Hong Kong Halloween Bust

Sunday Morning

Katy, turning to David: "You want to move back?'
David: "Right this moment, yes."


You never consider how much logistics go into trick or treating with kids or take them for granted when you live in a great neighborhood like McDonald Ave. But apartment complex living sure has busted our Halloween this year.   So yes thus begins our first real critique of Hong Kong living for an american family.

Our apartment complex which is 33 floors had a Halloween party  on Saturday October 28 from 3pm to 5pm.  Trick or Treating was from 5:30 to 7:30pm.  If you wanted to open your apartment for trick or treating, you signed up, then the management produced a list of the apartments you could go to. Remember our apartment is yes 33 floors. 2 elevators.

So on Saturday, the kids both crashed with naps in the afternoon and were hard to get up.  Nicholas being very tired wanted nothing to do with a costume. But we got the kids in them and headed down to the club house for the party.

It was nice. Food. Pageant.  But the main event was a haunted house you walked through. Now in our house we have defined "silly Halloween" and "scary Halloween." No one wants anything to do with "scary Halloween."  So as you can imagine the haunted house was out. With that there was not much for a 2 year old and a 5 year old to do. You could see not many of that age group around. So we headed back up stairs to wait to start trick or treating.

Maggie's friend Lacey invited us up to trick or treat with them.  Now this entails either taking the elevator or walking up the service stairs.  But the service stairs do not stop at every floor's front doors.  There is one set of stairs for the odd and one for the even floors. OK. no problem.  Maggie and even Nicholas do not seem turned off by the stairs at all.

We get to Maggie's friend's apartment in the same block as ours.  (We agree to only trick or treat in our block.) Well Lacey has an older brother who has a friend who dresses up as the screamer with a mask.  He puts it on to start trick or treating and Nicholas freaks out. The boy is very nice and feels sorry. But it is clear to me, Nicholas and I will have to go alone.  Maggie and Katy stay with the group.

Well the first random apartment Nicholas and I stop at is answered by a middle school boy in a scary mask with blood.  Well that is it for Nicholas.  He does not, no way shape or how, want to go on and asks to go back to 17.  (Our floor.) So Nicholas stops at exactly one apartment. I try another apartment and Nicholas has had it. The lady even comes out into the elevator landing, but Nicholas is too scared.

One the way down the stairs I run into the group and Lacey's mom and dad, no Maggie or Katy.  They tell me Maggie has jumped ship as well and headed back to 17. Same issue.  Too many scary apartments. I could see Maggie was bummed.

So we have 2 kids with exactly 2 apartment stops. With all the logistics of the apartment building, it comes down to alot of scary halloween masks.

Katy and I both feel that they missed out on Halloween this year which led to the interaction at the top of this post. As Katy said, with homes at least from a distance you can tell whether it seems scary.  And the thing is in our McDonald Ave neighborhood, there were more fun Halloween homes than scary anyway. Not sure what the point is of scaring little kids.

Next year we will have to target only the apartments we know will not be scary.

Miss the fun family Halloween.  Miss you McDonald Ave, the Yins, the Colwells, the Brittains, the Munceys, the Donaldsons all of you. Miss you Dilworth.

So today, yes James, I'm going to Carolina in my mind.