In November, we celebrated our son's 6th birthday! He picked the theme "super heroes" for the party, so off we went to the markets to prepare for the big day. Our quest was to find fabric for the super hero capes, party favors, and supplies for the themed-games. Sounds easy enough, right? Oh no, not in HK, shopping takes on a whole different dimension. You cannot simply drive your golf cart to Wal-Mart, or any other big box store for that matter. You must take the ten minute bus to the MTR (train) station and board for a twenty minute ride to the Fabric Street. That's right, no place like JoAnn's here. After following the guide book, we made the decision to exit onto the street that I thought to be the Fabric Street. After all, I had just visited this place the week before with several ladies, so I was sure I would recognize the route once I saw the streets.
Well, not so much. First of all, I had went during the week, when most people are holding down jobs. My family was shopping on a Sunday, when most of the millions of residents also shop in the open-air markets. We were engulfed in a swarm of people, who do not routinely see young, blonde children. It was super crowded, people were staring, the kids were hot. I realize at this time, I have no idea which way to Fabric Street, and no one in sight spoke English. Our kids decide, now is a good time to need to use the facilities...that is a story and experience all in itself. I left the public facility so traumatized by the lack of American hygiene, we walked down a random street, saw someone selling felt, bought fifteen yards and left. I am quite sure we weren't in the Fabric area, as this was one random street stall and the actual street has twenty different shops, but I needed to get the kids and myself home for decontamination.
The next weekend, we bravely headed back to the markets looking for the 'party supply' street. This was moderately more successful and we left in better sorts.
Back to the party...
We were lucky enough to have my parents visiting for two weeks in November, so we held the celebration while they could attend. In total, we had six adults and nine kids. We had a super hero obstacle course with toilet-paper grenades and a pillow gauntlet, target practice with ping-pong balls and water guns, and a capturing of a villain. The kids had a blast and were awarded with super hero training certificates at the end. C had a great time with all of his friends and was very happy his Dad and NaNa & PaPa got to share in his special day.
As an educational note, HK is very accepting of various vultures and ethnicities since there are so
many expatriots. However, some of the working class citizens do not routinely encounter ex-pats because of our differences in geographical location, sight-seeing spots, and day-to-day differences.
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