Christmas 2010

How quickly another year is coming to an end. Seems like each year is getting shorter and shorter. We've been in Hong Kong for close to five years now. This was our third Christmas away from family. It's at times like this that I realise just how much I miss being home, surrounded by family. Thankfully, we've made some wonderful friends here in Hong Kong and this year were able to celebrate this festive season with some of them.

Setting up the tree at home

This year we had a second pair of very helpful hands!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..... (Christmas tree at 1881 Heritage in Tsim Tsa Tsui)

Enjoying the lights from the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Tsa Tsui

Hong Kong skkyline

View of the star ferry terminal from Kowloon

In keeping with my family tradition, we had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner with Alex and Deanna's family and the Arosti family. It was wonderful having everyone over at our home on this special night.

Stand-in grandparents for the night. Ryan "performing" his Mandarin poems for Peter Kung-kung and Fiona Poh-poh

Our Christmas Eve dinner spread

Man-of-the-house carving the big bird

Our family

Italian influenced desserts, thanks to the Arosti family

Boys and their toys

The girls out on their shopping excursion

Enjoying a good laugh with great friends surrounded by good food

Marco and his parents who were visiting from Italy

Mama and Daddy's rule - one present on Christmas Eve so of course he chose the biggest one under the tree!

The little Missy was terrified of the "scawy dinosaur"

Patiently waiting for her turn

Bright and early on Christmas morning - straight for the presents

Look what Santa brought - she loved it!

Fighting robots, just what a 5 year old boy loves

This little boy's dream come through - Ultraman's gun. Daddy and Mama made an exception on our no-guns rule just this once

My first bike

We met up with some of Ryan's ISF classmates on Boxing Day for a barbeque at our place. The weather was just perfect, cold but sunny so the kids had a great time running around in the playground and riding around on their scooters.

ISF friends (Oscar, Toby, Katrina and Kashie) and their little siblings (Ben, Scarlett, Natasha and Mia, Kathleen is missing from this pic)

He Ban Mums, we're also missing one here (Michelle, Ruth and Irene)

Coming down the "up up up up" (slide in Mia-language)

No adult supervision was needed, the kids just settled themselves down and decided to have a drawing session

One's busy drawing, the other busy scribbling!

But there's always time for a cuddle

Playing school

Multi tasking - drawing and reciting their Chinese poems

Never too busy to pose for Daddy

The I-"toys" generation

Totally engrossed

Oh what a feeling...

Turning Two

Our precious girl turned two on 27 November 2010. It seems like only yesterday that we were rushing to the hospital for her early arrival, and the difficult year that followed as we worked through one medical problem after another. Looking at her now, it's hard to remember just how tiny and fragile she was then. She's still small for her age and continues to grow on her own chart, but despite her petiteness, this little girl is one "chilli padi". Don't be fooled by her size, she is stubborn and assertive, and more often than not out-fights her brother. She also has a real cheeky streak in her and gets up to all kinds of mischief. We're constantly stopping her from jumping on the sofa or climbing onto the window sills, and she loves drawing on the walls when no one's looking of course. And just the other day, I caught her stuffing almost an entire roll of toilet paper down the toilet, grinning away at Ryan as he told her "uh oh, you are going to be in trouble". As cheeky and tomboyish as she is, she is still very much a girlie girl who loves shoes, pretty clothes (at 2 years old, she is already telling us which shirt or dress she wants to wear!) and is extremely "manja" with all of us, especially her Daddy. She loves cuddles and is always giving us hugs and kisses. She simply adores Ryan and follows him around copying everything that he does. This little girl has brought so much joy to our family, she has Shad wrapped around her little finger, Ryan is absolutely smitten with her and I can't even begin to imagine what life would be like without her.

We had lunch with some close family friends at Aqua to celebrate her birthday. This time around, Mia was old enough to know that she was the "guest of honour", loving all the attention she got from all the Aunties, Uncles and Koh-kohs.

All dressed up, ready to party!

So happy to see her "friend" Olivia

Mama was so caught up with making Olivia that she forgot to put Mia's name on the cake!

