How to Entertain a Three-Year-Old in the Bay Area

1. Take him to the California Academy of Sciences.
I took Noah to the Cal Academy once before when we went back home last October but he was just as excited about it this time around. Unfortunately, so were the hundreds upon hundreds of other children who were there for a Spring Break trip with their families or on class field trips. Fortunately the building is so well-designed that there were very few places where we actually felt crowded and we got to see pretty much everything that we wanted to. Like…

Giant Hissing Cockroaches,

Jackass Penguins (always a favorite with Noah),

Geckos,

and Butterflies at the rainforest exhibit:

And as an added bonus, after a few hours at the Academy you get to ride home in peace and quiet because this is what happens to your family afterward:

2. Take him to an Oakland A’s game on Dollar Wednesdays.
Ok, so actually Dollar Wednesdays is probably not the best day to go. If you take $2 tickets, $1 hot dogs, a beautiful day, add in Spring Break week and the Red Sox as the visiting team…well, you get a lot of waiting in lines and sold out stuff. It took Mark an hour just to get out of the parking lot…just in time for Bay Area rush hour traffic. Wheee! Luckily for me, I bowed out of the game, opting to get a haircut and do a little shopping on Solano Avenue instead (ha ha suckas). Otherwise, nothing better than supporting your local home team:

3. Take him to the East Bay Vivarium in Berkeley.
Actually, the vivarium is really just a store that sells reptiles. But really, really cool reptiles. Like monitor lizards, albino constrictors, geckos, turtles, and some other things I’ve never seen before. It’s a relatively small store but we still spent an hour there just looking at all the animals. Plus it’s located just a block away from all the awesome shopping on Fourth Street in Berkeley, so win-win for everyone.

4. Get an hour’s worth of good behavior out of him by bribing him with an ice cream sundae from Fenton’s Creamery in Oakland.
Ah, Fenton’s. It was a required stop on my Bay Area nostalgia tour. I’ve only been back maybe once or twice since it burned down (arson) and reopened in 2003, and let me tell you, the vibe there is much different when you go during the day with your three-year-old as opposed to going late at night with your college friends after stuffing yourselves silly at Zachary’s. And as luck would have it, I would go when I couldn’t eat any sundaes because of my crappy glucose tolerance. Oh well. But the point in going was to take Noah for a sundae. The fact that Piedmont Avenue is home to some awesome shopping (yes, there seems to be a theme forming here) was just coincidence.

Noah with his child-sized sundae:

5. Take him to Picnic Day at the UC Davis campus.
I guess technically UC Davis is not really part of the Bay Area, but my brother and sister-in-law live in Davis so we just happened to be in the area. When my brother first brought up Picnic Day, I thought it would be a cute, small, laid-back thang…more like one of the awesome farmer’s markets that Davis hosts. When we got there, I discovered it was a Really Big Thing. Like, with parades and petting zoos and bands (oh my!). Not to mention plenty of drunk frat guys running around. We got there towards the end of the event but there were still plenty of things for us to take Noah to. They had a Multicultural Children’s Faire set up for the kiddos so we spent a couple of hours taking him around to the different tables and exhibits.

Noah rolling his own pot…

and adding clover seeds

This is the face of a child who does not like face painting:

After making his own Hawaiian lei:

Sitting down and drinking his first root beer float

6. Take him on a nature walk in Muir Woods.
In all honesty, Noah didn’t really care all that much for Muir Woods. He is, after all, only three and primarily interested in running around, yelling and catching bugs. Not taking a walk through some peaceful woods admiring the beauty and majesty of redwood and sequoia trees and being one with nature. Still, Mark and I had a nice time and this is one of my favorite places in the Bay Area.

Mark teaching Noah the significance of tree rings

Lots of tall trees

And clovers

7. Let him run around on Stinson Beach.
As a reward for being relatively quiet and letting us enjoy our walk in the woods, we took Noah to Stinson Beach afterward. The beach is only 9 miles away but because the road is along the coastline and so twisty and turny, it still took a good 30 minutes to get there. We were on the tail end of a three day heat wave in the Bay Area so it was a perfect day to go. Noah took off immediately for the water as soon as we put him down on the sand and he spent the next hour running in and out of the water, making new friends and making sand castles.

