Portland Getaway

I am an Airmiles collector and my 5,000 Airmiles were about to expire at the end of the year so I've been redeeming my Airmiles for merchandise or for travel such as hotels.  Since I had to use them up, I decided to put them towards a Portland getaway during my bday week at the Hampton Inn Portland/Clackamas.  We stayed 3 nights.

It was a brutal 6 hour drive down to Portland and back up again but it gave us a much needed break from the kids.  We basically just shopped, ate and slept.  We found a buffet in Vancouver, WA for a very reasonable $20US/person which included hot crab legs.  My FAVORITE!  All I ate was crab legs and dessert.  We went back to the restaurant twice.  

As for shopping, we did very well.  Take a look at all the goodies.  Most of it was Rich's stuff though.  I'm still on a hunt for new leather boots.

Victoria Xmas Trip

For Xmas this year, dinner took place at Winnie and YJ's place.  It was nice to just hang out and relax.  I realize that we didn't take enough pics this year...likely from all the drinking!  From memory, I think the boys (Gavin included) finished an entire bottle of Tequila?  

We also went to Oak Bay Rec center to take advantage of the free Xmas ice skating and did the secret santa gift exchange.  Drewsie picked out really wonderful scratchies this year.  I won $70 on the scratchies.  

Little Josh had a rash attack this trip and that prompted me to try to find out what caused it.  I suspect it was from cat hair.  I'll have to follow up with the allergist and do some testing.

We managed to visit Mom and Dad's place for 30 minutes this short trip.  Thanks Lin Family for hosting.

Xmas Party at Sierra

Sierra Wireless had their annual Xmas party today and the kids were happy to watch a magic show and see Santa Claus.  Everyone ate pizza and enjoyed play time with other kids.  They are growing up too quick!

Happy Bday for Jas!

This year for Jas' bday, we had cake at home and I baked some special Pokemon cupcakes for her to take to school.  No bday bash this year since we just got back from our trip.  Look at how little Daidai tries to devour the cake before we even cut it!  He's so silly.

Trip - HK Ngong Ping 360 and Big Buddha

We fly back to Vancouver tonight at 7pm so we still have an entire day to sightsee.  First thing we did was pack up all the luggage, dropped off all the checked baggage to HK station where it is an Airport Express location.  


In order to drop off our 5 pieces of luggage, 3 people have to pay for the Airport Express tickets now (2 luggage per person allowed).  All 7 of us will eventually need to take the Airport Express to get to the HK airport but buying it from this station is very expensive since it is far from the airport.  My mathematical mind calculates that paying for 1 adult and 2 kids price to drop off 5 pieces of luggage is the cheapest.

We are going to see the big Buddha on Lantau Island today and the Airport Express price from Tsing Yi station is much cheaper.  Thus, we only paid for 3 people here and will pay for the other 4 people at Tsing Yi station.

We spent around 4 hours touring the Tian Tan Budda, walked up the 268 steps to see Buddha up close and then rushed to catch our flight.  The tram ride up the mountain took 20 minutes.  We totally didn't factor in the 1-hour lineup to take the tram down the mountain, the 20-minute tram ride down and then getting onto the MTR.  We JUST made it onto the plane!

Trip - HK Ocean Park

This is our final full-day of our asia vacation.  I can't believe 18 days went by so quickly.  Ocean Park, here we come!  The kids have heard about this park but don't know what it is.  We bought special tix that included the entrance fee as well as the bus ride from the bus station a 5-minute walk from our apartment.  And these tix were cheaper than the entrance fee on its own.  So lucky!

There are 2 parts to the park, the entrance side where exhibitions are and then the mountain side where all the rides are.  So if you want to go on the rides, make sure you take the gondola up the mountain!

Early on in the day, we decided to rent a stroller to hold all of our gear. That was the best investment ever!  I think it cost something like $20 CDN but we put all of our junk in there and when Daidai fell asleep, that pretty much saved our life.  He's one heavy toddler.  

One day was not enough to spend at the park; we could have easily came back and spend another day here.  We left only at 8pm when they were about to shut the doors on us.  I ran so fast to return the stroller to get our deposit back but it all worked out fine.  Everyone had a blast. 

Trip - HK Victoria Peak and Trick Eye Museum

Today we visited the Hong Kong Victoria Peak via the tram and Trick Eye Museum.  Both of these are on top of the mountain.  We used Klook to purchase tickets that included the tram up the mountain, entrance to the Sky Terrace 428 and Trick Eye Museum skipping the line ups.  We made our way to Central MTR station in the morning and met at the meeting place.  

The tram itself was interesting, pretty slanted; it felt like you were at a 45 angle.  We spent alot of time looking out on the Victoria Peak Sky Terrace 428 deck, the highest 360 deg terrace in HK:

There was an exhibition in the hallways at the top where you can take pics:

Then we walked over to the Trick Eye Museum, where you pose in front of paintings to take pics and it gives you an optical illusion of something else.  We spent an hour here and then enjoyed ice cream for another hour...it was really hot.  Here are some fun pics:

  

   

    

  

  

  

  

   

Later that evening, we met up with my friend Sarah Wong to have dessert at Cong Sao Star Dessert 聰嫂星級甜品.  It was an easy 10-minute walk from our apartment.  They seem to specialize in durian-type desserts so we ordered 4 different ones to share.  I can't remember exactly what they were now but they were pretty tasty.