Sham and Stanley

So here we were again at our starting point of the day. Paul and Susan's office. That bag on the right is a poopy diaper bag. This kid has the best timing for taking a crap. He took one later on at Stanley market.



We weren't going to drop by Sham Shu Po but Kieran was a asleep and so we made a pit stop. This place is an electronic market. You can find a lot of crap but if you know what you are looking for this is a great place.

Lots of fake stuff too. We witnessed the fraud police do a takedown.





Stanley Market. We got a little disoriented getting here but we got here. #6 or #260 (express) from Central station.







As soon as we got here we let the bull loose. He was running all over the place. After being couped up in his stroller while we picked up our Beijing tickets from downtown central.

He needed to stretch his legs. We're just glad the ladies at the store were really nice. They even gave him some sugary snack.



Dinner at Stanley Plaza. When we were last here it was still under construction. Now it's all finished with shops and restaurants.

All Brand Names - best deal

So here we are again in Hong Kong.
Mama is happy. She's in the middle of the ladies shopping area in Mong Kok. This is candy for her. To me it's the land of mispelt t-shirts.
But I did manage to get my camera bag. So my mission was complete here.
Then we saw a team of fraud police taking photos and video. But I didn't see too many vendors packing up their Oakley sunglasses and Coach bags and hiding them from view of the POh-lees.
There was going to be a take down happening!

Her only complaint was the quality of the fakes just wasn't the same as before in Korea. What's the matter with these people. They should be reprimanded for producing poor quality counterfeit branded stuff for the quality minded people who can't afford the real stuff.

The flight over from Singapore wasn't too bad. A bit of a late flight arriving at 10:30pm HK time. Kieran was beat. And so were we.

All the kids here in Asia go to bed late. I saw babies still up in Kowloon way past 9:30pm. Even 10:30pm.
But the next day was a different story. Kieran seemed to be tireless and was up until midnight.

But he did sleep for about 2 hrs while we wandered around Mong Kok.

I guess if you can't make a branded fake very well is to advertise that you have 'No Brands' at all like this store.

We hung out at Susan and Paul's office for a bit before heading out to the city. We couldn't find Paul working because he was getting our Beijing travel plans together, but we did find Susan slaving away at her desk making sure that everything was running smoothly.
And Kieran was there to help her out with managing Paul's expenses.


Our last stop was TST. Don't ask me to say the name of the MTR station because I'll butcher it. But we ended up finding Carman staring mindlessly at the lights at the star ferry mall.

This is the first time she's seen Kieran since the day he was born.
She still looks the same. Same beady eyes.

Red eyes

We're smiling now. But wait til later when the time difference starts to set in. Then it's just red droopy eyes. That's why we're both wearing shades.

Kieran's slowly adjusting to the time change, but it's painfully slow. He's been taking two naps during the day. One about mid-morning and another in the afternoon. But we're trying to keep him awake so we can get him to sleep through the night.

But he's falling asleep about 6pm and sleeping until 3:30-4am. So he's still sort of on LA time. I don't think he understands the meaning of jet lag.

So we've been hanging out at the pool. And going for runs in the morning. And checking out the beaches.

There's food courts everywhere, outdoors types too. This one was more Malay style food and the wings were really good. Those little limes are amazing.

And as Kieran and I walked around the food court checking out the stalls. The vendors were saying something to me but I couldn't understand what they were saying. I found out later that they were speaking Malay to me, because I looked like a Malaysian. My chameleon trait was working again. This has happened to me before in Thailand and Cambodia where they thought I was a local.


This location also had a cable-pull waterski park. We noticed a lot of empty cables. And lots of heads bobbing in the water and people swimming to shore.

3:35am local time

This has got to be what we will always remember Singapore for. The food courts are the best.




The selection is amazing. You can't get octopus balls in a Toronto pastry shop, that's for sure. And it's cheap!





But Tresa opted for something more down her alley that didn't crawl or swim out of the water.



Everyone eats out. And there's no rubbish bins in the food courts, someone comes along and takes your empty or half empty dishes and throws it out for you.




It was about 8:30pm local time when we ate and Kieran was asleep in his stroller. One thing I noticed was there were lots of other babies and toddlers wide awake. Everywhere we went we saw mothers carrying their kids. I looked at my watch and it'd be 9:30pm. So I figured it was an asian thing.

He woke up towards the end of our dinner and then fell back asleep. We're hoping he sleeps through the night but last night I was up with him from 3:30am. This morning he slept a little longer - 3:35am. All I heard was 'mom bread' then a tiny padded hand hitting me in the head. And he always seems to aim for my eye. But this time Tresa took him down for some food.

Far far away

Yep that's where we're headed. Across the Pacific ocean.





They gave us a bassonette for Kieran to sleep in. He was borderline on the weight. The max was 14kg. And Kieran is roughly 12kg. But he was a tight fit in this thing.

It doesn't say on our ticket but we had one stop over in Tokyo.

Guess where we hung out. Checking out bags for his aunt.

And this play area was a godsend but no one wanted to leave.






So after 20 hours of flight we made it to Singapore. Where it's about 30 deg in the shade.