Practicing his Karate Kid moves

A Spring Break Recap — Part One

So about a week ago, I promised recaps on how our three weeks back in the US went. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I was totally lying. Ok, not totally lying, but I’ve just been really lazy. What I’ve been attributing to jet lag this past week, I now think is a more long-lasting version of all-around tiredness called “being in my third trimester.”  Anyway, with that caveat aside, here is a long-promised update using the least amount of brain cells as possible…

For our big vacation this year we decided to visit both of our families in the US, which meant spending a week on the East Coast followed by two weeks on the West. Of course it all sounds nice and clean on paper but in real life it translated to a buttload of traveling. Thankfully, Noah was a huge trooper. Despite having only slept 4 hours on the 14 hour flight to Toronto, he was in high spirits during our 8 hour layover:

Naturally he crashed as soon as we checked into our hotel room in DC:

DC was a blast. Mark’s younger brother lives there so we got to spend quite a bit of time with him while he toured us around and took us to some of his favorite restaurants. Noah also got some nice bonding time with his Uncle Eric, whom he is totally enamored with.

Eric, Noah and Mark in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool:

One completely exhausted toddler:

Noah was suffering from a little bit of jet lag so we tried to keep our days pretty low key — limiting ourselves to one museum a day rather than doing huge day-long outings. Then again, when you decide to visit DC during Spring Break week and additionally decide you want to go to the more popular of the Smithsonian museums, any outing is pretty much guaranteed to be an arduous one. Still, we managed to take him to the Air & Space Museum and being only three-and-a-half, Noah didn’t care too much about how crowded it was as long as he got to see the planes and the rockets. Here he is fondling a moon rock:

My friend Cristina also happened to be in town with her family and some friends so on Tuesday we decided to meet up and hit the Natural History Museum together. We like to joke that we’re going to make Noah and her younger daughter, Arden, marry each other (because Noah likes blond girls) so it was really cute to see them together. Noah kept trying to hold Arden’s hand — which she adamantly refused to hold — and inviting her and her sister to our hotel room. But her biggest endorsement came shortly after lunch when Noah told me, “I like Arden. I want to take her back to my hotel room and I want her to meet my Uncle Eric.” Ahhhh, young love.

Arden, Noah and Lily checking out the fish tank at the Natural History Museum:

Cristina and Mike rocking out in their 3-D glasses:

Me and Cristina:

Later that evening Mark’s parents flew into town from Texas. We went out for dinner:

and the next morning we all set out for Pennsylvania to visit Mark’s older brother and his family. Noah was totally excited to see his cousin Gabey again. He’d been talking nonstop about Gabe for weeks, saying things like, “My cousin Gabey is a silly guy” and “Cousin Gabey is my favorite” and “Can I share my toys with my cousin Gabey?” Obviously he’d forgotten that the last time they’d met, back when the boys were just shy of 2 years old, they’d fought like crazy. Of course they say time heals all wounds and sure enough, when we finally arrived at their house, Noah and Gabe ran off together and were pretty much inseparable for the rest of the day:

Mariannette had planned on having the boys dye Easter eggs the next day, but Noah and Gabe had found the little dye tablets Wednesday evening and eaten them (hooray for non-toxic dyes that turn your mouth and fingers blue for hours) so Thursday morning the boys painted suncatchers together instead:

After that, it was almost like they suddenly recognized each other as long-lost enemies and they spent the rest of our time there fighting like crazy. And when I say “fighting like crazy” I’m talking about scratches, pushing, hitting, and arguing over the most inane things. Like…

Noah: I can fly
Gabe: Me too. I can fly too.
Noah: No you can’t.
Gabe: Yes I can.
Noah: No you can’t.
Gabe: Yes I can.
Me: You guys! Neither of you can fly so cut it out!

