The Rowlands

The pediatrician back in Phoenix told us Jadyn would be old enough to swim in August. Well, as we all know, it has been August for almost a month now and we weren't able to take her for a dip until last night. Among other obstacles, we had a hard time finding a swim suit without some type of cartoon character on it. Hello Kitty seems to be an especially popular screen print for girls of all ages (as if we didn't already know that; it just turns out to be true). We finally found some time to go try out our hotel pool and the below video is the result.



As you can probably tell, we are two people that don't really know what to do when you take a baby swimming; nevertheless, overall I think it went pretty good.

1. Starting the weekend early because of a level 8 typhoon. As Cody mentioned, he had to take the day off because his office was closed. I loved having Cody home and spending the entire day together as a family. The only problem was we couldn't go out; for one, because of the storm, and two nothing was open anyway. I have to admit I was going stir-crazy by the end of the day. But Indian Jones: Temple of Doom soon put my boredom to rest.

Here is the view from our apartment window on a clear day and a typhoon day, respectively.

2. Hitting the markets in Central and finding a killer-deal on a baby swim suit for Jadyn. She is old enough to swim now, so we are going to try it out tomorrow. We'll see how it goes...

3. Being coerced into buying a Jade bracelet at the Jade Market by this girl.









I wanted to look and price them just out of fun and curiosity, but yah, we got taken. I felt too bad to leave without buying anything after she had spent so much time and effort on us. We did talk her down on the price and I came away with a sweet new piece of jewelry. We justified our purchase by saying it was my Anniversary present (happy 4th to us...a week ago; sorry we didn't get a chance to blog about our trip up to The Peak) and chalking it up to experience.

4. Seeing all sorts of shocking items at the Wet Market. I felt kind of bad taking pictures at first, because this is really how and what the locals purchase for meals, but after so many surprising items, I started snapping away.

Yes, you do see fish heads, dried sea food (this stuff reeks!!), pig's hooves (Cody claims he has tried these), live chickens, and my two personal favorites: a pig's eye and a pig's head. Lovely, absolutely lovely. The one thing I didn't get a picture of and wish I had, is the LIVE frogs for sale. Yes, apparently they eat those too.

5. Coming home with lots of inexpensive loot we bargained for at the Night Market. A couple noteworthy purchases:

My new coin purse. Cody was embarrassed to see me with my old one; I'm really not sure why...

The painting of the Hong Kong skyline (which, by the way, we bought for 80% cheaper than the same one at The Peak--Yahoo, I love this bargaining stuff)!

6. Having the best meal I've eaten since we've been here. While Cody's parents were here, we found this Shanghainese restaurant down the street. Cody ordered a couple of our favorites from when we went there before and a few new dishes to try. I'm happy to report this is the first time I LOVED everything we ordered. It was simply amazing.

7. Witnessing Jadyn pee all over her dad's lap during Sacrament Meeting. Yep, it really happened. We were even using the best diapers we've found here. He was holding her on his lap and suddenly felt something warm and wet. As soon as he started groaning, I turned to look. Sure enough urine was running out the side of her diaper, down his hand, and onto his lap. It was pretty disgusting. We made a mad dash to the mother's lounge, that we so fortunately found locked. After finding an open classroom to change her in, we couldn't help but laugh at the mishap and how clueless Jadyn was of the trouble she just caused us.

Can't you just hear Jemaine and Bret when you read this title? Hehe. Anyway, it's not 1999, and I didn't get a cool t-shirt, (what a rip off because we all know how handy those are come business time...) but last Tuesday I had my own Team Buildin' Exercise. Only, around here, they called it the "Jardine Schindler Talents Conference." I like "team buildin' exercise" a lot more, it's a lot more lyrical and funny.

Oh, before I get into that, I need to make two points. First, many of you will notice this is being posted at a time that is neither on the weekend, nor after work. That's right, the Code-man got to stay home again today because of a Typhoon. These things rock! Only problem is, the Typhoon is going to ruin our weekend. We had big plans and they all involved being outdoors, now we may be holed up in our room all weekend. Lame... but at least I don't have to go to work and try to find things to keep myself busy like doing "competitor research" (i.e. surf the net), "market research" (i.e. reading the newspaper) or just plain looking out the window at the harbor. I still don't have an offical code-name for that one yet, but it will come.

Now to my second point, as many of you just discovered from Nicole's last post, I have a freaking awesome wife. I always knew this, and yes I am VERY appreciative of all the stuff she puts up with. She really is rad.

All the new "talents" in Jardine Schindler flew into Hong Kong last week for some training and leadership building exercises. On Tuesday, they chartered a boat for us and we went out to Tung Lung Island, one of the Outlying Islands. This one lies at the mouth of the harbor, and there is only one little old lady that is left on the island. I wonder what she is doing today? She lives in a little shack made of wood and metal siding... hmmm....

I have three main chores I have to take care of here. One is the dishes, one is laundry, and the other is grocery shopping. Sounds easy enough.

