Jaeger successfully got his visa for China yesterday so today he got up a little earlier than usual and left on his own. I had no particular urge to drag Calvin to China so we stayed behind.
My original plan was to wander the many Hong Kong parks and let Calvin play while I took advantage of the wifi. However, upon looking at the forecast and noting their predicted heavy rain, I decided a different excursion may be in order.
I looked through our Hong Kong for Kids book and decided to try Bumble Tots. It’s an indoor playground designed for kids 10 and under. The downside is it took 4 train changes to get there. I think Calvin has had enough subway trains at this point that he’s getting a little blase about them. I was hoping to grab an early lunch before we got there but failed to find the nearby food the guidebook suggested should exist. Calvin and I were both getting grumpy on the extended hike so I gave up on that suggestion and hoped the cafe within the facility actually had food we could eat.
Calvin had a lot of fun at Bumble Tots. It is a very large playground-like place that has ball pits for kids to scramble through, large trampolines, and numerous other things for Calvin to play with. The guidebook warned that it could get very crowded on weekends and I thought since it was raining, we were likely to get extra crowded. However, it wasn’t bad while we were there. Calvin ran around like a crazy person. We managed to sustain ourselves on muffins and apple juice from the small cafe until I decided it was time to leave around 2pm.
My next stop was a library, which was on the way back to the MTR station. I planned to stop there just long enough to email my latest journals and make sure there wasn’t any urgent email. It took a little longer than I expected because wifi kept dropping off but Calvin managed to amuse himself looking through some sort of Chinese grade-school reader.
As we were leaving the library, Calvin said he wanted to go play on the playground in the nearby park. I was a little dubious since the rain was pretty heavy but figured we could try it. The playground had a covered area
with benches so I sat there while Calvin joyfully scampered around in the rain. We stayed there for more than an hour till I finally decided it was time for us to leave. Calvin was completely soaked. I was only mostly soaked.
Getting back to the hotel involved the same 4 trains and it took close to an hour to get back to the hotel. We picked up more food for supper and then came back to the hotel and flopped down exhausted. Calvin ate supper and then climbed into bed, though it took him quite a bit to actually fall asleep. Even so, I’m getting spoiled with how easy it is to put him to bed these days. I am not looking forward to back home when we have to cajole him forcefully to stay in bed.
Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip: