Family Fun

What do you get when you add....

Hanukah, Catan, Hiking, Tons of food,

Ferry Rides to Macau

Three Monkeys

Steaming Fajitas

Shopping

Beautiful Views

and lots of love?

The 2009 Abramowitz Family Vacation in Hong Kong!

Merry Christmas from the Little Ones

Christmas time was very busy at school. We organized a Holiday show for the parents and each class performed two songs. My kids danced and sang to "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" and "Santa Claus is coming to Town." They were awesome!

We dressed half of the class as Santa Claus and the other half as Christmas trees and I think the outfits turned out to be the cutest part of the show. At two years old, the kids aren't ready for complicated choreography.  I even found one Santa outfit complete with hat, pants, and beard for one lucky boy in the class. Tell me this isn't the most adorable Santa ever?

Happy Hannukah!

Menorah made by my Shorashim class. :-)

I'm on A Plane

Flying from NY to CA and then CA to Hong Kong. Free wifi on the plane, YaY! (What does wifi stand for anyway?)

Only a bazillion more hours in flight until we arrive. YaY!

Happy 20th birthday Bri-O.

I'm on A Boat

Our friends Christine and Garland, along with a large group of Christine's coworkers, rented out a junk boat on November 7th to cruise around Hong Kong for the day. We were so excited to be invited along because this is one of those quintessential Hong Kong experiences we have been wanting to try. Junks used to be traditional bat winged wooden boats but these days they are often small yachts with their own crew onboard. In our case we were upgraded to a pretty big boat because we ended up having a large group.

We boarded the boat around 10 am and lounged on the top deck as we cruised along Victoria Harbor. We were very lucky because we had a perfect day weather wise.  The weather had been windy and cold (well as cold as it gets in Hong Kong) since we returned from the US on Nov 1st so I was very surprised by the perfect sunny weather.

(photo above from Garland)

We cruised over to Lamma Island, which like Discovery Bay, is one of the picturesque outlying islands in Hong Kong. We stopped off for a delicious seafood lunch, which in our case was more like chicken, noodles, and whatever non seafood items we could find on the menu. We did get some before and after photos of the seafood everyone else was eating though.

After lunch was when the craziness began. It was about 1 or 2 pm and we boarded the boat to head towards Stanley. Since it was now the appropriate hour to really start drinking, our shipmates started doing just that. We docked the boat near Stanley and many people jumped out into the water for a swim, beers still in their hands.

(Photo below from Garland)

Daniel and I decided that this was the perfect time to play a game of Catan. Christine and Garland had suggested people bring games so of course we brought the only game we every play anymore. It just so happened that we met a really nice couple on the boat from the Netherlands who were also huge fans of the game. So they challenged Daniel, Garland, and I to a game and we happily obliged. Catan on a boat - does it get any better? As we played the crowd started getting a bit rowdy behind us. This picture is just a PG rated glimpse into some of the happenings we witnessed as the drinking continued and the boat made its way back to Hong Kong harbor as evening approached. The woman in the photo is one of the crew members. Even she got involved in the fun. :-)

We had a great time the entire day. Renting a junk is a perfect way to see the harbor, explore some of the outlying islands, and relax with your friends on the weekend. The only thing missing..... nobody played the song I'm on a Boat!

Long Time No Post

It has been almost three months since our last blog post! It has been a pretty busy time around here. At the end of August I started a new school year at the kindergarten. I have a new class of 24 students whom I adore. Seriously, how cute are they?

I also signed on to teach at the United Jewish Congregation (which we recently joined) on Sunday mornings. I am teaching six and seven year olds. I teach a Jewish studies and Hebrew lesson every weekend. So far I am loving it and learning quite a bit about lesson planning from the experience.

We also spent two weeks in October at home in New York. We spent a week on Long Island, a week in Buffalo, and attended two weddings during the weekend in between. We had a great time, it was wonderful to see our families and friends.

Another side of Thailand..

