Deepwater Bay Beach

On Saturday we went shopping at Causeway Bay Ikea for a new kitchen for Hannah (of which more later).

This is Hannah and Rika enjoying Ikea.

Then after lunch back at our apartment, we booked a table at CoCo Thai, and took a taxi down to the Deepwater Bay beach around 3pm,    This is a good time to go to the beach as its not too hot.  Hannah  can still enjoy several hours at the beach, and when its getting dark there are no arguments about staying longer.

Deepwater Bay beach looking south .  The white tower things are life-guards lookout stations. And th white building in the trees is the showers and changing rooms with CoCo Thai restaurant on the top.




Rika at the beach.   Hong Kong being a small place we ran into some of my colleagues in their bikinis, so we relocated down the beach to let them frolic in peace.  

This is Hannah walking along the beach in the water.  Daddy is staying dry but is ready to leap into the water as soon as she gets into trouble - which fortunately never happened. 

Video:  Hannah enjoying a swim.  Rika is sitting at the back of the beach to the right of the life-guards.

Hannah in the water with life-gard on his boat.  Note the swimming platform out in the bay behind Hannah.

We had a nice meal at CoCo Thai, and just like last time we visited enjoyed a bottle of wine forgot to pick up Hannah's shoes from under the table.     So we will be going back again soon.

Parklife 3 - Milkshake Murder

Another aspect of Parkview is the haunted buildings.   Parkview tries to have the best and most exclusive of everything.  So it is no surprise that Hong Kong's most famous expatriate murder was committed there.

Nancy Kissel was convicted of the murder of her husband, investment banker Robert, in their apartment at Parkview Block 17 on 2 November 2003.

"The couple arrived from Japan New York in 1997 and settled at Parkview.  Robert worked for the Investment European Bank Goldman Sachs.   On a return trip to the United States in mid 2003, Nancy met and had an affair with Michael Del Priore, a twice-married TV [television] repairman.

Nancy Kissel the milkshake murderess

Her husband became suspicious, and hired a private detective to spy on his wife, as well as secretly installed spyware on her computer....  ".   Nancy then allegedly drugged Robert by having their four six year old daughter give him a beer strawberry milkshake laced with a cocktail of sedatives.  When it had taken effect and the children were out of the apartment, she bludgeoned him to death with a metal ornament.   

She then rolled up his body in a carpet and had maintenance workers put it into their storeroom.   The body soon began to smell and was quickly discovered.   Nancy was arrested, tried and despite a claim of self-defence, was sentenced to life in prison.  Her story inspired true crime books and a made-for-TV movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Kissel_murder_case

I like the way Kissel had the 'help' dispose of the body.  That is classic Parkview!

As an aside, according to Mr. Ian Candy,  Senior Teaching Fellow, City University of Hong Kong, "It's not usual in Hong Kong for expatriate wives to murder their husbands".   http://callanlegal.blogspot.com/2011/01/today-show-former-prosecutor-paul.html

Although this was the most famous case, there have been other tragic incidents that help give Parkview a haunted reputation:

2000 Block 15.  Singapore female found dead.
Apr-2005  Block 3.  German male jumped off building due to relationship problem
Jan-2008  Block 13   Male jumped off building due to relationship problem
Apr-2012  Block 7.  Japanese female reads about a fatal incident in Parkview Block 7  but 2 weeks later can't find any sign of it on the internet.  Spooky!

This is the entrance to block 7 at Parkview.  The elevator number is 4 which is death in chinese - Spooky!

Elevator buttons.  Like most Hong Kong buildings they have omitted 'unlucky' floor numbers like 4, 13, 14.

This is a video of our family being frightened by spooky Parkview storm.  Can you see the ghosts?  Spooky!

Better Chinese

Hannah has been learning Mandarin Chinese at school in her billingual class.

To begin with she didn't like the immersion method because she didn't understand what the teachers were saying.   But she liked learning Chinese songs.

When we asked for takehome reading the teacher surprised us by giving Hannah Chinese books for us to read together.   This was quite a challenge as we don't speak Chinese and pronunciation is important.  But I had a lot of fun trying to decipher the books and reading them with Hannah in a 'chinese' accent!

It turns out that the books were from an American course for 3-4 year olds called 'Better Chinese'.  I looked it up on the web and found that they produce CDs and online materials we could order.   In fact, they also have a Hong Kong Office on Leighton Road near Hannah's ballet class which also offers classes.

The course immediately appealed to me because the first sentence of the first book is "I love my Dad"!  Anyway we ordered the books and online course and now try to do the units a few times each week.  

Note that the granny ('nai nai') in the video is doing tai chi.  Cool granny!

Hannah now often asks if she can 'do better chinese' togethr.   She enjoys reading the books online and watching the animations, and of course we can hear and copy the correct pronunciation this way.   I also loaded the audio of the books to my Iphone so we can play this when we read the books together in bed.    So it is much more effective than just tying to read the books.

Another thing I'm trying to do to encourage Hannah to be interested in Chinese is to play games with flashcards with Chinese Characters,  and also write characters using real brushes and ink.    I think this effort has helped Hannah to enjoy learning Chinese.    And in any case I've learnt a lot.  

And of course we are also trying to read to Hannah in English and Japanese.

Parklife 2

More notes about  our temporary life at Parkview.

 Poolside

The poolside area feels like a resort, with guests lounging by the pool, children splashing about and a steady stream of waiters bringing drinks.

