Hey guys;
Just left your house, and now I'm on a boat to mainland China to get this new product line started. I can't thank you guys enough for letting me hang out with you on such an amazing weekend. I'm just going to describe a little of the one day I spent with you for your blog so people know what's happenin out here. Went like this:
I knew I was going to connect with Rich and the family on this trip. I sent them a quick email to let them know I was coming, and I got a great email from Mary saying "bring some Easy Mac and the kids will be your friends for life". This sounded like a good deal. Friends for mac and cheese was extremely to my advantage. Since one of my suitcases was half filled with my Disney tooling models, I filled the other side up with Easy Mac.
I was thinking that if the kids want the mac and cheese, they must be missing home. Well.... Let me think for a minute. I tend to look at the simple basics to arrive at a truth, and things are a little confusing some times here in HK. There are so many opposites here. They drive on the other side of the road. Rich is pretty good at this, and it is easy to get confused once in a while. Rich mentioned that the penalty for crossing over the white line in the middle of the road is harsh enough to keep you in the left lane fast.
So back to opposites, the Gallivan's live in Repulse bay, and the boats are called "junks". Now that alone was enough to buy the 6 packs of Easy Mac instead of just the singles. Images of this dirty and smelly water with trashy boats conjured images that tickled my nose.
I took a taxi from Hong Kong on Saturday morning, and headed out to Repulse Bay, keeping the windows closed so the smell wouldn't tweak my beak, but the smell never came.
It was funny because when I told one of my factories that I was going to Repulse bay, he shook his head and said "Oooo". I gathered that when "Ooo" and "Repulse" are in the same sentence, it was too easy to agree and think "stink", but this was totally not the case. Just lush gardens, clean water, and non trashy yachts decorating the bay around the shark nets, and swimmers out on their daily splash in the bay. The beaches are very clean, and the houses on the bay are truly magnificent, and have views that take your breath away. There are a bunch of these little rocky islands speckling the bay, all within a half mile of the next, and the next.
The taxi brought me to the entrance of their condo, and as soon as the gates opened, I saw a field of bicycles and skateboards, scooters and ramps, and all the condiments of the urban cul-de-sac. I went to the door and knocked. Mary opened the door, and when I walked in, I felt like I was on the Lido Deck of the "Love Boat". I felt like Gopher and Captain Stubing were going to bring me a Pina Colada at any second, but instead, a giant white dog the size of Sasquach started playing rugby with me in the hallway. I was the ball!
The kids ran up to me and said "What's the surprise Dan?"
When I opened the suitcsase and pulled out the Easy Mac, the transition of friends for life happened right before my eyes. After some awesome hugs, we sat and had "begs" for breakfast - the well known bacon mixed with eggs, and the kids started sharing stories, then talking in Chinese. I couldn't believe it. They had already learned so many words.
When I looked around the house, it looked like they had been there for about 2 years, but it had only been 6 weeks.
The rest of the day was wide open, and I only had 24 hours to hang out.
For those of you who don't know me, I grew up with the Gallivan family since I was about 8 years old. I was the over energetic trouble making kid. I never planned for trouble, it just kept happening wherever I was.
When the Gallivans moved to Northern Cal, I hadn't really been able to hang out with Rich and Mary since their wedding, and just getting to know the kids was going to be fun. I was still thinking that they were missing home, but the opposites were still in full swing. There was no doubt they all miss their friends at home as they had the G-mail web cam system running like an aircraft control tower in one of the 40 rooms of the house. I headed down stairs to get the tour, and the master bedroom has a 20 mile view of the bay and all of the little islands. The next floor down was the kid's rooms and the computer room. Then there was another floor, then I ran into that 400 pound poodle again that almost knocked me over. She is an amazing dog- like a horse with a big tongue. Ginger the Labradoodle! She pushed me back into the elevator, and when I noticed an elevator, I laughed. "Like you guys really need an elevator in a house! Take the stairs and get some exercise!" I said laughing. Well, we went down stairs again to the bottom floor. The guitars were out, and the new TV was just coming in, so we plugged in the guitars and drum machine, and Seamus started to play drums! I got to jam with him, and he rocked those drums like Alex Van Halen in concert. It was great. Then Rich and Seamus took over, and I'm convinced they will have an album one year!
A few minutes later, I headed up the stairs. Now I used to run the stairs in Santa Monica to work out, and I know what a work out that was, but the stairs in this house just keep going and going. Before I left, I counted 64 stairs in their house, and you can feel the altitude change in your ears as you climb them. I was about half way up when I stopped and looked at the elevator and thought of 2 options. I'm either getting in the elevator, or I'm going to ride on Ginger's back the rest of the way up.
