First Happy Easter. What a beautiful day in Hong Kong. Sunny, upper 70s and no, yes, no humidity. It’s one of those rare days when the rain front has blown everything out. We started the day with the arrival of the Easter bunny that came in the night to fill up Maggie and Nicholas’ baskets. Then a quick dress, Skype with the Ericksons’ and off to church.
We decided to continue to go to the Cathedral which is about 5-10 minutes away by cab. Cel, Katy, Maggie, Nicholas and I piled in a cab and we were off. The mass was very nice. Katy found a restaurant Café Deco on the top of the Peak for an Easter brunch. After mass, another cab to the Peak and off to brunch. It was great. Parents take note: they had a kids’ play area AND a magician AND an egg hunt around the restaurant while the waiters refilled your glass with sparkling wine. I highly recommend.
Afterwards, Maggie had the idea to take the Peak Tram down the mountain to the city. We did and found a taxi back to Bamboo Grove. A very pleasant day. Nicholas is asleep and we will have our ham dinner with carrot cake later.
Now a couple of behind the scenes stories about how we made Easter happen…….
I am sure that after some more time here we will figure out the small random stores that carry this, and we are told they do, but after 3 months, we still are working our way through the details of each holiday.
Maggie’s Easter Bonnet. Somewhere we missed that on the week before Easter Maggie was to make and bring an Easter Bonnet to school for a parade and egg hunt. We found out the5 days before the event. OK so generally we know to get a hat, and decorations: plastic flowers, ribbon, bows, you know. For us that would mean a trip to Target and a trip to Michaels. Here not so much. What’s a Carolina Tar heel to do? Text the British nanny. We texted Gail and she quickly said, yes, understood, and pointed us to 2 street markets one in Wan Chai and one in central. Thank God for these Hong Kong street markets. Basically if you can triangulate what you need with the right market, you are set. Need a kids costume, you are set. Need toys, candy, fruit, chicken, baby turtles for pets, fish, gold fish, knock off purses, there is a stall in a market for you.
First stop Wan Chai. Basically a walk away. I find a nice pink hat. Check. Then during lunch, I head over to a market in Central, which I kid you not, is like a Michaels and a fabric store exploded into a 2 block permanent street market. SCORE. Now it does appear rather odd and I kept repeating, “for my daughter,” to see a man in suit buying pink fabric flowers, pink ribbon and pink butterfly decorations, but I got everything to decorate a hat…and Maggie was happy.
Egg Dyeing. In the States, white eggs are well everywhere. Here not so much. We have seen them. But when you are looking to buy them, they are nowhere to be found. So we ended up with brown eyes. Google says that will work. Google is WRONG. What we found midway through the egg dyeing was that if you double up the dye tablets, it works fine. So new note: want to use brown eggs, need to double up the tablets for each color. Better Alternative: look harder for white eggs.
Chocolates. Finding a nice middle “Target like” price range for Easter candy is dodgy (oops, I think I am turning British.) A lot of high end candy and candy from somewhere in China, but alas no Target. If you are curious the closest Target is in Sydney. So we ended up with some high end candy and local candy.
Easter Ham. This is more difficult than white eggs. Katy looked all over. There was even a post of another person asking where to buy a ham in Hong Kong. Apparently there are random super markets that might have them. In the end we settled for a thick cut slice of ham for some astronomical amount.
Easter Baskets. In another moment of brilliance, Katy brought the baskets. But then we realized no straw. Well we had resigned ourselves to it, when a box came from my Aunt (Teta) Jane. She sent Easter candy and it was packed in, you guessed it, Easter basket straw, enough for both kids. Way to go Teta!
So in the end, the Easter Bunny came to Hong Kong. Both Maggie and Nicholas were thrilled.
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