After three blissful days on Phi Phi Island, we took the ferry over to Phuket for the last full day of our Thailand trip. I found an excursion leaving from Phuket that explored the Khao Sok National Park and included an elephant ride and canoeing down the river. After relaxing for a good portion of the trip, it was time for a little adventure.

We were picked up from our hotel early Friday morning. After a couple of hours of driving on the tour bus (with a guide originally from Amsterdam talking to us about life in Thailand along the way), we arrived at the park. The guide warned us that there had been an accident along one of the roads that leads into the park. Apparently part of the road actually crumbled! It was crazy. Luckily nobody was driving on it at the time. I was just a bit nervous the rest of the time we drove through the park.



Our first stop was by the river where we picked up our canoes. We enjoyed a leisurely hour long ride down the river and took in the most amazing scenery. The mountains were so beautiful. It was very calm and relaxing. The water was calm so it wasn't anything like white water rafting. Just a relaxing float down the river.






Floating down a river really works up an appetite so we stopped for a delicious lunch after we finished. The food was amazing! Also, amazingly, I think only one dish has pork in it. We briefly considered moving to Thailand from Hong Kong just for the food.
After lunch, we were ready for the most exciting part of the trip that I had been anticipating for weeks. We were going to ride on an elephant. Daniel and I climbed up high on a wooden platform and boarded Fluffy. I felt like we were leaning a bit once we were on the elephant and looking at pictures we are definitely hanging off to the side a tad. But no worries...Our friend kept us safe as he walked us through the jungle, stopping occasionally to eat some leaves and branches and once to chat with the other elephants. There was a couple on our trip that had two young daughters (pictured below). It was so cute to watch them on their elephants. We don't have a picture of her, but there was one woman on the trip had the most entertaining elephant. He just wanted to do his own thing. Good for him! He kept taking her off the path and walking her into tree branches. It was pretty funny. Luckily she had a good sense of humor about it.





We had such a great time! At the end of the ride, we were able to feed the elephants. We bought a basket of fruit and loved watching them gulp down half a watermelon in one bite. This was probably my favorite part of the day. Check it out!


We had a really great time on the excursion. I would definitely recommending booking something like this while in Thailand. Our vacation ended up being a perfect blend of relaxation and new and exciting experiences. We can't wait to travel again. Next up... Australia!

Phi Phi Island

Most of our vacations are pretty action packed. I try to plan at least one activity or sight to see for each day of the trip. On this vacation however, I planned for "relaxation time." Two whole days with nothing on the itinerary. Sure there would be options if we wanted to do something like scuba dive or take a yoga class. But there would be nothing planned so we could see how we feel and not feel bad about just relaxing. The perfect place for such a relaxed itinerary: Phi Phi Island Resort.

When I was planning the trip, I was specifically looking for a place where we could stay on or near the beach in a bungalow (rather than a standard hotel). This was probably partially inspired by an episode of Lost where Jack was staying on the beach in Phuket and got this crazy tattoo. It seemed like such a cool thing to do (minus the tattoo of course).



My search ended when I saw the website for Phi Phi Island Resort. I searched for reviews and confirmed that the pictures are actually real and the place is that beautiful. We arrived in Phuket Monday morning and were picked up at the airport by the resort shuttle. They drove us to a dock and we boarded a small boat for our one hour journey to the resort. It was a long journey from Bangkok to the resort, but totally worth it. This is what we saw when approaching the resort....




We pulled up to the beach and were led to the reception area and served a delicious coconut drink. Great way to start a check in process in my opinion. We quickly found our bungalow after dodging some falling fruit along the way.






This was our home for the next three days! Well our home and apparently the home for this little guy as well...

Thai Cooking

We loved the food in Thailand. It is so much better than the local cuisine in Hong Kong. Lucky for us, we brought back a bit of that amazing cuisine in the form of a recipe book and newly acquired Thai cooking skills. On our second day in Bangkok, we ventured to the Baipai Thai Cooking school for a cooking class. We prepared four different dishes throughout the morning and sampled everything we (and the instructor) cooked. The class was great! It was fun and interactive and all of the recipes were fantastic. They were also very considerate about letting us substitute chicken for pork in the recipes. First up, we learned to make curry paste. I was called up to pummel some of the spices and I really showed them how it is done.