Breaking a sweat just to get to the kitchen is going to be a weight loss program for the future. Basically just to get from the bedroom to have a bowl of cereal is like doing a half hour of a "Buns of Steel" workout unless you put a saddle on the dog, or wimp out in the elevator!
"Let's go to the American Club" rang out, and before long, I was sitting on the left side of the minivan in the front seat- looking for a steering wheel.
This club was amazing. It has multi-levels of rooms and workout chambers and basketball courts and games, and the hallways are filled with pleasure reading books and kids everywhere. After all it was Saturday, mildly hot, humid, and there were no football games on the tv. In fact, no one was really ever watching tv anywhere.
We jumped in the pool, and finally had that long awaited 10 year catch up that brought back all of the memories of what seemed to be another life completely. Great times!
For lunch, Rich and Mary took me to a noodle bar, which is this outdoor build-your-own noodle stir fry. You put the food of your choice in a bowl, and the chef takes your bowl, and turns on this flame under a wok that sounded like one of the engines on the space shuttle, and fries up your lunch. Well after swimming, Rich and I both proceeded to build a 6 lb bowl of noodles for the chef to cook. We both made the mistake of throwing in a dash of heat in the form of these little sliced red peppers. After a few bites, we realized that these red peppers have a different translation in Asia than they do at home. Basically "mild" translates as "so hot you should just save yourself the time and put these directly in the Toilet"!
Meanwhile back in the pool, the kids were out making friends. It was "Nautilus Day" in the pool, and there was a floating obstacle course roped into the middle of the water that the kids were jumping on. Suddenly a club like this started to take on a whole new meaning. I learned a new term while visiting called "Ex-patriots". It seems to be what they call people that leave their country of origin and work or live in a foreign country. This club was still a melting pot of many different nationalities, but was called "The American Club". There were kids from all over the world playing in a pool, and having so much fun. The underlying common denominator is the simple distance from one’s origin. Seemed like everyone at the club was there for a defined period of time, and all had kids, and they all knew each other from the local schools or sports. There was a different level of openness to others which I found to be profoundly different than clubs I have known that attract members according to class or skill set. This place has a lot of heart.
Seamus and Annie were surrounded by friends that they had just made, but you would think they had known them for much longer - especially the giggling girls chasing Seamus around!
We headed back to the "Love Boat", or condo, and relaxed for a while. I watched more and more boats come closer in the bay, and dock just below. Mary mentioned that there were a few biathlons the next day, and that she had signed up the kids. "You want to go Dan?" She asked.
Riley had gone water skiing in the afternoon, and had visited a few of the islands out in the Bay. What an amazing girl. She has a smile and elegance that could train a princess, and seemed to have made some new friends and had a good time. It is easy to see that she is missing her friends, but she is so poised and strong, I choose the caterpillar turning into a butterfly story for this angel.
After picking her up, we went to the Stanley Market, which looks like the 405 freeway at about 5pm every day. It is a non-stop trade show that gets visited by bus loads of people every day. All of the Chinese chochkies that you find at the dollar store, to some of Walmart's best can be found in this place. Since it was the "Harvest Moon Festival" that night, we bought a bunch of glow sticks for festivities of some sort that evening.
The phone rang, and we had to scurry back for a dinner with the neighbor, so off we went. The kids were skating in the driveway when we got back, and the bikes were everywhere. Sword fighting and soccer, and prepping for dinner at the same time.
We went next door, and had Indian food prepared by their neighbor. We sat on the roof, which has a pool that you can see through to the room below where the food was placed. Kind of a skylight/ pool combination. When looking over the bay, the sun began to set. As it grew darker, the lights and lanterns on the beach grew brighter.
Then we saw something very interesting. As tradition has it, a candle is rigged to a paper bag, and as the warm air inflates the thin paper bag, it lifts into the air, and gently floats away. Now, in the USA, this is no doubt an act of terrorism, and in Los Angeles, this would land you in jail. So to add to the list of opposites, this is a good one. This bag flew as high as the 500 room high rise condo nearby, and just kept going until it hit the moon and burned up.