Thank God, because that guy beside me slurping his Tokyo-Singapore japanese dinner was driving me bananas.

Go West young man

If you were woken up at 5:30am you'd be pissed too.

And if you had seen the line up for checking in to AC 791, I had the exact same face.

It was a 5 hour flight. We boarded the plane just in time. We had no time to relax prior. Kieran had no running around time so he was restless.

And we didn't have a meal on this flight plus we weren't allowed to bring any liquid/gel items over 100mL. Because some friggin terrorist tried to bring on board a liquid explosive. All I have to do is drink some beer along with some nachos and cheese and I can produce something explosive too.

After 3 hours of fussing and kicking the chair of the guy in front on me. Kieran finally went down for a nap for about 2 hrs. Thank god. I can't imagine what it'll be like on the cross Pacific flight. They're going to put us in the cargo hold.

We finally landed in LAX at 2:30pm ET. We had to give Kieran an organic lollipop (no kidding, it's for real, there's hope for Lou) for our descent. The change in pressure was bugging him. It was partially stuck to his shirt and mine.

Ramesh and Charul picked us up and got us some food.
Mexican, El Choro somethng.

Anyways it was good. My headache was gone afterwards.

Wants vs. Needs

We're trying not to spoil Kieran, and it seems to be working.
He doesn't want anything.

Maybe he wants pants cause all he's got on is his pampers.


All I want is to get on a plane and relax. And hope to god I didn't forget anything. Oh well. Where we're going if we need anything, it all comes from there anyways.

We're off to Asia again. I'm trying to find out in the news what sort of viral disaster is going on, because we always seem to go there during one.
It was our SARS world tour the last time. But that wasn't so bad because we got an extra 10 days off when we got back.
This isn't all of our luggage. This is my carry-on and one of my check-in luggage. The rest is in the truck.
We have to be at the airport about 2.5 hours before our 8:50am flight. So It's 2:00am now. Why bother going to bed.

Who turned out da lights?

It's was dark by 5:00pm. We had no lights. And no microwave to heat up Kieran's food.

This was the 2nd big blackout we have had in 2 weeks. We had another one that lasted about 6-8 hours during a wind storm 2 weeks ago.

I couldn't find anyone close by that was home that had power to visit and hang out to watch the Leaf game. So we went out to St. Huberts on the Queensway.

I went back this morning to see what was left. And this is what I saw. Firemen made a mess man.
A bunch of coffee cups on the newstand. Double-double.

The building looked like it had been gutted. There was still one pumper truck left trying to douse a stubborn blaze.

Apparently this was a 5-alarm blaze. Not sure what that means. But go ahead and Google it.



Ashes were everywhere. Burnt 'cha-siu-bao'.
Dim sum places will be charging double now for those pork dumplings.

We finally heard about the blaze on the news this morning. And what did we see. Some Filipino lady was being interviewed.
Her accent is still making me cringe.

She said 'I could not slep, so I watch tebee instead and cook some rice for my adobo.' I should have taped it. And from the angle of the camera she must have been 4 ft tall.

St Clair West BBQ

The meat packing plant not too far from the house had been cooking up a storm since early this morning.

I had heard the sirens around 7am. And I took these photos at 9pm.





This fire hydrant was maxed out.

I was using my G5 with the 420EX Speedlite flash that I just picked up.

It's on night setting and I just tried to stay as motionless as possible in taking the shots.


They came out quite clear I was pretty pleased. But they did have a lot of flood lights going.

When I dropped Kieran off at daycare this morning I asked the ladies if they were cooking bacon, cuz that's what I was smelling.




They asked if I had heard anything on the news, because of that smell outside. I hadn't heard anything on the news but I did hear the sirens this morning.

I think this was the NY Pork meat packing plant that was being doused with water from about 5 or 6 trucks.




There's a thick haze of the smoke that's all over our neighbourhood.






I was only out at the site of the blaze for about 10-15 minutes taking photos and I smell like I'd been barbequing all day.






What a mess. We were out of power from 1pm til 6pm.

This plant is right next to a housing subdivision. The houses are about 30ft away from the building that was on fire.

There's gonna be a pork souvlaki shortage.

Happy Sukaboy Days

Some kids celebrating birthdays and some just wanting to rip something open for the joy of it.

For Ryan's birthday. Uncle Pat got you a nose job.
So that you can breath properly and more importantly you can pick your nose like all of your runny nosed friends.






Jaedin found some candy and was trying to hide it in the electrical outlet. Then look what happened.
Kids in his grade were all noticing things missing from their lunches. All the sugary stuff just vanished without a trace.




Hey is someone opening my presents with out me?








No fair, in kidspeak means "it's not going my way".
"Just because it's not my birthday."







Hello Fotos...









Real footage of injustice to a kid who just wants to open presents eventhough they are not hers.

Knock knock?

Trick or Treat!

The pumpkin had been carved. CHECK!








Here's my little helper helping me carve this thing.







Candy had been given out. CHECK!

We had two batches of candy. The really good stuff for the little ones like ME!

And another for the big kids, that don't need to pack on any more calories and should be at an afterschool job. Like McDonalds.









Now it was this owl's turn to fly out and see my friends on my street.

Hello fotos....