Wise Kids Playroom

25-December-2006 (X'mas)

In my time when I was a small girl, toys are definitely luxurious items.

I believe it was a hard time all over the country in the years of 70s. My dad was the only bread winner, I think what he earned was barely enough to feed the family of 6. I don't remember my parents have ever bought us any toys. In fact, I don't remember if there was any place selling toys in the small town we were living at that time.

When we grew a bit older, we made simple toys by ourself. Like we picked up a stick, tied up some rubber bans, loaded it with small stones, and that's we called a gun with the bullets. We were contented with our creative toys. Never complain about anything at all. And we grew up all right instead. For this generation, they are so lucky. They don't have to make toys by themselves anymore. Sigh, should I call this 'lucky' ?

Even though we don't go to buy toys at the toy shops deliberately, toys often come so easy and cheap. For example, buy a HKD22 kids 'happy meal' at McDonald, and for sure a toy is given as a complimentary gift. Even to buy a box of HKD15 Kellogg's cereal, one can expect a toy as free gift at times. And I do think that easy toys, will come easy and go easy. Take a look at Vincent and William, whatever toys they got, they will only play it for a few days or so, then look for new one. Dammit.

HK is a shopping paradise which also means that this place is full of materialistic invitation. Everywhere we go, we are eye-bombarded with thousands of different products that we would like it so much and find it so difficult to decide which one to buy. It's hard for adults to resist the temptation of keep on buying, don't mention the youngster or small kids. Thus, we got to be very thoughtful in teaching the kids strategic buying. We really don't want them to grow up to become a shopping maniac. But in view of the society they are brought up in, we keep our fingers cross.

Anyway, it's always a pleasure to visit toy shops. Their products are indeed fascinating. Lately, we find out the toys sold in Wise Kids Playrooms are the best amongst all.

Despite the generally higher price, their products are far more decent and also, require the kids to use up their imagination more. And the best part is, they are not stingy but to set up some actual display units to satisfy the young visitors. Parents are certainly grateful for that too.

While the boys were busy playing and running here and there, KS and I were busy strolling around the shops to see the cute toys and X'mas decoration. The shop consists of 2 stories. This Christmas tree was placed right in the main entrance of the ground floor.

Basically, the ground floor is like a souvenir shop. I really respect the designers who work out those beautiful products.

There are many giant soft toys, were put around the ground floor area. This one, its size is definitely bigger than me.

Some animal toys are sold in pair, like mother-zebra & baby-zebra, mother-giraffe & baby giraffe, mother-elephant & baby-elephant....how cute.

Just when we saw this, William and I start this dialogue, again. It's happened for N times already, just the objects are different some of the time.

William : Look, mommy, look...so many dinosaurs over there...

Mommy : Yes, right, I can see it...

William : I want this one and that one, mommy.

Mommy : But we have many dinosaurs at home already. Big and small, remember?

William : But I don't have that long neck one wo...

Mommy : Yes, we do, remember?

William : But it isn't as long as this one wo...

Mommy : Aaaaa...but this one very expensive wo, you know?

William : Huh? How much?

Mommy : This one cost HKD200 lo. I don't have that much money to buy it. Why don't you just play it here for a while?

William : NoooOO...sobsob...(As usual, he made a fuss about it. As usual, mommy ignored him)

Knowing his fuss would come into vain, he grabbed 2 of the dinosaurs and made them fight for a while.

Pity him, I said why don't we took their pictures home so that he can see it later on? But he ran away already. Sigh, here are the long-neck dinosaurs he was bugging for. I kept them for his future viewing anyway.

The greeting cards sold here are very cute. Surpisingly, they are cheaper than Hallmark cards.

Hello, handsome, nice to see you again. (I'm a bit taller than this one, YES)

And this Christmas tree was placed right in the main entrance of the 1st floor.

Hello Sully...Hello Mike...

The 1st floor displays toy-set which has a theme, equipped with many sophisticated spare parts along. For example, FARM (with all sorts of domestic animals + stuffs that can be seen in a farm). Even the adult will find it fascinating.

AIRPORT CONTROL TOWER : Vincent's favorite...