Dishes aren't too bad--we just don't have a dish washer or two sinks anymore. So, I have to do them all by hand using one sink. It isn't too hard other than the limited space in the kitchen and no drying rack. The good news is I can't let them get stacked too high, because we only have four bowls, four plates, four forks, four spoons, four chopsticks, two pots, two frying pans, one spatula, one wire whisk... you get the idea. Sometimes I feel like Old Mother Hubbard.



Laundry can be a little more challenging. It is not the washing and folding that is hard; it is the dragging the heavy bags of dirty clothes around the corner with a baby in tow that can be tricky.

Once the laundry starts to stack up, I have to load it into bags and get it to the laundry store. Sometimes I slide it into the little basket under the stroller, put Jadyn in, and go (works well with one bag of laundry). Sometimes I stick her in the front pack and carry a bag of laundry in each hand (works well if the bags aren't too heavy). And other times when the laundry is too heavy, I push Jadyn in the stroller and lug a suitcase full of dirties (as seen here) behind me.

The best was when I took the laundry in the morning and loads of people were headed toward me on the cross walk on their way to work. I had to plow through the mass of people with a huge stroller in front of me and a huge suitcase behind me. To top it off, the people weren't expecting a person taking up the space of a minivan to be headed toward them, so they had their heads down as they came across the street. I just tried to walk slowly and say, "excuse me, excuse me," (which who knows if they understood) in hopes of not having a head-on collision with any of them.


Once I make it across the street, I maneuver my way on the narrow sidewalk, dodging pedestrians and dripping air conditioners, until I arrive at the laundry store. Once there, they take the bags, weigh them, and ask "when want to pick up? Tomorrow? Okay, tomorrow. Come tomorrow afternoon." I'm not sure if that is all the English they know, but it is the same each time, and it is fine with me, because I can understand that. I pay, say thank you, and head back home.

The next afternoon I drop by with Jadyn in the stroller. They have the laundry washed, dried, and folded in plastic bags. I throw one under the stroller in the basket and balance the other on top of the handle as I push them back home.

Grocery shopping is probably the hardest of the three chores. Now, I have never liked grocery shopping; honestly, I think it has always been my least favorite chore. But now it is an entirely different experience. I have to take Jadyn in the front pack because no grocery store here is big enough for a stroller. Some of the stores even have metal posts at the entrance to block people from taking the carts.

Shopping takes two days. The first day I go to the Wellcome and buy whatever I can find that is on my list. I walk slowly up and down each aisle as not to miss any American item. I know just how full I can get my basket to be sure I only have four or five bags of groceries; I want to ensure I'm going to be able to carry them home.

The second day I go to Jusco for anything I wasn't able to find at the Wellcome (the Wellcome is less expensive--that is why I start there, plus I can only carry four or five bags at a time). To do this, I have to hop on the subway.




Jusco is awesome because it has quite a variety of American foods. I even found lunch meat and cheese! Wahoo! You pay for it though.

Once I have purchased my groceries, I walk across the street to the taxi stand and hop in a taxi. The groceries are too heavy to carry through the subway, onto the train, and back home. I show the driver the address on my key card (they have it in Chinese and English) and then I hold on for dear life. Once we have made it safely back to the hotel, I pay the man and breathe a sigh of relief. Now I can relax as the bell boy opens the taxi doors, grabs out the groceries, and follows me up to the apartment to drop them off. By this time, it is worth the couple dollar tip to have the help. Once he leaves and the door closes behind him, I hug my baby and thank her for being such a good girl through all this madness.

About a week ago when I had to leave my apartment to avoid being in the maid's way, I headed over to City Plaza (a mall nearby). I decided I was going to scour the mall for a store or salon selling straighteners. There just had to be one! As I was walking down one of the corridors, I came across an ice skating rink - in the mall!! I'd seen it before, but this was the first time it was full of kids skating. Take a look:



After being entertained by the Olympians in training, I meandered down the next hall and came upon something else more exciting than my search. There were two young Australian boys watching an empty skate park. I figured they must know something I don't, so I decided to stop and wait with them. Soon enough, a little of this happened:



Just a little though. It must have been a warm-up for the bikers. Soon enough a man came over the loud speakers and started announcing the event. The speakers must have been fuzzy or something though, because I just couldn't understand what he was saying. :) We kept waiting for more excitement, not wanting to lose our front row view. I kept thinking how surprised I was that the crowds weren't gathering around for this. A few minutes later the boys had left too. I realized I was obviously in the wrong spot. I walked to the other side of the skate park and caught this little show (notice all the people that had gathered around):



If only I could speak Cantonese, think of the view I could have had! This day was so much fun--good thing the maid makes me get out and see the town!!

Jadyn wanted to say "hello" to her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends and tell them all how she is liking her new home. She also wanted to say how much she loves and misses all of you.



She had a lot to say this day, so I caught a little bit of it on camera. We think she is going to be a talker. :)

Also, for more pics of Jade, click here. (http://picasaweb.google.com/codyrowland1/JadynPicsAugust)

What do you do with no curling or flat iron and 80% + humidity???

