Top Tip Tuesday - Making Connections

I decided after the rather strong views I expressed in my last post, I'd use today's Top Tip to write about the other side of life amongst a community of expats. It can be a whole lot of fun, and through living here I've made some life-long friends, but it can be hard to get started.

If you've moved here reluctantly or if you're just a bit shy, you might be hesitant to get out and meet new people. It can be far too easy to pine for your friends back home, and you'll probably spend a bit of time comparing the people here to those you left behind. But you'll settle in a lot quicker if you accept that this is where you live now and start making those all important connections with people that make a place "home." When you're a long way from family and friends you really need a support network of people who understand how tough the expat life can be, and who will be there for you when you need a hand. Once you start to make connections and develop friendships, you'll be surprised by how many other opportunities come your way.

Hong Kong is a very social place. If you live in town you can (and some do) go out every night of the week. Depending on the kind of people you want to meet, this is definitely one option for increasing your number of friends, but it's not really an option if you have a couple of kids and/or a job. So if all night partying in Lan Kwai Fong is not for you then there are plenty of other ways to meet people with similar interests. If you're new here, or even if you're not, and you're looking to meet some new people, here's a quick list of contacts for some local organisations to help you get started.

Mums and Bubs
Local playgroups, schools and play centres are a great place to meet mums with kids of a similar age. If you're still just pregnant, an antenatal class or birthing class (check out Annerley, A Mother's Touch and local Private Hospitals) is a great way to prepare you for what's ahead but also to ensure that you have a ready made group of playmates for your little one.Little Steps is another great resource on things to do with kids (and therefore places you'll meet other parents).


Sports
Anglo Info has a great list of sporting clubs and associations located in HK, from rugby to running you should find it there.If you're interested in sport with a more local flavour check out Dragon Boating.
Geo Expat has a list of gyms and fitness centres here if that's more your thing, or you can check out their page on Yoga and Pilates - it's by no means a comprehensive list but it's a good place to start.

Special Interest Groups
Again I'm going to cheat and send you to Geo Expat, Anglo Info, Asia Xpat and The List because they've done all the research already! On these pages you'll find info on everything from cooking classes, ballroom dancing and stamp collecting, to religious groups, theatre sports, and automobile clubs. If you have a special interest and it's not listed on any of these pages, it might be a good opportunity for you to start your own club!

You'll find that whatever you do, people will be giving you their phone numbers and inviting you over for coffee and playdates. New people are accepted very quickly, because we all know what it's like in those first few months.You might even find your new best friend in the queue at the supermarket! Making new friends here is the best way to feel settled and you'll get so much more out of it when you mix with people from different backgrounds to your own.

Typhoons and Tantrums

Well, typhoon season is upon us. Of course I had plans for this week and ended up having to go into town during torrential rain and winds of 40-60km/hour. The "Typhoon Signal 3" was hoisted which basically meant that it was really wet and really windy. When I arrived into Central on the ferry yesterday the rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was blowing it sideways. My umbrella was rendered useless as soon as I stepped out of the shelter provided by the ferry, and I was soaked through by the time I got into a cab less than 10 metres away. A "T8" is generally a bit more serious and everything shuts down, but during the T3 it was business as usual - it just made getting a taxi a bit more challenging than usual. Not to mention the challenge of finding "indoor fun" for a very "outdoor" kind of boy, as playgroups, kindergartens and nursery schools close down at T3.

Call me crazy, but I actually love this kind of weather. It's still hot, and the 99.9% humidity makes going outside feel like you're stepping into a sauna, but the rain does cool things down just so slightly. I also love the unpredictability of it all, and the fact that we all get a day off if it's really windy. It's also a great reminder that we're a long way from home. I love the jostling of umbrellas on busy streets, the gumboots under work suits, the clarity of the sky before the rain sweeps in and obscures everything. I love lying in bed and listening to the wind howl and the rain pelting the window, and knowing I'm tucked up safe, sound and dry. I have a deep respect for the awesome power of nature, and I know that freak weather can be so incredibly dangerous, but for us, in this city that's so well prepared for the annual typhoons, it's simply a fascinating part of life in the tropics. Oddly enough, it's one of the few things I love about this place.

