I somehow fell asleep after hearing the bad news. In the morning I woke up ready to go. The kids had been up a while playing on their iPads and snacking on the sandwich and chips we'd stocked up on the night before. There was no way I was going to let us wake up hungry again! when I fully awaked I could feel something was definitely strange in the room. After a few minutes I figured it out, a power outage. We were powerless! The small refrigerator light was off, none of our phones were charging and last but not least the lights wouldn't turn on . I sent a text to the apartment owner, who suggested a few tricks to get us back up and running but none of them worked. Finally she sent one of her property managers to help, she would arrive in 40 minutes. Her young cute Phillipino employee arrived sooner than promised and she and I started trying to figure out which breaker in the 3rd floors hall closet belonged to room 317. After 15 minutes of turning the power on and off in god-knows-who's apartments we figured it out. she asked me a few questioned curious about where we were from, and she went outside to the building steps to greet a new guest for another apartment they had for rent in the same building.
In our room plugged back up the most important things and resumed getting dressed and ready for our second full day in this King Kong of a city. AlphaPoppa was still kind of tired, but I wanted out of the apartment sooner than later so I took the kids outside for some fresh air and to give AlphaPoppa some extra rest time. Outside right next to the building was a tiny park and playground. Dude bolted straight for the monkey bars and I was quickly pulled in by a big meditation statue and a wall of pictures and writing set up around the outer edge of the park. It took me a while to realize that I was in the middle of not just a park but a Chinese medicinal herbal garden. From what I could deduct from the pictures each herb benefits a different part of the body and it was all maps out there for all to see and use. The concept was fabulous! Zane didn't stick around long he asked to return to the room with his father and reassured me he could do it alone. I always let the kids lead the way for situations just like this.
Chinese park/ medicinal herb garden
Outside our apartment building
On the corner of our block
After a good 15 minutes AlphaPoppa and Zane joined us in the park and we were off to the diner for a real breakfast. The diner we sooooo like any diner in the US, not very fancy, but good enough to get the job done. The only catch was that everyone was Chinese, the food was Chinese (not american Chinese but REAL Chinese), and the menu was in Chinese. We were quickly seated, the proper way not like the night before and quickly our waiter was there with his pad impatiently waiting. Dude wanted beef noodle, The rest of us had scrambled egg, toast, and sausage, which ended up being more like mini hot dogs.
Our food was served up in less than 10 minutes and Dude dove in doing a little dance to accompany the beef noodle song he was free styling. The boy was killing his breakfast like never before, he had us cracking up. Im sure all of us that at some point thought, "Geez maybe I shoulda chosen beef noodle..." I cant remember when, if ever, we taught him how to use chopsticks but he handled them effortlessly and goobled every noodle in sight. Dont believe me, check the video of Dude the noodle killer
Breakfast noodles video
Zane had to beg for a couple of noodles
After breakfast the game plan was to walk, not ride, back to the same train station we got off of last night; then we would spend the day going back to Central MTR to mail the post cards I'd bought at the Giant Buddha, from there to Mong Kok, a nearby temple, then avenue of the stars. Inicially we were going to take the Big Red Bus tour but that was prices at $50 or so a person and that was not the budget friendly kinda deal we must have. So no tour guide for us, we could handle this, even with it all in Cantonese.
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