The way he manipulated this plane - open the door to let the passengers boarded and be seated, held it in his hands pretending flying, and the way he looked at it and admired it....Instantly, I know he loves this more than any other toys that he met and possess. We really have that urge to buy it for him, as his coming birthday's present. Luckily, it has run out of stock that time. Take note, KS think it costs more than HKD500, just the plane alone. But the quality is no doubt super-de-duper, worth it?

Wow...

Wow...
Wow...
Wow...

Wow...
This one, the most expensive amongst the all, cost HKD2499. WOW....Is this price reasonable?

Personally, I think every piece of the Playmobil's toy-set is marvelous. They are not something we can see elsewhere. In fact, they look like a piece of arts rather than toys to me. Considering the intensive artistic and engineering efforts in designing it, maybe it's not fair to comment its price is unreasonably high?

LEGO's corner. It's certainly less attractive than the Playmobil's.

After taking our Christmas dinner at the arcade, the boys wanted to go to Wise Kids Playroom again. Can't blame them. It's indeed a very interesting place to go. At the end, we have to drag them out of the store, before the storekeeper asked us to.

Tai Mei Tuk Country Park

16-December-2006

Tai Mei Tuk (大尾篤) means "the very end" in Cantonese language which depicts the landscape. It is a very popular place in Hong Kong for barbecues and cycling. In summer time, sport activities are also available here.

KS get to know a Malaysian crew through badminton game. He and his wife invited us for a BBQ at this park on last Sunday. Although I've never seen them before, I accepted the invitation with a happy heart, cause, friends from Malaysia are always welcome. Furthermore, this friend offer to prepare all the foods and utensils by himself. We just went there with 2 monkeys tagging and bugging along.

It's a cold day (temperature around 12-15C). But the wheather was perfectly fine. I love the blue sky. We haven't seen that kind of blue sky for a very long time already. Before that, the sky was always hazy, heard that it was due to serious pollution level.

It seems very peaceful at this corner. Actually it's not that peaceful like it seems to be. A lot of people were barbequing along the shore.

We arrived earlier than our new friends did. We strolled around the shore to enjoy the sun bathe.

Lately, William will pose when we take his picture. He probably learn it from observation at schools?

Vincent is a happy-go-lucky kid. He seldom think about anything that would upset him.

We were looking for a good place for BBQ.

On the way to our desired BBQ site, we stopped over at certain areas to shot for some photos. The mountains over there, reminds me of one of the most beautiful places we have visited years before : the Rockies Mountain, Canada.

But KS think it's more like Cape Town's Table Mountain, South Africa. Yeah, I agree too.

Me and the boys.

Look at William... there he posed in front of the camera again. Double 'V' this time.

I love this photo...

and I love this one too.

William is a thinker. Since small, he seems to 'think' about certain things seriously.

Finally, we have found a perfect place for BBQ. Isn't the view great?

Yeah, we were going to sit right here and burn the foods.

Vincent was dancing on the table.

Some barbequeing..

Some cycling.

And Vincent, he wanted me to put him up to the branch there. Son, that's too difficult for me, you were asking me to lift a 25kg you up to the air.

The friend called to tell us that he will be 1 hour late. In order to keep the boys occupied, we bought them a kite to play with. William couln't wait for his turn to fly it.

It's very windy, William was so happy that the kite flew by his control.

Our friends arrived quite late, around 5pm. By that time, the sun was slowly disappearing from the horizon. The temperature dropped a few degrees, and the wind was getting stronger too (I felt headache after exposing to the strong wind for a few hours long). The sky turned dark very fast. So, we got to set up the fire and everything very quickly. We felt really relieved when the fire was successfully been set up later. And then, we gathered around the fire and start to burn the foods and chat at the same time. The Malaysian crew and his wife and his wife's sister and daugher are friendly people. We had some great time together.

The only person who became impatience was William. While we were still enjoying the foods and fire, he kept nagging us to leave, but we ignored him. Gradually, he reached the point to throw tantrum. In view of this, the friends were kind enough to ask us to leave first, and left all the clean-up works to them. We are very grateful to them, and would return their kindness and favour one day.