Raising Rockstar

Rockstar’s need for a ski fix is older than his baby sister, ever since he had his first lesson on a whim couple years ago. I’ve often bemoaned that of all the sports he has to take a shine to, why does it have to be skiing?? But he has faithfully declared skiing the holiday of choice for 2 years now.

Me and Rockstar in his ski gear

Even as we double-date with Doting Dad and Her Highness

And so I planned for Rockstar to have a personal instructor session before joining a class at Perisher because we’d like him to mix with as many kids from different places as possible and thought it would be great for him to talk to some local kids.

(Btw we tried Thredbo couple years back, no complaints, just thought to try this next, but after his first class Rockstar requests we just stick with Perisher).

Rockstar on his first day with his instructor Peter

Rockstar ends up liking his instructor so much he requests a second personal session before joining a class called Ski Discovery on his third day while I stay at home blissfully not going nuts trying to feed the baby and pack her other meals in time for the circus to spend the whole day out. The Mens get Rockstar checked in to the 3-5 class.

At pickup, they strongly recommend he be moved to the older class of 5-7s and spend virtually the whole 9am-3.00pm day out on the slopes, aside from lunch. He’s 5.5 and hadn’t seen snow in a couple years, we were unsure how he would handle the skiing now. To us-of-the-biased-opinion, Rockstar seems to still take to the snow very comfortably. (Wow how do any teachers ever keep from The Eyeroll when “everyone” just always has super talented children?? :D) 

We’re watching proudly as Rockstar continues to go up and down the slopes after class when an Asian boy several inches taller than him swerves almost full speed into the net cordoning the area near the conveyer belt with a grin. People around him frown and look around, but don’t see his parents. I notice no one says anything to him, which I’m guessing is because they’re not sure he’d understand them anyway. He looks Chinese to me – and I also suspect if he wanted to, he could speak pretty good English. (Maybe partly because he’s holidaying here, as a very general observation… We’ve watched Putonghua-speaking parents have the kids practice their (strong command of) English with airport staff while traveling in English-speaking countries before – even if the parents don’t speak English the kids often do…)

Family selfie after Rockstar’s class

Just an aside, in HK our pastor who is Caucasian refers to this jokingly as “Gwailo Grace” – newly in Hong Kong when he unwittingly committed a pretty minor traffic offense, the officer let him off in part because he did not want to trouble with the English (an English speaker also attracts more attempts at being fleeced in markets or by taxi drivers so technically it kinda “evens out”. So anyway I was thinking Speed-skiing Asian Boy just received “Asian Grace” – and I wouldn’t be surprised if some kids milk it, pretending not to understand English 😛

I mean, it’s just not easy to tell – even back home Rockstar’s very local music class mates have startled me before, when they chipped into our English conversations, their mums having never spoken English to me, their kids attending “very local” schools in Cantonese… What was that Youtube where it said the number of Chinese children who speak English fluently vastly outnumbers the number of Native English-speaking children who can speak Chinese?)

“Haven’t seen a ride like that here.” Oh, we bought the stroller on a whim near our home when the baby came a little early. The blonde mum I’m talking to tells me her husband has business in Northasia too. She’s not the first “local” here to tell us that. We’re a little surprised just how small the world is getting…

For the next few days Rockstar starts ski class at 9am. That’s HK 7am, we didn’t switch to Aussie time (because Little Miss is already an early bird HK time – bringing back an early bird baby on Aussie time didn’t sound like fun). It’s a 40 min drive to the ski resort, you do the math. Rockstar is a natural late bird – it’s a struggle for him to be up by 7.30 on a regular school day. To ski, however…….

Still, after (according to him) winning some little race among his class (“<new friend> was winning, but then he didn’t see a hole and fell into it. So I took the lead”) Kings tells me he’s gone up to Level 3 (whatever that means :P). When I pick him up after his first day on Level 3 however, his instructor asks, “Is he just turned 5, or…?” No, he’s really 5.5. “He’s really tiny to be doing all this, it can be quite challenging for him.”

Also, we were thinking of taking a half day break tomorrow…. Rockstar’s instructor gently explains he’s just about there at his current level, and if he doesn’t do a full day tomorrow he’ll struggle to keep up. (Btw I just don’t mention the other instructors by name because I didn’t ask permission, his instructors for the classes were different each day I think). Rockstar, who’s heard the entire exchange, certainly looks tired.

And so I say we’ll leave it up to him – it has to be fun for him – in the first place he’s the one who kinda dragged us all up here. (Me, I’d be happy to resume wake-boarding in Repulse Bay, even with the “allergy to HK sea water” which means I tote a large bottle of tap water on the boat.) Rockstar and his instructor exchange a grin. But Rockstar still looks very tired. She tells us her class has been skiing in the cold rain and sure enough his jacket is soaked through in many places, and for a second day his skis and gloves are all wet, even though he insists he was taught to shake the snow out of them.

I took that because of how much snow he got one his hat, one toboggan ride down

The next day we finally take it slow and enjoy Castle, all 4 of us. At lunchtime Rockstar worriedly asks if he has at least a half day ski class today. I worriedly look for signs he’s put off the sport he was so enthusiastic about before. (Enthusiastic about some extra activities – even if we have to swing a long haul flight for it – is still better than enthusiastic about no extra activities. Unless you’re talking Xbox, of course.) But by the end of the day The Rockstar has concluded it’s been a great season – and we’ll be ready to come back next year.