Or when Gabe opened the front door on Friday to find Eric, newly arrived from DC…
Gabe: It’s Uncle Snapper!
Noah: No! That’s my Uncle Eric!
Gabe: No! He’s my Uncle Snapper!
(fist fight promptly ensues)

So, it was interesting to say the least. And prompted Mark to turn to me at one point and say, “Cat, I don’t know if I can handle having two kids.” Luckily for us, one of our kids won’t be able to talk for about a year so that should hopefully cut down on the arguing. Despite the two boys’ fighting it was still a fun week, especially since — being so geographically spread out — it’s pretty rare for Mark’s family to get together all in one place like this. Mariannette had arranged an awesome Easter egg hunt for the boys before we had to leave on Saturday so the boys parted on a high note. And sure enough, before we had even gotten onto the freeway, I heard this from the backseat, “(sigh) I miss my cousin Gabey so very much.” The stinker.

By the way, I know there are a ton of pictures in this post, but you can see even more pictures here:

Spring Break — East Coast

A Leisurely Saturday

On Saturday, by complete freak chance, Mark, Noah and I all ended up waking up at the same time — 7:30 am. So not to waste this golden opportunity when everyone was awake and in a good mood, we headed out to brunch to get our day started right. Rather than bore you with a detailed account of our leisurely outing, here are some pictures I took instead:

The Brunch Club — our new early morning hangout:

(Noah was in an “I’m not smiling until someone gets me my banana smoothie” kind of mood)

Oddly enough, The Brunch Club is tucked away on Peel Street which looks like this:

Taking a walk to the Peel/Graham Street market:

Me and Noah at the Hong Kong Flower Show at Victoria Park. Yes, I’m fat and pregnant and my shirt is too small. Are you happy now people?

The playground at Victoria Park:

One pooped and totally huggable toddler on the way to lunch:

For the record, our seven hour outing completely destroyed me and Mark. We got home and immediately ended up taking long naps while Noah continued to play for several more hours with Clarita, culminating with a trip to the play area and then a walk around our apartment complex with Mark. I have no idea where he gets his energy from.

Flower Market Redux

I’m not a big fan of plants and flowers.  Of course, they’re pretty to look at and lend your house a certain warmth, but ultimately I just don’t have room for all those vases and I generally find them too high maintenance (who has time to recut flower stems under running water every day?).  To me, flowers are only really useful for inducing jealousy amongst your co-workers that your husband or boyfriend is thoughtful and loves you enough to send you a bouquet at work (implying of course that theirs isn’t), but since I don’t work anymore I haven’t really seen a pressing need to buy any.

Nevertheless, one time of the year that I get really excited for lately is Chinese New Year.  And mostly it’s because they open up the CNY flower market at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay for the week leading up to CNY.  It amazes me that I like the flower market so much.  One, as previously mentioned, I don’t really buy flowers; and two, I hate crowds and this gets to be one of the busiest, most crowded markets around since it’s a once-a-year thing.  But I love the crazy carnival-like atmosphere, being surrounded by the different plants and flowers, the vibrant colors and the aroma of traditional Chinese street food being cooked.

The flower market opened on Tuesday at noon.  Last year we went an hour after they first opened and it was d-e-a-d.  I heard that the market is liveliest in the evenings so we waited until 6 pm and left our apartment for the market.  It was definitely lively — and the later it got, the more packed it became. I didn’t have enough cash with me to buy anything so we were really just there to check it out, enjoy the festive atmosphere and pick up a toy for Noah.  Unfortunately evening isn’t the best time to take pictures — especially if you insist on never using your flash — so all my pictures from that first day are kind of crap.  But here is one of Noah examining the pinwheel I got for him:

Weekend Update

Most everyone I know is having a really kick-ass weekend right now.  A bunch of my friends flew to Richmond, VA from all around the country to have a big girls’ weekend (see Jess’ recap here and Cristina’s version here).  I was supposed to go too since Mark and I had been planning on being in that part of the country for the inauguration but we ended up cancelling the trip because of our upcoming move and now I’m so bitter I can barely stand to read updates on the girls’ weekend.  Except that I do because I’m insanely curious about what went on.  Mark, in the meantime, is still on his business trip although since it’s the weekend and he’s in SF I think he’s mostly just hanging out, relaxing and eating good food.  I’m also insanely jealous of him.  Especially since Sunday he’s got a day of football, BBQ and boardgames planned with my family.