We learned to make the curry paste to be used in the final recipe of the morning which was chicken curry. The first full recipe we learned was vegetable cups. We really enjoyed this recipe because you make little pastry cups to fill with veggies. This involved dipping the batter into a boiling pot of oil with a very cool instrument to form the cup shape. The instructor of course produced perfectly shaped beautiful cups. When we first attempted to make them on our own, all of our cups were missing bottoms. That is a problem when you fill them with veggies. :-) Turns out the oil was too hot. Once we fixed that issue, we were well on our way.




Isn't Daniel a natural in the kitchen?

After the veggie cups (with bottoms), we made a delicious and spicy noodle dish. We followed that with a beef and veggie stir fry and finished with my favorite dish of the day, the chicken curry with potatoes. It was so good!





I hope that we can make some of these dishes at home. The hardest thing will be finding the spices and veggies (galangal anyone?), but in Hong Kong I think we had a good chance. We bought the little instrument for making the pastry cups and an apron, so we'll see that happens!

The Grand Palace and getting "taken for a ride"

Our first day in Bangkok was quite eventful. We slept in a bit because we arrived around 1 am the previous night. Then we made our way to visit the Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha. I read in multiple guide books that the palace was open until 3:30 so we made sure to arrive with a few hours to walk around. When we got there however, we were told that the palace was closed until 3 and that we should come back between 3 and 6 pm to visit. It did appear that the gates at the entrance were closed but the sign outside agreed with what I had read which was that the Palace was open until 3:30. We were slightly confused but the very helpful guys standing outside the entrance said there was a special event going on. They had the perfect suggestion for us to pass the time. For 20 Bhat (which is less than $1) we could ride on a tuk tuk to visit another temple a mile or two away. The driver would wait for us and then drive us back to the palace. We figured why not because we had some time until the Palace opened and we were interested in riding on a tuk tuk.
As promised, our driver took us to a small temple and let us out to look around. Almost as soon as we walked in the entrance, a very friendly man came up to us and started chatting. He offered to give us a tour of the temple area and explain more about how he prays when he visits the temple each day. We followed him into the temple, sat down, and had a very nice chat about the paintings on the temple wall, living in Bangkok, and his life as an English teacher at a nearby school. During the conversation he also casually mentioned that if we liked to shop there was a great place to get a custom suit made called Thai Center. And then he brought up his favorite jewelry shop. We didn't really think anything of it until....
We headed back to the tuk tuk expecting to be driven back to the Grand Palace. We then found out that there were two stops we'd be making first. And wouldn't you know it.. the first stop was Thai Center! What an astounding coincidence! We politely declined having a suit made and were basically ordered out of the store. Daniel said to me "I bet we are heading to a jewelry store now" as we climbed back in the tuk tuk. Sure enough, that was our next stop. :-)
So in hindsight it all seems a bit obvious. We aren't sure if the palace was really closed when we arrived but it definitely looked like it was. We didn't mind being "taken for a ride" at all though. We wanted to ride in a tuk tuk and had a great time riding around the city. Plus we saw a really nice temple. All for less than one American dollar!
When we arrived back at the Grand Palace, the gates were open and we finally went inside to explore. The Palace did stay open later than usual so we had plenty of time to explore. Behold all the gold!






After exploring the Palace grounds for a few hours and sampling our first "young coconut" drink of the week, we made our way back towards our hotel on a boat traveling down the Chao Phraya River (Thailand's famed waterway).


From the ferry boat, we connected to the local subway system. On our way back we spotted this and couldn't resist.
Why did we want to stop here? Well to see Harry Potter in 3D of course!
Two interesting things about seeing the movie in Thailand versus at home: (1) Before the movie started we had to stand up for a tribute to the King (2) the theater had couches with blankets in the top row of the theater. We managed to secure ourselves one of them.

Surprise... We're going to Thailand!

