We’ve had days of chaos. The house has been emptied into a cargo container. The cars have been sold. We’ve said our goodbyes to those who wanted to say goodbye. We’ve been exhausted… physically and mentally. We’ve been stressed by the sheer volume of what we’ve had to achieve. We’ve been drained… We’ve been spending days ruthlessly cutting the excess from our paper lives… all culminating in yesterday… a mad rush of throwing out the last remaining bits and pieces from our house, then rushing to the airport, then after much longer than expected at checkin because of all our luggage, a rush from one end of Sydney airport, through customs and security check, to a gate at the furtherest possible point in the terminal to rush into the plane, which had already started and almost finished boarding, to organise the kids in their seats before finally sitting down, letting out a breath and being handed a nice cool glass of fresh orange juice from a stewardess (boy are we glad we didn’t fly cattle class this time around).
Bethany is a dream to fly with, and aside from a few times when she forgot she was on a plane and got too loud with her excitement, she was a breeze… happily amusing herself with bits and pieces the whole flight.
Mitchell on the other hand, was not. He doesn’t equalise well in the cabin pressure, so the doctor had to send us down the route of a sedative to minimise his (and the rest of the planes) discomfort. It didn’t work entirely, but we did get a few hours where he was asleep and settled.
Arriving in Hong Kong, and the first thing that hit us, aside from the sheer volume of people, was the heat. It is a hard thing to adjust from the middle of (albeit a mild in world terms) winter to the middle of a hot and muggy summer. The kids felt it the worst, but once in the air conditioned bliss of the shuttle driving into the city, Mitchell was in his element seeing all the sights and wonders that are uniquely Hong Kong.
Today has been a ‘chill’ day. We have a timezone to adjust to. We have the heat and humidity to adjust to. And we have a lot of sleep to catch up, and unwinding to try and get out in the next day before the next phase of our move continues.
Mitchell decided it would be fun to go luggage surfing first thing in the morning:
Then while out exploring Causeway Bay we discovered the Beijing Olympics Mascot roaming around. Bethany wanted nothing to do with him and was quite scared of him. Mitchell on the other hand couldn’t wait to get out of the stroller and over close to the mascot to touch it.
Yes… you’re seeing right… the guy is inside a giant plastic inflatable suit. How much must that job suck. Bear in mind he is standing in sunny, very humid and sticky 30 degree celsius heat. We were melting standing next to him. I can’t imagine how hot and uncomfortable it must have been inside that suit. I have to admit it is kind of fun being around all the Olympics hype again. Everywhere you look here there is Olympic (and especially equestrian) media of one form or another. And then, when we were coming home from dinner out this evening to our hotel… imagine my surprise to find the New Zealand woman’s hockey team (the Black Sticks) in the lobby getting ready to go out for practice. OK… so I’m not the type of person to say ‘hi guys’… but it was kinda cool to see a team here (I thought they would be in mainland China by now) and kinda nice to hear the kiwi accent so prevalent.
No idea what tomorrow holds… the new phase of our life is only just beginning…