And so we set off to the souvenir shops.

ps: After which we learn there might be ski simulation in Shatin. Gotta check it out after recovering from this holiday…

pps: Will eventually update with more pics/ vids

We drive to the studio Kings has booked in Jindabyne, which is where we will stay while Rockstar gets his snow/ski fix.

Goodbye, Home For First 3 Days Of Our Stay…

In the first pic, Rockstar has piled the pillows up because Little Miss bumped her head on the window sill trying to look out…

It were a fairly uneventful road trip… Even for Her Highness, surprisingly.

That was our first jump in the snow when we arrived – I packed the snow stuff separate, then took them out and left them on the car seat when we started the journey, because Rockstar was likely to be unable to contain his excitement the moment we hit the area. So I promised him he’d get snow first chance we got – before we even went to the apartment. (Also tell him when he behaves well, people try harder to do more of the stuff he likes/ wants – if he doesn’t exhaust me by being naughty/ destroying things, I have more energy to “try harder” at giving him more things he wants, like remembering to take out all our snow gear early.)

And so we arrive at the studio apartment, as always, late – Kings runs up and down in the cold and dark desperately trying to find our place, while I swing a very messy diaper change in the car.

Then when we finally get into the apartment….

This is pretty much the entire apartment…

We’d seen pictures of the place, but…… to be fair I don’t immediately smell anything until I open the ski/boots storage near the kitchen/ bed. Well I was getting sick when we arrived which could’ve clouded my view somewhat – next morning was better when I recovered…

The family rolling around on the sofa bed

Now, we lived in a 600 square-foot studio along Orchard Road, Singapore and then close to 8 years in HK where my local RMs say the average dwelling space is 700-1000 square feet, so it’s never actual size that bothers me. But the dingy-looking wall to wall carpeting and the smell in the storage grossed me out (how do you clean carpet everyday the way you’d sweep and mop a bare floor? The occasional chemicals right? Read tabloid about some celebrity’s child getting really sick from carpet cleaner. I know it’s a tabloid, but I figured whether the child got really sick from carpet cleaner in itself is not what sells magazines, it’s Kate’s Pregnancy Style or who’s seeing who, i.e. I didn’t expect Carpet Cleaner Bit to be particularly embellished.)

This the rest of it – that’s the ok bit, I forgot to take a pic of the store room

The baby wasn’t allowed on the floor. That night I would wonder if any of us would wake with bug bites. (We didn’t.)

Every time we dropped a baby toy on that carpet though, I was cleaning it. That was just always gonna happen because Dingy-Carpeted Floor was right there. Y’know, that inconvenient Newton thing whereby if you drop something it ends up on the floor.

Then some time the next day, Kings tells us we are moving to a 4-bedroom, place called the “Castle”. (It’s unexpected enough that I’d not taken many pictures of our morning – cramped, but filled with sunlight through the windows overlooking the busy highway.) The next place was the only other thing available, and Kings somehow eventually wrangled a good discount, at least. Still, the space is extravagant – 4 bedrooms. A boxing ring. Bare wooden floors with exquisite little area rugs. Beautiful, spotless little rugs and probably the only time I’ve ever felt that comfortable about the baby on carpet (we have no carpet back home because of JD. She could probably shed us up her own rug. Darn I miss JD). Apparently no one’s really stayed in the place, other than the owner a month ago – it’s actually a showroom/house. It’s clean.

There’s a study. Jacuzzi or some hi-tech shower thing in every bathroom. I am a big bathroom person. Huge. That hot shower when we first got in was just the best.

That was the first night we arrived, and the first morning. The Rockstars exploring in a place so big as to be pretty much unheard of in HK unless you are the Li family or something.

Kings whipped us up breakfast. Just in case anyone forgot he put himself through school waitering and cooking in a restaurant in Brighton.

It’s beautiful, but also so very extravagant. The floors are heated, with electronic controls.  A sloping ceiling with lots of skylights. It doesn’t really have to be this big though. The first couple days I flip-flopped up and down those beautiful pine stairs countless times just because I was so unused to that many rooms I kept forgetting where I put my stuff.

My favorite thing besides the kickass bathrooms? The kids’ rooms. The darling little girl’s room, the spacious boy’s room. It’s still a dream to us, being able to have a home to call our own, to raise kids in. After that very first condo in Singapore Kings and I split a down payment on, two freshie bankers just starting out – we never even stayed a day in the place. We’ve stayed more days in this place now, how ’bout that?

And it’s a really weird feeling, not knowing where in the house the rest of the family is. Just in case the other stuff hadn’t already weirded me out.

ps: More in a bit, this just a quick update of our 3 moves (and more than a little getting disoriented and lost, resulting in Rockstar being late for a couple ski lessons) in the last week we’ve been here – and yes the frozen breastmilk and baby purees and gadzillion toiletries and accessories went with. (I know our pastor does this to save money, pack all the foodstuff etc from home, that’s a nice plus but I do it predominantly because I hate going to an unfamiliar place and then spending time looking for similar stuff we use back home in an unknown supermarket, just don’t want to spend more vaccie time than absolutely necessary in a grocery store…)

pps: It was very sweet to finally log in to my email accounts once we got the wifi up, and find messages asking which part of Australia we were in, and whether we might be near some of you guys. It’s one reason I’m so “motivated” 🙂