Birthday girl and three of her favourite people

"Yayy, everyone's singing my favourite song"

She couldn't wait to blow out that candle!

Birthday girl looking a little worried when the knife goes to close to Olivia's head!

A kiss for Kor-kor

Clowning around with the "Belcher's gang of 3"

Our extended family in Hong Kong

The birthday spread

Posing for Daddy with the HK skyline in the background

Another one with the boys

So pleased to be 2!

Seoul in Winter

We're in Seoul! After days of planning, then cancelling (because of the G20 Summit which very inconveniently took place in Seoul on the weekend that we'd planned to go!), then changing our travel dates and destination to Tokyo, and then changing it back to Seoul again, we were finally on our way. I was really looking forward to this trip, the food and the shopping but more so, to be able to spend some time with Mum. Being in Hong Kong, I've really missed having her around so this trip was very special.

I was initially very worried about leaving the kids, but Shad was as usual ever so encouraging telling to go enjoy myself and that they would be fine. And fine they were, I doubt they even missed me, having Daddy all to themselves the entire weekend, going out on a junk and the beach! So thanks to my lovely hubby and some wonderful close friends who are always here when I need a hand, Mum and I had a fantastic holiday.

And so our mother-daughter food adventure began. Our plan was to take things easy and work our way through the main sights while at the same time sampling as much local food as we could.

Welcome to Seoul! - we walked straight into this as we came out of the subway entrance at Myeong-dong

These little hotcakes were delicious, especially on a cold night

Skillful cooking of the hotteok (dough balls filled with brown sugar, honey, chopped peanuts and cinnamon)

Everything octopussy

Umuk (fish paste on a stick) - very tasty eaten with the spring onion sauce. Those spray bottles were very clever, protected their clients from those inconsiderate double dippers!

Our first meal - Jjimdak (chicken, potatoes, glass noodles, spring onions, cucumber and darn lot of chillies)

Queueing for some warm comfort at the famous Tosokchon Restaurant

And here it is... Sam Gye Tang (Ginseng Chicken)

I struggled to finish mine, but Mum emptied out her entire pot!

Guards at the Gyeongbok-gung Palace

One of the many pavilions within the palace grounds

Walking through the Bukchon area, we stumbled across this quaint little cafe housed in a hanok

A lovely pit-stop for afternoon tea

Such cutesy presentation

A quick stop near Ehwa University for some street shopping before dinner

Searching for dinner along the little lanes in Insadong

Meat galore

Kimchee jiggae to wash all that meat down - just perfect!

View from the cable car going up Namsan (Mount Nam) early in the morning

Wonder if that beard is real??

At the top of Namsan

Autumn colours

This was a beautiful sight, a gentle breeze blowing the leaves off the trees

Namsangol Hanok Village - a mini folk village which contains several display traditional style houses

It was no easy task making these traditional flutes - drilling the holes, filing them etc... hope the little boy appreciates it!

Some very colourful performers

My favourite pic of the trip

Mum was dressed most appropriately that day, she matched the trees so well :)

One of the traditional houses

Saturday crowd in Insadong

Inside this funnily shaped building, long lines of people were waiting to receive their free tub of "gochujang" (spicy bean paste)

Dried herbs shop in Insadong

Lunch at a cosy restaurant in one of the lanes in Insadong

A winter special - innards stew. Absolutely to die-for!

Seafood pajeon

Late night shopping at Dongdaemun

Deep fried french fries around a sausage - Ryan would have loved this!

One last stop at Myeong-dong

One can never have too much kalbi

Breakfast at Namdaemun market on our last day

Food Hall at Shinsegae Department Store

Cheonggyecheon Stream which runs 15ft below street level through downtown Seoul

Leaders of the G20 countries - the 2010 meeting was held in Seoul the week before

Lanterns from all over the world on display for the Seoul Lantern Festival

Snapshots of Europe

Our last meal of the trip just before we headed for the airport - Andong Jjimdak :)

A mixed seafood and chicken one this time