When I was teaching, we could always tell when there was a typhoon on the way, because the kids would get a little bit nutty. There'd be a bit more noise in the hallways, a few more fights, lots of general silliness, and they'd all be buzzing almost perceptibly as we waited to hear whether or not we'd all get to go home early. J wasn't bothered by this recent bout of inclement weather at all. He still insisted on going out for his morning walk yesterday, and he protested quite loudly when we had to turn around and come home after we both got drenched by a passing storm. He reminded us all day today that we hadn't yet been to Mui Wo for playgroup, and didn't understand the concept of "cancelled due to weather"... We have had more tantrums than usual this week, and I'm hoping that I can blame the weather and not a new phase. Last night he insisted on feeding himself dinner, which meant eating shepherd's pie with his hands. Battles like those held regularly at our dinner table make yesterday's typhoon seem like nothing more than a stiff breeze in comparison.

Here are some photos from previous year's storms...

If you're a bit of a weather nerd like me check out the Hong Kong Observatory's great typhoon information page.

Top Tip Tuesday - Get Them Swimming!

I'm cheating a little bit with today's Top Tip and giving you one that you probably all do anyway, and one that isn't Hong Kong specific. We watched a documentary recently on some great work being down across Asia and the Pacific by Surf Life Saving Australia. In Australia last year over 30 children drowned. Across the Asia-Pacific region - every year - 300,000 + children drown every year; a shocking and completely avoidable tragedy.

In Australia kids are taught to swim from a very young age. Enrolling them in swimming lessons is just something you do. Here in HK a number of international schools offer swimming programmes as part of the curriculum but I'm amazed, given the fact that we live on islands, how few children can swim by the time they get to primary school. I've watched 8 and 9 year-olds struggling to do the basics with kickboards, floaties and an adult holding their bellies.

So, if you're like me and you don't live in an area or a complex where there's a nice resident's club with a pool and instructors on your doorstep, you may have been procrastinating a little. After I watched this show, and discovered my son's absolute absence of fear around water, I decided it was time to get him proper lessons. We're going for an intensive summer programme, but most of the local providers also run classes all year. My research wasn't exhaustive I'm afraid, so please let me know if you have found other options, especially here on South Lantau. Here are the swimming lesson providers I have found so far (complete with links):

Harry Wright International, claims to be HK's leading swim specialists. They do classes for kids from 4 months of age, and they have a few locations around the place, but they do fill up fast.

Multi Sport, have a great range of classes for kids from 6 months. They have fewer locations but are a bit cheaper than HWI.

ESF Educational Services, another provider with lots of locations and services, but I wasn't impressed with the lack of infant classes over the summer (i.e. none at all), and those they had during term time were held quite late in the day (not convenient if you have to travel for an hour to get there and back, like we do).

Hong Kong YMCA although they also offer a few great programmes, in Chinese and English, I wasn't able to find out from the website where the classes are held...

Asia Swimming Sports Center, a local organisation that holds classes for children from 4 years to adults. Classes are really affordable but they're only held in Kowloon and Tung Chung, and there's nothing for babies.

Platypus Aquatics, based at the Australian International School in Kowloon, they offer programmes from infants to adults, and all their classes are based on Aussie standards and practices. Their website is also quite tricky to navigate, so if you're really keen to know what they offer you might have to call or email them.

OWLS in Mui Wo offer swimming classes for kids right here on South Lantau, but like those in Tung Chung, they don't offer anything for kids under 4 years.

As I said, it's not an exhaustive list but it should give you a good idea of where to start. Please do let me know if you have anything to add (preferably before I send off enrolment forms for J...). It's absolutely one class you won't ever regret sending your child too. Unlike ballet or cello lessons, swimming lessons may save their lives one day.