Daniel and I left for vacation the evening of July 24th. Until we arrived at the airport he had no idea where we were going. We actually had a little bit of excitement when we were heading to the airport. I packed our bags a day or two before the trip and made sure we had everything we needed, including putting all travel documents in my purse. Then an hour or two before we were supposed to go to the airport I decided to change purses. I moved everything to the new one.. or so I thought. Daniel came home from work and we went to catch our bus to the airport. We were taking the 8:30 bus to get to the airport by 9 for our 10:30 flight. Luckily, as the bus was pulling up something made me say to myself "I should double check that I have our passports." Sure enough I didn't! I knew I must have left them in the other purse. We decided Daniel would head to the airport with the bags and I'd get the passports and catch the 9:00 bus. That would get me there by 9:30 with barely enough time to check in before they closed the gate. Luckily we had at least that half hour cushion. Definitely learned a lesson for next time! I'm so happy I decided to check though because if we realized this at the airport we'd have definitely missed the flight.

So after all the excitement I finally arrived at the check in desk and Daniel found out we were heading to...... Bangkok! I told him this was the first stop on a multi city Thailand itinerary. What an amazing trip it was. We LOVED it!

Look at me MC!

July 18th was the kindergarten graduation ceremony for my school and three others (all owned by the same person). A couple months ago my principal asked me if I would MC the event and I agreed. I had no idea what I was getting myself into but I figured that it was a great opportunity. Luckily I later found out there was going to be a script pretty much written out for me and I would have a co-MC reading Cantonese. The week leading up the event I met with my co-MC to practice our lines. I was feeling pretty confident leading up to Saturday. I figured that I would get nervous when the day arrived. Turns out, I didn't really get that nervous. Just a little bit before the run through that we had a couple hours before the ceremony. Once I got through the practice and received tons of compliments I was good to go. Daniel came and cheered me on! I picked him out pretty easily in the audience being a (curly) head taller than everyone else. :-)

I actually had more stress getting myself ready to MC in the morning than actually MC-ing. I made a hair appointment at the salon in Discovery Bay. Besides the fact that they were running behind and threatening to make me late, I learned quickly that the terms "updo" and "french twist" lose something in translation. I had a feeling along the way the guy was having trouble but I figured he'd pull it together at the end. Then I saw him taking gel and making spikes in my hair at the top of my head. I promptly told him to tuck those pieces in! I was running out of time to make the ferry so I couldn't have him start over. So what I was left with was... interesting. It was nice from the back but had a strange wave of hair in the front. You can't tell in the video because it's far away. It looked nice on stage. I guess that is a good thing! I immediately texted a picture to Daniel and called him really upset. He told me he liked it because it was different. He made me feel much better about it and by the time I got to school I was in better spirits. Then I tried on my backless dress and realized my back was peeling from the sunburn I received during last weekend's bicycle adventure. That crisis was quickly averted when one of the other teacher's remembered she had a really nice shimmery black wrap. Whew. Finally I was ready to MC with my wavy hairdo!

Bicycle, Bicycle

Last Sunday (July 12th) we ventured to Tai Wai in the New Territories for a day of bike riding along the river. Daniel's coworkers organized the trip and found a place where we could rent bikes for the day. We started in Tai Wai and rode about 15 miles to the Tai Po area. There was a bike path along the river so we didn't have to deal with traffic for the most part (just crossing some streets). The scenery was beautiful along the way. Not having biked in years, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I did ok. I started to get really tired at the end of the ride but I think it was mostly due to the extreme heat. It was about 90 degrees and the sun was directly overhead. A few stops for water and one stop for lunch made it more bearable to deal with the heat.

Our final stop of the day was in Tai Po for a late lunch/early dinner. We found a very tiny restaurant that looked like a little shack. They had two menus - the Chinese menu and the tourist menu (double the price). We took a gamble and ordered the mushroom risotto from the English menu. I wasn't expecting much at all but the risotto ended up being amazing. Definitely in my top 5 risottos ever. Who would have guessed?

