New Zealand Food Festival

As if any further evidence was needed about Parkview's taste and sophistication...   the supermarket is holding a New Zealand food festival.

Video:  The promotion featured honey, biscuits, milk products, yogurt, fruit juices, fresh soups, and of course wine.  Although no Otago Pinot Noirs.

Whitestone cheese from Oamaru.

And the pinnacle of New Zealand cuisine...  MallowPuffs!    Hannah is already addicted.

Summer Art Class

This week was the first week of Hannah's summer holidays.   Just for this week we enrolled Hannah in a tennis course, an art and dance course and a drawing course.

Here are some of Hannah's works from the art class.

Pandas.  Signed by the artist at the bottom left.

A piggy bank.  To help dad save up for summer-school fees.

Runna

Granny and Grandad just sent Hannah her Ranna bike that Matthew had bought her for Christmas.

Hannah was very excites to see it again.  This is Hannah riding it in the corridor of the Hotel.

We found a small skateboard area at the ParkView outdoor playground which is perfect for riding.

Video:  Hannah on her Runna bike

Thank you Matthew!  Thank you Granny and Grandad!

Hong Kong SAR Establishment Day

Sunday 1-Jul was Hong Kong SAR Establishment Day.  It marked 15 years since the hand-over of sovereignty to China in 1997.  The anniversary was celebrated by a visit from the Chinese Premier Hu Jintao, various events and a fireworks display.

Hu Jintao's visit also triggered a huge civil rights rally of around 80,000 people marching from Victoria Park to the government offices at Admiralty.   We didn't see this ourselves.

One thing I did notice was a number of chinese wearing union jack t-shirts.  Although I don't know if it was more than usual.

Clever Rika had booked us a dinner cruise on Victoria Harbor to watch the fireworks.  We departed from North Point pier at 7:20.  Before the fireworks started at 8:00 we enjoyed a buffet dinner and relaxing music from the live band.

Incredibly one of their first songs was the theme to 'Titanic', which seemed to be in lieu of a safety announcement.   (I never did find out where they were hiding the lifejackets and life-rafts.)

 Video:  buffet dinner cruise and live band

After dinner we went down to the open deck to watch the fireworks.  The display lasted 23 minutes and was quite impressive.   Most of the fireworks were red and white, the colours of the Hong Kong SAR, with just a few green and yellow.  ('one country, two colours')

Video:  We had a very good view of the fireworks from the deck of our boat on Victoria harbor.

Video:  more red fireworks

Video:  Hannah took most of this one sitting on my shoulders

Video:  Hannah and Daddy at the fireworks

After the fireworks the old folk chatted at the tables while the younger generation took to the dance floor.

Video:  the younger generation on the dance-floor.