The Best Things in Life

This weekend I'm feeling full of benevolence and goodwill, and I wanted to link up with one of my favourite blogs again, Maxabella Loves. So, the things I'm grateful for this week, in no particular order:

• Baby hair - Burying my nose into a little blonde head of hair and taking a deep breath of that smell, that's equal parts salty, shampooey, musty and fresh baby, is soul soothing on even the worst days. The best part is that the taller J gets, the closer to my nose his little head is when he's on my lap.
• Sunny Sundays - Hong Kong is the ultimate ugly duckling city. She's cold, grey, stinky and miserable, and no one wants to be her friend for 6 months of the year, but when the sun comes out and the wind changes direction, she is simply stunning. Of course it's far too hot to go outside but I love sitting in my living room and seeing clear, blue sky out the window.
• Dads who like to do stuff with their kids - When J and I are on our own he's pretty chilled out. He makes me get out of the house more than I would otherwise, but he knows his time with Mama is "quiet time." We read books and do puzzles and just hang out. But when Daddy walks in the door it's time to play. I came home from a baby shower yesterday and my living room had been turned into a temporary Arabian tent, complete with a slide and a great big pile of cushions in the middle of it. After thoroughly wearing the little man out indoors, D took him down to the beach to wear him out outdoors. I love the stuff they get up to together, even if they make a mess, and I love watching them having so much fun. 
• Other expats - I met a lovely new person at the baby shower yesterday, she's a friend's neighbour and we chatted for ages. She's had a really interesting life and had a really positive outlook on life and family. I don't always find it easy meeting new people but you can't help but love it here, when people come from such diverse backgrounds. Most of us are here for the same reasons; adventure, work, love, and no one gets what it's like to be an expat better than other expats. I've met some amazing people here, and they all have fascinating (and sometimes really boring) stories to tell, and my life is richer for having known every one of them. 

That's all. Have a great week everyone!

Decisions, Decisions

So, you all remember this... Right?

The emergency repairs to the kitchen a couple of months ago. You can see half of our oven on top of the bench and the beautiful 90's Ikea cabinets that have incited many spatula-throwing, pan-banging, door-slamming tantrums lately. I've never been particularly superficial or obsessed with material things, but this kitchen drives me to distraction. I've managed to cook some pretty special dishes in it but my husband is currently downstairs constructing a gate to keep J out of the kitchen now that he can reach up and potentially pull down appliances, including the oven. There's only one thing that's going to get us out of this state, and that is extra cash. In a fit of pique last week I shot off a job application, and I'm going in for an interview today.

It's a full-time job in one of the local international schools. It's the kind of job I'm trained and qualified to do, and 3 years ago I would've leapt at the opportunity to do this job in this particular school. But now that my moment of rage has passed I'm a lot less certain. I'd be working full-time, commuting for about an hour each way, and with D doing his upgrade this year, J would be left most days, all day, with our helper... I did a list of pros and cons last night, assuming that they offer me the job, and there were an awful lot of cons. But I can't help thinking that it would be really good for me to feel like I was actively contributing to making the house into a home, instead of just complaining about it all the time. Not to mention how nice it would be to get out and do something that I genuinely enjoy doing. I keep trying to justify it to myself; J will start unaccompanied playgroup in January, he's a lot more independent these days, I need to do something so I don't go stir crazy when he doesn't need me so much. Then I remind myself that he's only going to be small and at home with me for such a short time - I should enjoy every precious minute. We talked about every working mum we knew of and there were very few who were actually happy with that arrangement. If they were happy, their husbands and/or kids generally weren't.

I know it's crazy to over-think it so much considering I haven't been offered the job yet, but I feel like I need to work out whether or not I actually want it before I walk into the interview. So I have to ask myself, can I live with my god-forsaken kitchen for another year? Or can I bear to leave this behind every day?

My sweet, funny, gorgeous, special little man. He'd be fine, but would I? I'd love to hear from any of you on this one. And I'll keep you posted.