After finishing our meal, the guys decided to ride back about half way down the trail to drop the bikes off near the Tai Po Market MTR station. The woman had enough cycling for the day and we packed our bikes in the trunk of a cab and went for tea while we waited for the guys. :-)

It was a great day out and we were able to explore a new area of Hong Kong.

LAMB (look at me blog)

Well hello there everyone (yes, even you jimmy)

I just wanted to share this story with you...

Origami city: model crafted entirely from paper

An origami artist from Japan, Wataru Ito, has spent four years crafting an incredible model city from paper - but now plans to burn it down.

Published: 10:47AM BST 10 Jul 2009

Origami castle on display at the exhibition in Umihotaru, near Tokyo, Japan Photo: SWNS

Mr Ito was bored during his college entrance exams that he started constructing a city with paper, a knife and glue. He spent 4 years working on this cityscape. He has now decided he wants to set his paper masterpiece on fire when the exhibit is done being shown.

"When the exhibition is over I will burn the castle."

[Full Story]

Kelly's teaching update

Swine flu panic began in April and immediately the Hong Kong government and residents became very nervous. Those who lived through SARS over here were especially nervous and measures were taken immediately by the government to prevent an outbreak here.  At the beginning of May, three hundred guests were quarantined in the Metropark hotel when it was discovered one of the guests had H1N1.  At school were told that if there was even one confirmed "local" case of H1N1 (meaning in someone who had not recently traveled abroad and could have contacted it there) they would shut down the schools for two weeks. Since this didn't happen during the initial scare, I thought everything would be fine and wasn't too worried. There were positive benefits of the increased measures put in place to stop the spread of the virus. The elevator buttons in our building are disinfected every hour, they put out hand sanitizer everywhere, and students at school are sent home right away if they have any cold or flu symptoms. This resulted in not getting sick with the cold or flu at all, whereas previously it felt like I picked up something every few weeks.

On June 11th though we had our first local case of H1N1 in the schools. They shut down that school immediately and the government met to decide what to do about the rest. They announced later in the day that all kindergartens and primary schools would be closed for two weeks. What did this mean for teachers? Well we still had to come in to school (but were each given three days off in rotation) for the two weeks and prepare lesson plans for next year and finish up with any work for the current students. Once the two weeks were over the government was going to make a decision about whether or not to keep the schools closed longer. Since there would only be about three more weeks left once they returned, it was questionable whether or not it made sense to resume if the virus was still spreading

We waited anxiously to hear whether schools would reopen and found out on June 24th that they would in fact remain closed for the rest of the school year. They would resume in August. I assumed this would mean I was going to be on forced leave in July. But it turns out that our school decided to host small groups of students whose parents really needed the help in taking care of them during the day. So we are going to start these small group sessions next week on July 2nd. I am happy I will still be able to work during July.

While I think the most important thing is keeping the teachers and students healthy, I am disappointed by the way this all played out because the school year ended very abruptly and I won't be seeing my current class of students again. I miss them and I didn't really have a chance to say goodbye to these adorable faces:



After these "small group sessions," we will have a one week vacation from July 24- Aug 1st before the new school year starts.  Daniel and I are headed to a secret location for a week! I planned a vacation for us but he has no idea where we are going. Can't wait!

To infinity and beyond!

We have been loving our Disney Season Pass. Since our anniversary I think we've been to Disneyland five times. We meet up after work for the last hour or two until the park closes at 8 pm. It helps that it is so close to our apartment (we are so lucky)!

Our favorite ride is Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.




On this ride you get a laser gun and you shoot at targets as you ride through the course on your space vehicle. You have to defeat Evil Emperor Zurg who is trying to steal battery power. The targets are circle, square, and diamond shapes and each is worth a different amount of points. We figured out quickly that the diamonds are worth the most. The first time we went on the ride was when we visited Disney the day after we moved to Hong Kong. We enjoyed the ride and figured out the basic strategy pretty quickly. However we probably averaged 20,000 - 30,000 points. We saw on the scoreboard you could go up to 1,000,000 + and at that time it seemed impossible that anyone could reach that. Then we got the season pass. And had the opportunity to ride Buzz again and again. And let's just say... well we improved just a little bit..