September 10, 2025
This morning we walked to a coffee shop along the escalator for breakfast. Its a little embarrassing to admit, but Kyle and I both found some comfort in seeing banana bread and cortados on the menu. We played a game of Uno while we waited for the food to arrive. Ollie was still waking up and changed the card color to one that didn’t match that of his last card. Lenny, always trying to sneak a peek at Ollie’s card, goes, “Are you sure?…” Ollie went on to lose that round of Uno.
After breakfast, we went all the way down the escalator along Kyle’s old commuting route to show the kids the building where he used to work. Then we went on a walk in search of the wet market and lychees or “those eye fruits” per Lenny. I told them that when Kyle and I were here 15 years ago, I wold eat lychees nearly every day and they became one of my favorite fruits. Sadly, we missed lychee season (June & July) so we settled for some giant grapes, a giant fig, donut peaches, blueberries and raspberries. We had mostly figs as our only fruit in Turkiye and melon in China so we’ve been missing berries. We also stopped at another bakery along the escalator, Bakehouse, for a few Hong Kong egg tarts, donuts and pretzel twists for homeschool fuel.
Next we went to the hotel’s reading room for home school. We had high hopes for the session since the room was set up perfectly for learning but today was one of our tougher days. We typically skip formal homeschool when we are as busy as we were in China and when we were with friends or visitors which meant we’ve had a few sporadic days of proper homeschool this summer. Ollie struggled the most and it took him nearly 2 hours to write one letter. While begging to switch to math Ollie goes, “I don’t like thinking about words, words are so boring!!” After the two hour stand off to write the one letter, we all were out of energy and needed a change of scenery.
Kyle went to a gym he found nearby and I took the kids to the hotel pool. We were the only ones there and for 30 minutes the kids loved having a competition where I got to sit on a lounge chair (!) and score their jumps. Unfortunately, the game was cut short when the pool attendant came over to tell us that the pool would be closing due to thunderstorm warning. The sun was shining in the sky which confused the boys so I tried to explain how quickly the weather can change.
We went back upstairs to one of the rooms where we watched a reality survival show called Outlast on Netflix. Ollie and I had watched a few episodes before but I wasn’t sure Lenny would be as interested. Thankfully I was wrong and Len was super into it especially on the heels of the pretend survivor game he loved to play in Turkiye. After Kyle was back from the gym and the rain passed, I went to a yoga class and Kyle took the kids to the hotel gym (they’ve been begging to check it out) and back to the pool. At the pool, they played shark and minnows and then a Simpsons- like game where Kyle was the level boss and flashed red when under 20% health. The boys said this was their favorite pool game ever.
We all met for dinner at the Phoenix, Kyle’s favorite restaurant from when he lived in Hong Kong. We think the owner or theme of the restaurant had changed as his beloved duck was no longer on the menu and it now had more of a British pub vibe. The kids were happy to again see nachos on the menu but upset with how many “green things” were on top. The meal was fine but won’t be one of our memorable ones. We made our way down the hill again for 7-11 ice cream pops before riding the escalator up and back to our hotel.