So, not to be outdone, I also planned a fun-filled (read: distracting enough that I don’t think about how much fun everyone else is having without me) weekend with the boy.  It got off to a rocky start on Saturday since I woke up sick.  Clarita took Noah off my hands pretty much all day so I could rest up and get better and by Sunday, I was feeling well enough to take the boy out for the day.

We started off the day by catching a movie at the theater.  Yes, 10 am may seem rather early to be watching a movie for normal people, but when you’ve been awake since 6 am, it’s practically mid-day already and perfect time to catch a movie break.  We watched Madagascar 2 (for the third time), grabbed lunch afterwards, then I took Noah on one of my favorite things to do in Hong Kong — ride the Star Ferry:

When we landed on the Kowloon side, I took Noah to one of his favorite things to do in…well, anywhere really — go to Toys R’ Us and buy toys. I think I mentioned that his potty training has taken a bit of a backward step, so I needed to go and buy motivational toys for the boy. We spent an hour browsing and he picked out five toys that he really wanted. I let him have one toy right away and then covered my head and neck while he threw a fit when he realized that he wasn’t getting them all rightthatveryinstant. Ok, that part of the plan was probably not very well thought out on my part, but it was quickly forgotten once we sat down for a snack. Then we took the ferry back to HK side:

Yes, I am that mother who lets her son hang his head off the side of the boat.

Noah insisted on sitting on every one of the chains to test out their swingability:

At the ferry terminal, they were holding the weekly organic farmer’s market. All of the fruits and vegetables sold there are locally grown in Hong Kong using no pesticides. That doesn’t mean I trust the produce enough to eat it though (you never quite know what exactly is in the water) and there were a ton of vegetables that I had never seen or eaten before. For some reason, Noah was intent on groping all of the carrots he saw and when I asked him to stop, he told me, “But I love carrots so much. They’re my favorite!” (This is a complete lie. The boy refuses to eat carrots.) One of the vendors overheard and took pity on him (for having such a mean, cheap mom I’m guessing) and gave him one:

After a little bit of grocery shopping, we went back home where we had dinner and then had a crazy 80′s dance party* before turning in for the night. Post-Noah, my nights have been consumed with lots and lots of crocheting. I don’t have enough supplies to finish these little guys so they’re still incomplete, but this is what I was doing while my friends were out eating, drinking and basically having a ton of fun:

(The Corporate Zombie on the left is missing a tie, a mouth, and blood running down his chin. He also needs a haircut, but I spent so much time making the fringe for his hair I couldn’t stand the thought of cutting it. The Grim Reaper needs a real scythe — as in, one that isn’t made out of a pink Post-it note. And they’re both missing eyes — the pins are just placeholders — but I don’t really know where to go to buy felt to finish them both off. Another example of my short-sighted thinking.)

So yeah, eat your hearts out Richmond girls and family. Who says I don’t know how to have fun by myself.

* Fun fact: Noah really digs Run DMC’s version of Walk This Way. It’s hilarious to watch him immediately start bouncing once he hears the beat. He is also exceedingly fond of Starship’s We Built This City (although he tries to sing to this rather than dance to it) and Europe’s The Final Countdown — I taught him how to just jump straight up and down during this song…yeah, just like in the video.

Cats, Tokyo-style

On Friday, Noah and I were on our own since Mark had to work the whole day. After piddling around the apartment for a good portion of the morning, we finally left after lunch to head out to Ikebukuro and visit the cat house, Nekobukuro. Many apartments in Tokyo don’t allow pets and in a city where buying a new cat can cost over US$1200, these cat houses or cat cafes — where visitors pay to hang out and pet cats — have sprung up all over Tokyo. Nekobukuro was the only one listed in my guidebook and despite the fact that I dislike Ikebukuro (nothing personal against the area, it’s due to a previous bad commuting experience back in April), I promised Noah cats so off we went.

