This was our Saturday night… Kings wanted Rockstar to join him for the night event, since usually The Mens’ weekend bondings are sacred… Since this was a talk on Wine Investments (if they let me I’ll write more later on), I tried explaining the concept of investing to Rockstar in the cab:
Me: Investing is trying to grow your money. The trick is to try and buy something for HKD 10 that you think someone might buy from you someday for HKD 20. Then you’ve made an extra…. how much?
Rockstar: <dutifully, staring gravely out window> 10 dollars.
Me: <thinking Wah So Easy Ah> Great! So… What is investing?
Rockstar: <still staring out window> Asking someone to give you 20 dollars for something.
Sigh. So close.
- Dis is de glass house. Dis is awesome place to bring Date You Want To Impress.
Rockstar’s wearing (note photo-bombing border collie while I was trying to decide what to put him in)……..
- a) Navy corduroy cargos, white layering tee and a seersucker blazer
But with 18 degrees C and strong wind (where we live can be super windy) and a little rain, I added:
- b) Ralph Lauren water resistant hoodie jacket over tee and under blazer.. I would’ve left the RL jacket unzipped (cooler, right??) but Rockstar insisted on zipping it. (No he wasn’t cold. It was Nerd genes!)
(Don’t mistake the facial expression, he’s thrilled to be going out to Visit Daddy At Work (willingly napped before the late night), and clutching a book to keep him busy there while people drone on about wine (which he has already decided is “disgusting”) – he just looks like that because he’s thinking about what to do/say tonight… Obviously I told him best behavior or no more night excursions… :P)
And so here we are:
- Outer dining area
This actually reminds me of where Kings and I got married in Singapore, Flutes At Fort Canning… Flutes is also in a large bungalow on a hill…..
- And this reminds me how Rockstar likes to ruin my shots
Which gave us an idea…
- Look, wine glasses that float into your mouth! (He didn’t stay still long enough though)
Then on to an inner dining room near the wine cellar, where Platinum Wines was having a talk about wine investing (plus 5 course and wine pairings)…
- Rockstar thought the giant bottle “people write on” was cool…
Btw, contrary to popular belief, you don’t drink investment wine – or even open the wooden case it came in. You keep like, a doz (think physical asset) in a wooden crate with original seal AND you’re not allowed to store it at home, no matter how good your wine fridge is. You have to be able to account for all those years your original wine crate has lived – and be able to show the paperwork proving it has never really lived. (i.e. that it was always in whatever Certified Acceptable Wine Storage and had no outside clubbing life or whatever).
And did you know HK is the biggest wine investment hub in the world? I didn’t.
- “Red or green straw” Rockstar gets an apple juice from the bar…
- And this is him entertaining himself when no one was talking to him…
That was right before some of the grownups noticed him reading National Geographic and he then proceeded to regale some of them with…………… tales of his online Math Homework from school (Nerd genes! Nerd genes! Nerd genes! – That was for Kings :D)
But in my son’s defense he had online math work on the brain because he’d recently had a school assembly about it and so apparently “Fractions” are “cool.” I am impressed he’s that enthusiastic about the math homework, how did they get him to think fractions are cool, did they use hypnosis? (This is a JOKE ok!! But wouldn’t it be funny if I get an email asking if I know which hypnotist Rockstar’s school is using?)
Seriously though, it hadn’t really occurred to me Rockstar would get asked that many times where he goes to school. #schoolpride
- Rockstar perusing menu for items he eats (that would be the seared Tuna steak after he scraped off all the avocado – he didn’t like the rare beef or lamb cutlet so he had most of my Tuna as well, and woke up ravenous next morning; when he wants, he can really eat..)
NO Rockstar cannot read the French names of the wines on that menu. And btw French wines are pretty much the only ones meant for investment – something about the region producing a wine that can last 75-100 years.
There was also a slide on exceptional vintage years. Interesting that some parents apparently buy a case if it’s their child’s birth year, as a gift for their child later on. (I bought the Standard Chartered HKD 150 note with Rockstar’s birthdate as serial number btw… Intend to give it to him on his 21st birthday or something. I didn’t say 16 cos I’m pretty sure what he wants then are the keys to the family car. He has agreed to drive us around when he’s old enough to get a license – for now we’ll enjoy him making our coffee 😀 Thanks, Nespresso machine!)
Oh, and one of my girlfriends’ sons…. has a mountain bequeathed to him by his grandfather in Korea. She says it’s also “quite normal” to give houses to kids when they marry, “because how can you expect them to have that much themselves yet, they normally get married what, before 30?” I don’t know, I’m still back at the mountain bit...!
And then it was time for Rockstar to examine the wine cellar.
And so that was our Saturday night…
Which was quite a contrast to our Sunday:
Rockstar's playing with his Lego up there, the baby has just fallen asleep - not two minutes before, she was screaming something awful
Ms Rockstar was pretty tough today… Normally, she’s not, when she gets to be in her room. But thanks to her I’m knackered and still a little sick…
Hi Aileen, I hope you are feeling better today. Wow, I did not know that wine investment is so huge in HK, and only wine from France is worth investing in.
Rockstar looks really the gentleman for the night and on his best behaviour too. I would be impressed to hear him talk about maths, who would have imagine a young child having maths in his thoughts during a fun night out. Did Rockstar like the outing? Does he want to follow his father to work more often?
When Ms Rockstar is older, she too can follow her father to work – and in a princess gown. I suspect Ms Rockstar sort of know she was left out of the previous night outing, that’s why she was pretty tough the next day, hehehe. 🙂
Hihi Mun, yeah re wine in HK – it’s cos of the tax situation (i.e. no tax for wine – I have the details somewhere)… The math and book thing is because of his personality – he is just very, very serious and his understanding was it is kind of a “work” event, he has no “work” to talk about, hence school and homework…
Ms Rockstar – I hadn’t thought of that!! I made her v tired so she would sleep early on Saturday, but somehow yes you could be right, because she is usually not so difficult when she’s at home (just difficult outside come nap time cos she can’t sleep well outside)
re what she would wear……. I have furtively eyed little girls’ Philip Lim and Armani dresses both in malls and branded warehouses, telling myself kiddie clothes are for the PARENTS’ pleasure, not the kids… If I really did that one day I would not communicate the labels to her 😛
But seriously I go the Stanley Market route as well, even my “Korean mountain” girlfriend (whose son btw also goes to school at an ESF) does… It’s more for winter clothing that I buy more expensive coats and things for quality, in case the pasar malam winter wear is not really warm enough…