Loy Family @ Hong Kong (Day 1)

The day started with moderately heavy rain and a constipated baby... darn. But determined not to let that murder our holiday mood, we got ourselves into a cab and headed for Changi Airport Terminal 3. Hey, we could actually visit the Butterfly Park in the transit area... nope, we could not. As the place is not sheltered from the rain (duh, nature?) so we could only stand at the entrance... Nevermind, we still refused to let that dampen our spirits (although it was kinda difficult to keep anything dry at this point). Fortunately, everything else before we boarded the plane went on rather smoothly... no glitches or surprises.

For the first time, we boarded the plane before everyone else... hahaha... thanks to Sophie. It was a great feeling to be "first" even though the moment of glory was shortlived. We had to struggle to settled down in our seat and entertain Sophie while the other passengers leisurely board the plane. It helped when she could "make friends" with the other passengers on board... they kinda kept her occupied (every now and then). "Bassinet... Bassinet..." I kept chanting as Sophie squirmed and whined on my lap. Papa asked the crew about it and we were told that it could only be set up after take off and we have to strap her to me if there is any turbulence.

Sign... Okay, we waited patiently for take off, not that Sophie would want to lie in the bassinet quietly anyway. And we had a more immediate concern at hand, Sophie might feel very agitated during take off due to the difference in air pressure. So, we had tidbits and her bottle of water ready for take off. Once the plane started to taxi on the runway, I stuffed the bottle into Sophie's mouth and let her suck on the teat. Her bottle was almost finished when the pilot suddenly announced that due to traffic conditions, our plane could only take off in 8 minutes... Uh-oh! Fortunately, Sophie fell asleep soon after... Phew!

So we finally made it to Hong Kong after a daunting experience on board the plane. It was very challenging to have Sophie strapped onto me during take off and landing. However, I must admit that she had already tried her very best to remain calm and cooperative throughout the entire journey. It helped when the SIA crew was rather polished in their service. I only wished Sophie had eaten the plane food, it tasted quite good to be honest. Once we cleared custom, I felt much more relaxed. The limo was waiting for us outside the airport, but they sure took their time fixing the car infant seat on. And it was not exactly fantastic weather to be standing and waiting...

Nevermind, at least we had a car and we were just 45 minutes from the hotel. We could not wait to dump our bags and head for some real food... However, it was not quite as straightforward as we had thought. The walk was really hazardous, with ongoing construction, unexplanable humps and aggressive people everywhere... When we finally reached the restaurant that Papa liked very much, we took quite a while to settle down. The place was far too cramp to put our stroller comfortably and the baby chair was a wooden high chair with absolutely no safety features at all. Sophie was very affected by the noise level so she kept whining and flipping so we had to take turns with our dinner and hurry off.

Exhausted, we went to the harbour in attempt to slow down the pace a little. It was crowded but we were already too overwhelmed to notice anything. Because it was a weekend, there were some laser and lights display going on. It was quite beautiful. We felt slightly better...

"Look Baby, lights... Baby?" Sophie fell asleep as soon as we hit a quiet spot... We stayed around so that she could sleep longer.

We also took the opportunity to do some window shopping before we head back and call it a day. We were staying at the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel so there were plenty of shops around. On one level, we found many shops with baby toys, clothes and books. In Toys R Us, we found Elmo... scary...

Tomorrow, I hope, would be better...