After a short train ride, some bad navigation and getting a little turned around outside the train station, we finally arrived at Nekobukuro, which was located on the 8th floor of the Tokyu Hands store. I paid the admission fee and in we went. I know it sounds a little crazy to pay US$8 to go somewhere just to pet a bunch of cats — after all, in parts of China they’re considered food — but it seemed like a cute thing you could only do in Japan. Plus Jae’s crazy hairless space rats cats were leaving just a little to be desired in the animal-petting area.

There were actually quite a few people in the cat house when we got there. The cat house was a space consisting of three connected rooms — each complete with enclosed spaces for sleeping cats — and roaming freely were about eight beautiful, well-groomed short- and long-haired cats.

Catching Up: The Last Day

After taking a full week to recover from jet-lag, the rest of my time in CA just flew by. After Marine World, Monday saw a trip to Zachary’s Pizza — the best pizza ever and therefore a noteworthy event in itself; Tuesday I had lunch with a couple of friends from high school, and before I knew it, it was our last day in CA already.

It was just me and Noah on Wednesday so I semi-planned a day full of visits to some of my favorite haunts in the Bay Area. We woke up to a beautiful, misty morning:

and after a small breakfast, drove straight to Fourth Street in Berkeley. Our first stop was The Pasta Shop for a little specialty grocery shopping:

We picked up some baking supplies to take back to HK with us. I also picked up some chocolate that I wanted to send to my friend Kristin (because they were vegan and one of the chocolates was shaped like a Buddha) but Mark ate them when we got to HK. Sorry K. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

Then we hit my favorite taqueria next door, Tacubaya:

There are few things that will take the chill out of a chilly morning better than a hot bowl of chicken tortilla soup. Mmmmmm.

Noah, naturally, refused to eat either the soup or the quesadillas, but at least he liked the horchata. Afterward I bribed Noah with a toy and got him to come quietly to my favorite shop in the area, Anthropologie:

Unfortunately a remote control triceratops toy only bought me enough good behaviour to find a new wallet but it was better than nothing. Noah fell asleep once I got to Bay Street in Emeryville so I had a nice hour of quiet shopping. Of course we made the obligatory cupcake stop before we left:

When we got home, my mom had a surprise for us — one of my favorite foods. Ever:

Noah refuses to eat crabs but he likes playing with them so it was a win-win situation all the way around.

So that about sums up my visit. It was way too short, but I’m glad we got to spend a lot of time with my family this time around.

Catching Up: Marine World

Wow.  I’m way behind on my blogging.  Not that nothing interesting happened to me on the rest of my trip, but mostly I’ve just been really, really tired.  I do want to write about the rest of my trip though — mostly because my chronologically ordered mind won’t let me write about things out of order so I can’t move on until I’ve gotten some things out of the way first.  So with that, I’m picking up where I left off.  At Marine World.

Originally my mom and I were thinking about taking Noah to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is about a two hour drive from our house but has a really cool aquarium.  My brother was taking some time off of work to hang out with us and suggested going to Marine World in Vallejo instead since it was much closer (about a 15 minute drive), to which I responded, “Yes, but do they have whales?”  Why yes.  Yes, they do.  So Marine World it was.

We went on Sunday so that everyone could come (read: more people to rotate child-minding/riding shifts between).  It had been a loooong time since I’d been to Marine World.  So long ago in fact that it’s not called Marine World anymore.  It’s actually Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, but old habits (and names) die hard.  Apart from the name change, it was a lot different than what I remember it to be.  It was like a real amusement park but with animals thrown in.  Much like Ocean Park in HK, but with a zoo instead of an aquarium.  Noah had a blast on all the rides.  The crowds were sparse enough in the kiddy areas that he could go on each ride three times in a row without having to wait.  I’m sure he would’ve ridden on them more than three times but I kind of forced him to check out other areas of the park.

