Happy Mother's Day and a Junk Boat Adventure

I am long overdue for a blog catch up! 

I had a lovely Mother's Day last weekend.  Lots of well wishes from friends and family.  Our teacher/ nanny Rachel came to tutor the kids on Sunday morning and also brought me a fresh strawberry cake.  It was a very promising start to a really nice day. 

It was a little bittersweet because Michael wasn't here to celebrate in person, but the kids were so sweet and loving. We took a tram ride to the birthday party of one of Lola's friends.

The birthday party was in a great communal space in a new building in Tin Hau - great kitchen and dining facilities, connected to an outdoor garden area with a very cool glass (but thankfully air conditioned) dome.  The food served was really delicious, all homemade or grilled, and on point.  It was also really nice for the parents of the schoolmates to gather and have a chance to catch up also. 

My mom tried her hand at flower arranging and got some pictures with my grandma.  Beautiful!

On Tuesday night, I met up with two girl friends (all working momma expats of 3 kids) and enjoyed a delightful dinner at Francis West.  It was probably the first time I had dinner on Peel Street in 7 years, haha!!  Crazy to think we used to live in that neighborhood.  Just goes to show, the seasons of life and the passage of time. We do well to enjoy each one.

For Wednesday, in a classic move, I got super excited and a bit ahead of myself, and ended up hosting a junk boat trip for about 20 people on the public holiday that we had on Wednesday.  It was so fun and I have no regrets, but it ended up being a lot of work to coordinate and arrange. It was the perfect day out on the water though.  I couldn't have asked for anything else.  Just look at the joy on Al's face at the pier!

The kids started out the morning pre-junk trip by settling into a little house that I made for them out of pillows, cushions, a big bed sheet, and blankets, between the window sill and the couch. 

We departed from central pier on Wednesday at 10:15am.  There was a huge crew of police, all fully uniformed, milling about.  We haven't seen police presence like that in Hong Kong since the protests, so this drew a lot of attention. We saw them all get on the big ferry boat ahead of us, which sparked speculation that they must have been going to Cheng Chau Island to police the crowds for the bun festival in relation to Buddha's Birthday.

Our boat was from the Aberdeen Boat Club, the one pictured in the middle in the collage above.

We journeyed to Turtle Cove in Tai Tam.  The wind was strong so the boat ride was actually quite choppy at times. Thankfully we didn't have any one too sea sick, though I think the waves did make some uncomfortable.  It took nearly 2 hours to get to Tai Tam.  As soon as we pulled into the inlet (right by Redhill Peninsula) the water calmed a lot.  One of our friends brought an inflatable stand up board which he then used to ferry a few of the older girls to the rocky little beach.  Lola went and found "treasure," which was a delight.

I really couldn't think of a better way to spend a midweek public holiday.