It is pretty common to custom build furniture in Hong Kong.  In fact, I recommend it for new home buyers or homes under renovation because it’s an exact fit, you can design certain components to help you with  minimal space in Hong Kong and you can add lots of neat features that off the shelf furniture could not otherwise provide.
I decided to custom make pretty much the whole room of the children’s bedroom as soon as they were old enough to sleep on their own.  The process is pretty easy …

There is this craze going on right now because of the heightened flu risk and cases in this country.  Wait, it actually started as a swine flu risk in Japan a few weeks ago and now it’s almost viral around this part of the world.  I wonder why March is considered flu season, maybe I should google it.
Regardless, I have not yet vaccinated my kids.  To be truthful, I’ve heard if 2 sides of this vaccination story.  The arguments are as follows:
1.  Why vaccinate?  The children should be able to …

So Vanessa wanted to learn skating.  This was her request.  I suspect it has to do with the fact that she is at Taikoo Shing almost EVERYDAY and sees other kids skating (happily) in the mall arena.  I tried to go skating with her once, but it was a challenge both for me and my biceps (poor biceps).
The lessons cost $550 for 5 lessons of 30 minutes each lesson.  You have to pay $50 for an ID card for your child, but the fees include rental of skates and other …

Kiangsu Chekiang Kindergarten (KCS) Interview
Don’t ask why I am interviewing at another school.   I like options!  Plus, my sister has been raving about KCS because her daughter is currently studying K1 there that I had to see for myself what the hype was about.
Application Process:
Application process starts probably early September of every year.
Download the application form from their website:  Kiangsu Chekiang Kindergarten (KCS) – unfortunately, there is no English version of this website for the local stream.  So I do a mouseover the hyperlinks to find the appropriate tabs.
You get …

Pardon my re-post, but as some of you know, my site crashed and burned and now I am trying to revive some of my past glorious articles.  This is one of them.
As an experimental part of lunch creation for Vanessa (and because she was getting bored of rice – on top of the fact that she eats really slow, so the teacher said it takes her over an hour to eat her lunch), I decided to try something compact, easy to eat and delicious.  What could be more fun than …

I found these really great customizable tags from artscow.com.  They serve a billion purposes in a child’s life and because as young people, having something with your name on it holds significant value and pride, it’s always nice to get customized things.  The most recent thing I made (yet to be delivered) is a customized name stamp.  The girls are beginning to understand the concept of stamping on paper (nicely) and not on their hands or table or each other.
Some uses for these tags:

School bags
Lunch bags
Knapsacks
Travel bags
Jacket
Art bag
<fill in your …

Children’s Tennis Lessons in Hong Kong
I found a great tennis teacher in Hong Kong!  I was thinking of giving my kids a more active, outdoors and crazy sweat sport to get them to burn all their crazy energy and help further develop their motor skills.  Tennis is definitely becoming more common in Asia and with the year round weather conditions (hey, it never snows here… but we do have the occasional typhoons), playing outdoors is great!  In a country where public grass doesn’t exist, and even if it did, you …

I’m running out of breakfast ideas.  The problem is that we usually eat oatmeal on most days.  It’s healthy, it’s versitile, it’s easy to make and it’s relatively non-parishable in this wet HK environment.  The problem with some google searched sites with the keywords “Breakfast Ideas for Kids” will bring up a lot of results; however a majority of these recipe ideas seem to involve lots of sugars (and/or calories) – pancakes, waffles, glazed bananas - why can’t you just give your children regular bananas without the added sugar?  Does this …

As part of my plan to play some “catch-up” on my year’s worth of lost posts, here’s a funny picture that I did share and want to share again!
Congratulations to Victoria!  Officially as of August 2010 – she is pacifier FREE!  That means at the age of around 2.5 years, we were able to ween her off the pacifier and now she sleeps just as well (if not better) without it.  The story is that my father (in front of a large live audience of 6 people) asked her …

This is the ultimate product for eliminating nail biting activities.  In fact, it can also be used for other things like eliminating the pacifier or thumb.  Warning:  It’s extremely bitter and tastes disgusting.  I’m sure there are other products similar to this, but for both Vanessa and Natalie, it has been effective for a variety of “unique” habits.
Vanessa is the ultimate nail biter.  I don’t know why children do it, it might be a fun habit to keep them busy – but I haven’t been as firm in using this …