To be honest we don't go there very often, but I feel we should.




















Having a glass of wine,.

On Saturdays they have an all-you-can-eat BBQ at the poolside, weather permitting.   The centerpiece is either BBQ whole piglet or lamb, and lots of other dishes.






The Roman Baths

The gym has an indoor pool complex which they call the Roman Baths.   This is one of Hannah's favorite weekend activities.   She usually meets up with kids she knows and they play in the pool.   Swimming lessons are also available.

Children are only allowed into the baths for 2 sessions each day.  The rest of the time is 'adults only'.     I've not been to the adults only session at the roman baths so I don't know what goes on - perhaps orgies or crucifixions or something.





Romantic Sampo 

In the evenings Hannah likes me to take her for a romantic 'sampo' ('walk') in the gardens.  The idea is that she rides in the sling and goes to sleep.

So we go out to the podium past the pool, past the art,  and the around the garden-path, trying not to step on frogs or snails.




We eventually wander up to the edge of the podium at Tower 17 where we can enjoy a cooling breeze and a view over Hong Kong to the Nth West, Mt Nicholson to the West and Deepwater Bay
and Aberdeen to the SW.

Shopping

Hannah shopping at the Fusion supermarket.  I wonder, what is she looking for?

'YangMing Shan Zhuang'

The chinese name for Parkview is 'YangMingShanZhuang'.  The first 3 characters are  the name of a Taiwanese national park just north of Taipei.  

Yang = the sun, south of a hill or north of a river, positive, masculine (i.e. yin/yang), male genitals
Ming = bright, clear
Shan = mountain
Zhuang = farmstead, manor

So Parkview is literally the 'farmstead of bright dick mountain'.

When we get a taxi we say the chinese name (as "YonMinSanShon").  Taxi drivers always seem to recognize this even with out poor pronunciation, whereas about one-in-four drivers doesn't recognize 'Parkview'.

Maid Cafe

This is the Parkview 'maid cafe' where the helpers can hang out and surf the net.  Possibly the families these helpers work for wanted a bit of privacy.

Fresh local produce?

When Hannah and I go for 'romantic sampos'  in the evening, we hear and often see frogs in the stream or path.  And although we try very hard not to, we have crushed a fair number of snails walking up the path.   Which got me thinking...

And sure enough, on the menu of the Teahouse restaurant!

The Teahouse is decorated with Salvatore Dali sculptures.   And in one corner there is a cabinet with collectibles from the Harry Potter movies including a wand prop.  

But my favorite is this one.

The Wanch

Flush form their victory at the 'battle of the bandkers', the JV played a gig at The Wanch in Wan Chai.  I was happy to be invited and to get a late pass.

"Historic, friendly, hassle-free, unpretentious and international, The Wanch is quite simply a Hong Kong institution.   It has been the home of live music in Hong Kong since 1987, offering original music showcase nights, the top local covers bands and jam sessions.  Live music every night, never any cover charge.

Prior to becoming The Wanch, the premises were occupied by the 'Diamond Bar' topless nightclub..."   http://www.thewanch.hk/?page_id=2

Video:  the JV at the Wanch

Hayley Legless supporting the JV.

Battle of the Bandkers

One surprising pattern in my company is the number of musicians.  In Tokyo our business manager played violin in a string quartet,  our head of financial control had studied piano at the elite Julliard School in New York, my former boss played saxaphone, and my boss before that was an accomplished concert pianist.   And our part of the front-office had enough rockers to form a rock band, 'the Tan Videttos' which played at company events and fund-raisers.

And this pattern continues in the Hong Kong office.   Colleagues in my department have a band 'the JV' which plays regular gigs in Hong Kong.   My current boss leads with vocals, guitar and general charisma, while our accounting specialist plays virtuoso lead guitar.

Elsewhere in the company enough other departments have bands or band members for the social club to hold a 'battle of the bandkers' competition.   This was held on 10th of May at the 'sky lobby' in aid of a local charity.   In all, five bands took part.

Picture :  Our rock gladiators wait nervously to enter the arena.

The competition was to be decided by a panel of judges and an audience vote.   The judges were led by Hayley Legless, Australia's 11th most popular folk parody singer.  The audience vote was led by weight of cash, since you could buy as many votes as you like.   This seems to be a Hong Kong tradition, and in the absence of any clear direction from Beijing, I followed another tradition and voted early and often for my boss.  

Video:  'Battle of the Bandkers'

The best band were a group of Hong Kong chinese who were technically impressive and sang in Cantonese.   But since they had only one member actually working in our company, they didn't stand a chance.  In the end a tsunami of cash from my colleagues swamped the audience vote and overturned the judges decision.  So the JV were crowned winners!

Picture:  the triumphant  'JV' plays an encore

Parklife 1 - Millionaires Playground

One of the attractions of Parkview is the activities for children.

As well as the tennis courts and pools there is a big indoor play-ground to keep the kids entertained when its too hot or wet.

The playroom is less fun for the parents.  You just hang round at the entrance watching the screaming kids and waiting to take your child home when they get too tired or injured.

Last time I took Hannah a little boy accidentally kneed her in the head which produced an impressive bruise.  The time before that, she banged into a small child on the slide and I got  told off at by an angry mother. 

So all in all it is too dangerous and stressful for parents.  We now hire a helper to take Hannah to the playroom after school.