A couple posts back I mentioned how my flat iron burned my hair. Well, the next day the iron had the opposite affect. It burned up the outlet converter. So, needless to say, I didn't use it anymore and I didn't try it with my other irons. The only items I have to use to do my hair are hairspray and a blow dryer (thank goodness the hotel provided one of those). I have been on a hopeless hunt for a flat iron and/or curling iron. I could not find either until this past Saturday!!! All the stores have here are blow dryers! We finally found this little salon that sold curling and flat irons when we were walking around Causeway Bay. The only problem is they wanted HK$400+, which is approximately US$50+. I just can't justify spending that much when I will only use the iron for two months. Plus the humidity here curls straight hair anyway, so why even bother with a straightener!

I really need some help from all you girls out there! This is how I have coped the last three and a half weeks:

1. Lots of ponytails and piggytails








2. Curly hair












3. Round brush









The round brush is the only thing I've been able to use to even come close to my old hair-do, but alas I never mastered that skill and it takes forever! Not only that, after a few hours outside in the humidity my hair looks like this:




I will be the first to admit I have never been very good at styling hair, but this is a whole new trial for me.

I need help!!! I need a haircut really bad (which finding a good quality, english speaking salon is a whole separate problem) and I'm thinking about getting my hair straightened to help fight the frizzy curls the humidity gives me. If you have ever had your hair straightened or have performed it on someone (you hair stylists out there), let me know your feelings on it. And all you lovely ladies, please let me know if you have any suggestions of how to cope with this problem or ideas of new hairsyles!!!

So a funny thing happened this past week. Nicole was feeling very adventurous, and really wanted a Date Night. She chose 2 restaurants for us and on Friday night, at 6 p.m. we were out the door to try something new.

Now, Nicole likes spicy food; me...well... I love her, so I said I did too. She chose a Szechuan place (Szechuan is known throughout the world as taking spicy to a whole new level) called Kong King. No, I'm not kidding, and no, I didn't transpose the words, that really was the name of the place. It happened to be in a district of town called Wan Chai, which is about 5 subway stops away from us, and is where our chapel is. Now, I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Wan Chai is where the old Red Light district used to be, but I figured this place was only 3 blocks away from our chapel, so it can't be that bad...right?

Wrong! We got off the subway, walked a few blocks, and found the road we were looking for. We start walking down the street when we happen to notice every little shop had a lady in skimpy clothes sitting out front. It was only 6:20ish, so it was still light, and the place was still pretty dead, but we just happened to choose a restaurant that was smack in the middle of the nudy bar district. Kinda funny, until we realized the restaurant wasn't there anymore. We walked up and down this nasty street twice before we decided to give up and go try another place. I still laugh that my wife took me and our new born to the Red Light district. Oh the joys of innocence.

Since we've had a few bad experiences with just picking a restaurant off the street, we decided to stick to our "Rough Guide" book and headed to the Chiu Chow Dynasty. It was a little hard to find, but once we did, we were in for a treat. Now, we walk in, it has pretty cool Chinese decorations, an English/Chinese menu, a Mandarin speaking staff, and is nowhere near a nudy bar. We figured we were in for a great night... we just didn't realize Jadyn had plans of her own. Here are some pics I will label as the "Before Pictures":








Looks pretty good huh? Well, it was while it lasted. Only problem was, about the time our food got there and we had time to take a picture, Jadyn decided she had had enough. Now, since we were the only foreigners in the room, and the only people with a stoller the size of a small car, we were right in the middle of the dining floor. At first, Jadyn decided to just get a little fussy, then she decided to get downright mad. We tolerated her tantrum for a while, then decided it was time to go. The staff were very nice, the lady kept asking if Jadyn was hungry and if she wanted some formula. Jadyn wasn't hungry, she just wanted to remind us that the world revolves around her. We finally couldn't take the noise she was making, so we got our food to go, paid, then left. As soon as we got out of the restaurant, Jadyn decided the world wasn't coming to an end, and calmed down. We were both kinda upset that our "Date Night" was ruined, but then she smiled and laughed all the way home on the subway, which was so cute, so it was hard to stay mad at her. We got her home, got her to bed, and here are the "After Pictures":





Kinda funny.

Also, Nicole just made the comment "Whoa! Writing a novel, eh?" Again, Cody's not as experienced at this whole Blogging thing, so sorry for the faux pas, but I thought this was pretty funny. (Both the Nicole and the nudy bar district and Jadyn ruining our date)

p.s. We love the comments so keep them coming. Also, we would love some more visitors. Nicole mentioned that now that we are finding the good places to eat, she would love to take people around and act as a tour guide. Just think, we have a pull out bed in our couch, so if you need to save on a hotel room, and don't mind the Queen of the World getting up at 6:30 every day, you are more than welcome to come stay!

More for Grandmas:



Also, check out all the new pictures of Jadyn on our Picasaweb album.

http://picasaweb.google.com/codyrowland1/JadynInHongKongJulyAug3