this is maylin. she is the wonderful woman that was willing to take in a few strangers into her home, including a little rascal named simon. i don't know if she knew what she was getting herself into. we really don't know what we would have done without her.
after one week and two days staying with maylin, robert's boss called and said the church had a vacant furnished apartment that was under lease for a few more months. It was hard to say goodbye to maylin and her wonderful hospitality, but it was important to us to be closer to robert's work. unfortunately i didn't really take pictures of our apartment or our view. dumb. it was a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, maybe 1500 sq ft apartment. there was an indoor playroom for the kids, a pool, a lounge, a gym... it took 10 minutes to walk to robert's office. it was 3 minutes away from a wet market and shopping market and train. we were really blessed to be offered this kind of free housing.
the day we moved into the apartment robert's mom flew down from beijing. then we were busy. we had lunch with a friend from beijing, had dinner with a friend i met in the mtc, went to disneyland, ate dim sum and played with simon. it was so nice to have someone to hang out with. the day after nana left i saw debby at church. my spirits lifted.
the next day we went on an adventure with the women from the branch. i'm so grateful to terry, robert's boss's wife, for calling me and inviting me to this activity and other outings. we went to some temple. i'm not really sure why we went to that specific temple. then we went to jardine's noon-day gun. we went out on a sampan boat ride and then went to lunch. simon fell asleep while we walked to lunch. he got pretty good sleeping in his stroller. sadly, when he woke from his nap in the restaurant he was soaked. that's one thing i had a hard time getting used to. while in hong kong simon drank so much more because of the warmth and extreme humidity. i had to change his diaper way more than i was used to, and i often didn't change it in time. it is kind of nice to be back in a dry climate, and nice that simon pees on the potty sometimes.
maylin, terry and debby were my lifesavers in hk. they all really took care of me and my family and i'll never forget what they did. they made our stay in hk very memorable and enjoyable. debby, simon and i went out together almost every day. simon really wore the two of us out. we shared mochi, godiva, dim sum, chao zhou food, ebeneezer's and so much more together. terry showed me one of the very best grocery stores in hong kong, and i love grocery stores. she was my hong kong mama.
of course i can't neglect to thank robert's parents for all of their help while we were in china. they came to see us in hk, they flew us to beijing, they took care of us. we really were taken care of during our time out there. the time in bj just flew by. we all flew up on friday night, spent saturday together running around looking for american girl dolls (a favor for a friend) and ate at bellagio. i think the thing i miss the most about china is bellagio. on suday we went to church and robert left for the airport. simon and i stayed for a few more days but i can't even remember what we did. we went shopping. we found good grocery stores for nana to shop at. we explored a bit. we went to the big jenny lou's store and the friendship store. clara came and we had a pocky party. we went back to bellagio.
i regret that i also have no pictures of our adventures with nana deb. heinz was often away on business so we would spend a lot of time with her. she took us to an indian restaurant that robert and i went to when we were in hk four years ago. that was our last night in hk, or the night before that. but it was our goodbye dinner. she took this picture for us on our way home that night. we were on the star ferry. simon was up late.
i know there are things i must have left out. can you forgive me? we had a blast. we miss it. we heart hk.
i hope we go back.
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