests an extra hour of Barbie-free sleep time. Took our visitors up to the Peak and a ride up and down on the tram. Had some lunch back up at the tourist complex at the Peak, a place called Shooters 66. They had a little kiddie playground, plenty of fried food, and a train the went around the roof for no apparent reason. And they had American size portions which meant way too much food for everyone except PB. That little girl can eat her own body weight, God bless her. What's really cute is her stomach becomes distended and hard when she's finished. I think it's a phase: I can't imagine her doing the same when she's 15. The afternoon passed indoors with a mess of toys and videos.

Saturday evening we negotiated the winding streets of HK to make it to a movie cinema in Wan Chai. HK traffic systems seem to be unique in having plenty of twisting roads that end up in one way streets and inevitably it's the wrong way. The only piece of driving advice I've ever been given here is to never follow a sign (on the Island) saying Kowloon. Because before you know it you'll be in Kowloon and you can't turn around until you're almost at the border. Or something like that. We made it to our movie, just. Being last in meant we were stuck at the very front. Mrs M announced she was going to find a seat further back, leaving the rest of us to engage in various contortions to try and prevent permanent paralysis. The movie was Nowhere in Africa which I knew nothing about other than it was part of the HK Jewish Film festival. Who would have thought the Jewish Film Festival movies would start on time? Regardless the movie itself was fantastic, a story more about Africa and Europeans forced to adapt to it and a gripping character study to boot. There seemed to be an unusual amount of dust catching my eye at certain parts which meant I couldn't even enjoy the sex scenes. I highly recommend this movie. It gets an official Simon World two thumbs up. Afterwards we grabbed some dinner at a Vietnamese place called (imaginatively) Siagon.

Sunday morning we made the concerted effort to head to Ocean Park. This is Hong Kong's answer to a question that shouldn't have been asked. Essentially built on two seperate strips of land with a 500 metre hill in the middle and joined by cable car, it is a 25 year old theme park looking like a 25 year old theme park. It is a combination of merchandising, concrete and schlock in an effort to extract as much cash as possible from parents of young children. Of course we obtained our annual pass. Whomever designed the place obviously never had kids themselves. The place was anti-stroller with plenty of stairs and few ramps. We had a quick photo with the man dressed as a seal before heading to the cable car. We all enjoyed the ride overlooking Deep Water Bay and further, except our guest who suffers from vertigo. She firmly stared at the hillside instead. Let me tell you that alighting from a moving cable car with three strollers, bags, kids and assorted stray bits is a challenge. The cabal headed straight for the shark aquarium which was enjoyed immensely by all. JC was able to identify the various animals courtesy of Finding Nemo, especially Bruce the shark and the Sting Ray. So thank you, Disney. Or more importantly, thank you Mr. Shenzhen cheap-o DVD man. Next stop was the coral atoll aquarium, which was huge and involves a series of descending viewing platforms. There were some flippin' big fish in that tank. By then it was time to march back up the mountain to the cable car for the trip back home. The afternoon JC had (yet another) birthday party so PB and our visitors hit the playroom for a quiet afternoon. Bedtime couldn't come fast enough for everyone except JC, who at 9pm was still busy announcing she wanted to get up. I don't know why it is but it is far more tiring running with kids all day than spending a big night on the hit and miss and working a full day.