Top Tip Tuesday

Regular visitors to the blog may have noticed that I've added a few pages. Lazy followers who just get my emails will have to actually go to the website to see these. For a while I was a frequent visitor to parenting forums like GeoBaby, and I found I was responding to a lot of the same types of queries. There are so many parents out there struggling with the same issues of sleep and feeding, and so much conflicting advice on both. I don't know all the answers, and I haven't found many through reading books, but I felt like I had an opinion worth expressing (doesn't everyone?). I wanted to write about my experiences in the hope that someone might benefit from them, and rather than being confused by all the different opinions out there, be relieved that someone else has a baby that doesn't fit the mold, and that they survived. The things I think about certain topics related to parenting can be found on the page I've titles "Parenting 101."

I also started this blog with the intention of writing about life in Hong Kong. I got a little off track with this one so I've created another page titled "HK Top Tips." I realised after I created these pages that I had very little time to add all the necessary information so I'm going to write a special post each week dedicated to my top tips, and each one will be added to the page for future reference. I'm not sure yet whether that'll make sense but it's a start!

So here's this week's Top Tip:

Be Prepared for all Eventualities: Hong Kong is hot at this time of year, really hot, and humid. But, the air quality is as good as it gets so it's worth sticking around if you can stand the heat. Despite the outside temperatures it's often positively frosty indoors, and it's not uncommon to get sick from the constant hot/cold change. June and July are the wettest months of the year too so there's always a chance you'll get caught in a downpour if you leave the comfort of your climate-controlled living room. So, if you do leave the house there are few things you need to have with you.

1. An umbrella. A golf-umbrella is the only thing that will protect you in a typhoon, but a hand-bag sized one will suffice if you're just walking down Queen's Rd between Marks and Spencer and H & M.
2. A cardigan or pashmina. No matter how hot it is outside, you will get chilly if you step into any building or use public transport. Same goes for little people. 
3. A sense of humour - whatever the time of day you'll either be hot and wet, or chilly and damp, and as gorgeous as the place is at this time of year, it's easy to lose patience. And people of all ages seem to go a little bit batty whenever there's a typhoon coming. You just gotta roll with it and laugh about it.

Food For Thought

After parenting and blogging, the other love in my life is food. I love cooking, and baking, and planning meals, and shopping for  food, and I especially love eating. I wrote about how important food is to me in a post last year, Love and Lasagna, and my battles to find good quality produce here in Hong Kong here. Today I'm hooked on Masterchef and seriously considering a foray into professional cooking - if only I could study something other than Chinese cuisine while I'm here. I could write a dozen different posts about food at the moment but since this isn't a food blog, I thought I'd give you a quick summary of what's happening in my kitchen and what's inspiring me lately:

Delicious Magazine - I love this magazine! A subscription is the only thing I ask for when Mother's Day is coming up, and if the postal system here wasn't so random I would be waiting by the mailbox on delivery day. I make a point to cook something from every issue and I have them all organised in chronological order next to my cookbooks. Yes, I am a food nerd.

DIY - Fed up with trying to find decent bread, we invested in a bread maker when we first arrived in HK. It spent a lot of time gathering dust in the cupboard until we realised that bread was one of the few things J will eat. We now make our own on a weekly basis; no nasties, no fuss. Our $500 HKD, second-hand Princess bread maker just bit the dust, so we're upgrading to the Kenwood BM450, a bread maker that's bigger than our oven - that's how serious we are about our bread.

We've also started making our own yoghurt. It can be messy and getting a good batch requires patience and exact measurements and mixing, but it's worth the effort, especially when you see how much added sugar goes into some of the more common commercial yoghurt brands. It's the kind of cooking once reserved for hippies, but everyone's doing it these days. DIY yoghurt is cool, people.

GIY (grow it yourself) - Our rooftop kitchen garden has taken off with the heat and humidity of the last few weeks. It's resembling a jungle more than a garden at the moment but we're loving it. So far we've only managed to harvest herbs, zucchini flowers and some rock-star quality beans, but we'll soon have a bumper crop of tomatoes and the pumpkins won't be far behind. I'm excited about food in a way that I haven't been in a long time, and there's nothing more rewarding than sitting down to a meal with ingredients that you've grown from scratch on a hot rooftop (where, by rights, nothing should grow).

