The Hong Kong Temple, Markets, and Such

The whole reason we went to Hong Kong was to go to the Hong Kong Temple. Our Ward was going there for a temple trip and we wanted to go do some service at the temple. Singapore does not have a temple so we have to travel to get to one. I especially wanted to go to set an example for our children the importance of the temple. We traveled to a whole other country just to go. I hope that as they get older and learn more about the temple that they to will learn to love the temple and want to go.

Since we went as a group we took turns going in. So while some of the adults did a session the others watched the kids. When we got done our bishop told us that Henry has a lot of energy, haha. I think Henry wore him out a little bit.

It seems like whenever I go to the temple that my day is stressful or something happens and there are all these obstacles in my way. When I finally arrive and walk through the temple doors there is a beautiful peaceful feeling. I am grateful to go there and leave the cares of the world behind. I talked in the last post about how peaceful and nice Buddhism sounds because you go off and meditate in a quiet place. The temple is that for us. I wish we lived close to one and could go more often. 

Family photo before we headed in. I love Raphael in this one. He is looking at Henry's food like he wants some. 

After we took the photo above we realized that we did not get the photo on the side that says this is the temple. So we had to take another one. The kids were super excited about it.

We took the famous Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. We were pretending to be pirates. Lyndon was singing "A Pirates Life for Me" with the kids. I think I have said it before about us all having our pirate names. They incorporated our pirate names into the song and sang it the rest of the trip. 

Us and the Hong Kong "Flyer" as we called it. 

I was trying to get a picture using our selfie stick with Henry. He was having non of it. At the start of the trip he decided that the selfie stick was a hammer. He was trying to wrestle it out of my hands while I was snapping a photo.
photo. 

Here we are on the Hong Kong Observation Wheel. We had not made plans to go on it, but when we got off the Star Ferry we were right next to it. So we went on it. 

I love his little face in this picture. He is the sweetest, most active child I have ever met. He makes me want to pull my hair out some days, but then I turn around and he gives me the biggest hugs and best kisses and says "aw, I love you Mommy". It is so sweet. He always picks flowers for me. I am writing this down so I can remember how sweet he is. Most days I am literally running after him yelling at him to stop, and of course he doesn't. He was really good on the trip. He was so excited by the boat and going up on the Hong Kong "Flyer". 

At Sam Sui Po area looking for the fabric market. We finally found it. I had gone the night before by myself and could not find it. I walked around for half an hour and it was no where to be found. Later we found out that there are not as many fabric stalls on the weekends, but that was the only time we were able to go on our trip. We finally found a few stalls selling fabric the following day. It was $10 HKD per meter which is about $3 USD. I stocked up and now have a lot of projects I need to get working on. 

We spent a good long while at the Jade Market. It was so much fun. I really like going to the markets, which I think developed from our time in the Philippines because we went to a lot of markets there. I was super excited to see all the pearls there because we went to some pretty awesome ones in the Philippines (post here), but they were not as good as the Filipino ones. The Jade sculptures here were the things to look at. We got a lot of great deals. We were haggling with the sellers to lower their prices and we came away with some pretty good deals. Cosette picked out several things. Since she was not napping like the boys she ended up with quite a few souvenirs. Lyndon got some old coins at one of the stalls. One of the coins was back from when the French were in China. We picked out a beautiful horse jade sculpture and two pink rhodonite elephant sculptures. The last thing we got was a set of the Chinese zodiac animals that were carved out of a nut. The Jade market was the best! 

Cosette with her Hello Kitty umbrella we got her. She got spoiled. I couldn't help it! There was so many cute girly things that she was in love with. I am in love that Hello Kitty umbrella too. I love having my girly girl to get girly things for. She is the best! This day was a good one. I was really stressed for a lot of the trip and this day my stress level went way down. I was able to relax more and enjoyed being with everyone. It makes all the effort with it when you have a good travel day.

Overall I was not too impressed with Hong Kong, because it was just another big city. But looking through the photos and writing about it makes me so happy. We did have a great time being together. This was the first time the entire year that Lyndon had been able to put the kids to bed during the week. The kids got to spend every day all day with their Dad. I actually got to talk to Lyndon when the sun was up. And it was so great. Hong Kong for the win! We go on these trips to spend time together not to see everything, even though we want to. I am grateful for my travel warrior kids and hubby.