My brother definitely won out as Noah’s preferred riding buddy. Whenever we got to a new ride I would lean down and ask Noah who he wanted to ride with. His usual answer — a finger pointed at my brother while saying, “That one.” (Which also makes me think I should keep him away from watching presidential debates in the future)

Besides the bajillion rides (actually, six rides ridden a bajillion times each) we caught an animal show, the killer whale show, and I forced Noah on an elephant ride. He had wanted to ride the elephant at the Singapore Zoo back in January this year but I didn’t have any money for it so I was determined to make it up to the boy. Nevermind that five minutes into our wait he totally changed his mind and tried to chicken out of it. But we still managed to get him on:

We ended the day at Thomas Land — a section of the park themed after Thomas the Train — or as I like to refer to it, Meltdown City. Luckily for me, Noah wasn’t one of the hundreds of toddlers having screaming tantrums at the Thomas souvenir store. And he was good enough that my mom even bought him an overpriced train (which broke the next day. Boo!). Naturally at the end of the day, Noah was also the only one of us with any energy left. I left the store to see this:

Haha. Lightweights. But at least we had enough energy to find our way back to the car and get home:

By the way, I also had enough energy to thoroughly kick my brother’s butt at Blokus, which if you’ve never heard of it, is a game that my brother sucks at.  Here’s the game where I made him cry (he’s purple and completely blocked in…in case it isn’t obvious):

There’s no better way to end the day than with a good, old-fashioned butt-kicking.

An Early Halloween Celebration

With four days left in the Bay Area, Noah and I are finally on West Coast time. Oh sweet relief. I need to remember to never do a 10-day trip back home again…unless we all agree to meet somewhere halfway next time. Like Hawaii (hint hint). With our time here running short, we made our usual trip to Costco to stock up on things otherwise unavailable (or else, ridiculously expensive) in Hong Kong. Of course, with it already being October and therefore nearly Christmas, all of the Christmas stuff was already up at Costco. Which means…

…lots of toys! (And yes, I did bring my camera with me to Costco. So what?)

Afterwards, we went home to rest up in preparation for the local Halloween Carnival in the park down the street. Yesterday we went to Toys R Us to buy Noah a toy and ended up picking up a Halloween costume as well. Being so near Halloween already, all the costumes were half-off. But being so near Halloween, it also meant that the pickings were slim. We did manage to find this for him:

(And yes, I’m aware that Nevan was also Buzz Lightyear for Halloween last year, but this was the only decent costume they had available in Noah’s size.)

We hit the carnival later that afternoon. It was HOT and I felt bad for Noah in a full body costume but he had a good time regardless. He spent some time at the jumphouse:

Jumped off every rock he could find:

Rearranged the pumpkin patch:

And ate his first funnel cake:

It was a small carnival but we had a good time:

It was the first time Noah has really gotten a chance to celebrate Halloween. Previously he’s been either too young or too scared of costumes to take part in the festivities so it was fun to see him enjoying himself. When we went home later that evening, Noah tested out his newly learned phrase, “Trick or Treat!” and we tried (unsuccessfully) to teach him about sharing:

Whoever said taking candy from a baby was easy never met a 3-year-old with an M&M obsession.

California Academy of Sciences

If I had one non-shopping-related thing on my agenda for our trip back to the States, it was a visit to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. At first I was a little bummed out at the thought of going because the Academy looks so awesome and I knew that with Noah in tow, I’d probably only get to see the toddler explorer cave at the most, but my parents and my sister ended up coming with us and with their help we were all able to keep Noah focused on the good stuff.

The Academy isn’t just a museum. After 10 years and $500 million, the Academy opened up in its new location in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park just last month. Not only is it the world’s greenest building — with each element of its construction designed to limit its carbon footprint — but it’s also the only museum in the world that contains an aquarium, a planetarium, a natural history museum and a rainforest all under one roof. On top of all the cool science, the food options inside the Academy are managed by Charles Phan — chef of The Slanted Door in SF, which is consistently named one of the top Vietnamese restaurants in the U.S. — and Loretta Keller, of Bizou and Coco500 fame. Like I said, it’s completely awesome.

From CA Academy of Science