Going Vege - We've been talking for a long time about eating less meat. All the meat we can buy here is imported from somewhere, and it's hard to know what's ok to eat and what's full of hormones, antibiotics, and animal cruelty. I also have to wonder how long it's been sitting at the airport or on a truck, between leaving its country of origin and arriving on my supermarket shelf...  When we buy Australian beef I think about the good quality beef I used to buy at Coles, and I know they use the crap stuff for export. When we buy beef from South America I think about the swathes of Amazon rainforest that have been cut down for farming, and I can't stomach the thought of anything other than free-range, organic, corn-fed chicken. I spent 10 minutes in the egg section of the supermarket last week, trying to decide whether the 'free-range' eggs were better than the 'vegetarian' eggs. Were the corn-fed chickens kept in cages? And what were they feeding the free-range chooks that made them not-vegetarian...? Not to mention how expensive imported food is in general. I grew up in the country where we would see the sheep in the paddock one day and be served a roast lamb the next. I've always made an effort to know where my food comes from, but the process involved in getting it from the paddock to my plate has always made me squeamish, and more than a little uncomfortable. My husband bought a vegetarian cookbook recently and we've been enjoying coming up with new ways to eat our favourite dishes without meat. Until now I haven't quite been able to completely make the break from steak, but over the weekend I caught some of the footage of Aussie cows being slaughtered rather inhumanely in Indonesia, and finally decided my meat-eating days were behind me. I feel better for it, physically and morally, but I'd probably be laughed out of any professional kitchen if I rocked up for an apprenticeship and told them I was a vegetarian, "sigh".

Finding Familiar Favourites - When you're an expat you find that the things you once took for granted are the things you miss the most. Every month one of the local supermarket chains has an international food week, and this month happened to be Australian Food Week. Yay! So I was thrilled to find Arnott's Shapes, Scotch Fingers and Assorted Creams, Brookfarm muesli, Caramello Koalas and Vita Brits on the shelves, and they're now in my cupboard at home. I also discovered a range of gourmet cordials that I'd never heard of, which are great mixed with soda water on these hot summer nights. I've tried a lot of great, new products from all over the world since living here, but nothing beats having a tin of biscuits in the cupboard that are exactly the same as the ones you used to sneak from the tin at Nanna's house.

Family Dining - Our J bird is a fussy eater sometimes. He has his favourites, but like most toddlers, he's not all that keen on vegetables. I've had to get creative to get him to eat well, and most of the time that involves hiding vegetables and meat in things like baked beans. I've also made sure that everything that's available to him (with the exception of Scotch Fingers) is relatively healthy; whole grain bread, organic baked beans, natural yoghurt etc. I've also brought in a new regime this week, with the three of us eating dinner together at the table, with the TV off. He's more inclined to eat something if he sees us eating it as well, so it's a no-brainer really. I haven't forced him to adopt vegetarianism, because that would be irresponsible I think, so dinner last night was vegetable bolognaise with spaghetti, and a few meatballs thrown in for the blokes of the house. After some subtle persuasion, and much ignoring of his protests about the TV being off, dinner went down a treat. J does love his fruit and having so much of it in the house means that we're eating more of it too. I still sat down, after J was in bed, and tucked into a packet of Pepperidge Farm Cookies, but I'd had at least 2 pieces of fruit during the day and a salad for lunch, so I felt like I'd earned a treat. And because food should be fun.

Being Inspired - There are a lot of foodie websites out there, and some great recipes online. If there's something specific I want to cook and my Delicious collection doesn't have the answers, I hit the web.

Here are some of my favourite food sites (in no particular order):
http://smittenkitchen.com/ - she's a foodie and a mum, I love this website!
http://allthingsnice.typepad.com/tastebuddies/ - loved her zucchini flower recipe recently
The Cook and The Chef - a great show, and Maggie Beer is one of my food idols
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/ - a huge catalogue of recipes from some of Britain's best chefs
http://www.taste.com.au/ - should be on everyone's bookmarked list

and for the parents:

http://www.annabelkarmel.com/
http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/

Have a great week everyone, and please check back in tomorrow for a brand new regular feature - Top Tip Tuesday.

* Photo courtesy of Suat Eman, FreeDigitalPhotos.net