The Harvest Moon Festival is comparable to our Thanksgiving, I was told. After dinner, we went to the beach. We walked by a 60 foot Buddha, and on to the sand. This was the most memorable part of the 24 hours. All of the families in the local area had taken the glow sticks and plotted out a square area that they would continue to decorate over the course of the night. It just kept getting brighter and more colorful by the hour. We sat on some beach chairs under the full moon and 80 degree night air, and watched the kids run and play in the water, and just have fun. Seamus was easy to spot. All of the girls were following him around with glow sticks, so he almost glowed in the dark! The kids were so interesting to listen to. Almost everyone spoke more than one language. French, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, .... There was no excessive drinking or music cult influence, just families enjoying each other, and glow sticks everywhere. It was like the UN on the beach. Rich and I sat there in a beach chair watching the kids run wild. It was literally elbow to elbow. After watching the moon travel across a good portion of the sky, we started to head back to the house. When we got back, I went to the roof, and looked down on the beach. All of the people and glow sticks made the beach look like a a video game. I could only imagine from space, the beach would look like a giant TV screen, and each glow stick is a mere pixel in a very fun movie. Never seen anything like this before, and I highly recommend this for beach parties.
We fell asleep quickly, but as my jet lag would have it, I was up at 4:00am. The full moon was still on the horizon, just starting to set in to the morning sky.
When we woke up, it was time to head out to the biathlon. It was a few mile run, and about a half mile swim. Annie was getting ready, and she was excited. Seamus was also ready, and Bubba was already out the door. Mary went with the kids, and Rich and I were lagging a bit. I decided to go outside the front door, when all of a sudden Ginger flew past me and hit mach 3 before I could get take 5 steps. She ran out the gate, and was wild and free in Hong Kong. All I could think was that I was there for 24 hours, and I killed the dog. I ran as fast as I could down the street, and knew where she was because all of the Chinese people on the sidewalk had their hands over their mouths like they saw a ghost. At least they weren’t on the ground. I finally found her about a half mile away, and grabbed her like a Chinese cowboy. All I needed was a rope, and she could have pulled me back, but I wasn’t going to let her go. Rich was in the car about t head down the street after her when I got back. Seems like this has happened before, and I was so glad that she was safe. We put her back in the stable, and headed to the race.
The Hong Kong foliage is filled with the biggest plants with the biggest leaves. I like big leaves. I think most plants and flowers are too small, but Hong Kong has some big leaves. As we approached this beach, it appeared to be an inlet, but was really perfectly situated in this crease in the mountain. The road ended right into the beach, and the beach was very beautiful – surrounded by big plants with big leaves.
The race started, and off we went. Rich and I stayed with Annie and Bubba, and we ran up a big hill, and back, then out to the beach, and on to the swim. Mary was way up front. She is in awesome shape, and flew through the race, and Seamus was even faster than all of us. He flew through the second leg of the run. While running up the hill, Annie was pushing as hard as she could, and was doing awesome. Then when we got to the swim, we jumped in the warm water, and Annie just took off. She was such a great swimmer, and never stopped the whole way. I was so impressed with her. She is an amazing spirit, and has such great energy, even when she is sitting still. Before we left for the race, Rich was asking her to do something, and Annie responded, “I’m only a 9 year old girl, how can you expect this much from me?” This made me laugh, because I can’t do half of what she can at 45 years old, speaking Chinese like a pro, computer wizard, and trotting around the world like a superstar! Pretty amazing.
When we all got together at the end of the race, we were soaking wet and all pumped up. We started walking back, and were all impressed with each other’s abilities. Mary was ready to sign up for the next one right away, and it sounded like everyone was going to start participating. There were a lot of people, and in general, everyone is in good shape in Hong Kong. There is so much walking, and vegetables, no wonder they live so long. My vegetables consist of McDonald French fries fries and a side of Lipitor. I think I’m going to start eating my veggies again!
As soon as we made it back to the house, my 24 hours was up. I had to pack and scramble to the fairy, and go to China.
This was an amazing trip. Hong Kong is a beautiful place, and is one of the most advanced cities in the world. You can see someone pulling a Rickshaw full of hay and vegetables around a Mercedes Limousine on an average day, but the culture here is really a world culture. Seems like everyone gets along on the business side, then they go back to their respective countries where things are probably a little more patriotic than necessary. Perhaps the ex-patriot culture is something that the whole world needs to understand a little better. The Gallivan’s are definitely making the best of their new world, and in the long run, the kids will have friends from Australia, India, France, …. It will be a little more expensive to go to the birthday parties down the road, but having friends all over the world will be cool. I can imagine that when they return to California, the kids will want me to bring Shu Mai back for them instead of the Easy Mac.
I never would have thought that I would be hanging out in Hong Kong with the Gallivan’s, but then again, I never thought I would be able to type this fast with my thumbs into a plastic box named after a piece of fruit. Thumbs up Gallivan’s. You guys are awesome! Thanks for a great 24! Hope that your friends come out and visit. They will have a great time for sure!!
Sincerely,
Dan Garr
