Cameron Lo

Alas it’s our last day in Koh Samui! We have an early evening flight, so we took our time packing. The kids, of course, are no help with packing—except I guess on this occasion, they’re helping with lightening our load! Well, Uncle Alwin’s load to be exact. They found Uncle Alwin’s potato chips in his villa and got to work. It’s not often we see Cameron chowing down with such gusto but once in a while when he gets his hands on chips, he’ll look like an eating champion. For those of you who don’t understand Cantonese, Vincent and I were giving the kids a hard time when Alwin walked in catching them eating his chips!

It’s time to leave the wonderful Shasa Hotel to catch our flight back to Hong Kong! Before we hopped in our minivan to go to the airport, we wanted to take a group picture, so we asked the minivan driver to take it for us. Instead, he jumped into the picture, leaving Vincent holding the camera! Everyone was trying to be polite, but finally I spoke up. 😛 So here’s our farewell family photo—plus Yod who definitely became an honorary member of the family after helping us watch our three monkeys for the past few days!

Today’s beach day! Since our hotel doesn’t have a very nice beach, Alwin asked our butler Yod to book a minivan to take us to one of the better beaches. The kids were all ready to go with beach toys in hand, but the minivan was an hour and a half late! Good thing the kids were pretty good about having fun anywhere, even if it’s just a hotel lobby!

Ironically, these beach toys didn’t get much use because the beach Yod recommended, which was really far away, was probably even worse than our hotel’s! The minivan driver actually warned us, but since he was so late, we assumed he didn’t want to drive that far. He took us to another beach for lunch, but after lunch it was Cameron’s and Jayden’s naptime already, hence this look on our ride back!

Vincent and Alwin went golfing, so for the rest of us, today’s what we call a day of “嘆酒店” in Cantonese, which translates to “enjoying the hotel.” The main attractions for the kids at the hotel are the pool and the playroom since the beach isn’t so nice unfortunately. Unlike Darren who’d somersault into the pool on demand, Cameron’s more cautious. He was probably intimidated by the size of the pool since his pool where he takes his swim classes is quite small. So it took quite a bit of convincing to get him into the water—he wanted fins and a ring. He even wanted to wear Jayden’s swim jacket/ring combo! Finally though to get him actually swimming more “normally” (i.e., paddling and kicking), it was Jayden’s arm bands that did the trick. We call them “雞翼” in Cantonese, which translates to “chicken wings”—for my little chicken! 😉

We’re tourists in Thailand, so we must do the touristy thing in Thailand—ride an elephant! Vincent and I have ridden elephants in Thailand before, but we’ve never gotten to feed them during the ride. This mommy elephant must be asking Vincent for more bananas, hence the action shot and slightly concerned look on little Cameron’s face (and maybe Vincent’s too?)! Kudos to Cameron though for not declining the ride—he could scare a bit easily—although this photo makes it look a little scary indeed!

One of my business school roommates is Thai and she’s told me her favorite island in Thailand is Koh Samui, so I’ve always wanted to check it out. Thanks to my brother Alwin who planned a side trip for us since we were visiting Hong Kong, we finally made it to Koh Samui today! Everyone had to be woken up early to catch our flight, but all of us were so excited when we got there—including little Cameron who ran into a glass railing at the hotel lobby! But he was still happy as a clam even as I was icing him!

After checking in, lunch, and a nap, Cameron got to explore the hotel…

…and enjoy the view!

After breakfast, I had a rare morning off from the kids who went to ride the tram with Vincent. They took the MTR to Central to catch the tram, but en route, the boys spotted a Hong Kong landmark and had so much fun there it almost overshadowed their tram ride! Vincent asked me to guess what landmark occupied Darren and Cameron for so long. I thought for a second and answered “The lions at HSBC.” Vincent was impressed—yes I know my sons well!

I’m not familiar with this other lion—it’s Chinese-looking, so I’m wondering if it’s a later addition…well, hopefully if it’s newer, it’s cleaner, but for sure it’s cleaner after Cameron crawled around it!

Thanks to Alwin and Michaeline, we went to a restaurant called one-thirty one in Sai Kung today for Christmas Day lunch.

Not only was the food delicious…

…but it was also a wonderful venue for the kids since there was a big lawn for them to run around. But as they say, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt! Vincent started tossing Cameron after Ivan tossed Darren, but suffice it to say, Ivan is an expert and Vincent, as my business school roommate Grace would say, not so much…

…but at least Vincent did catch Cameron and icing Cameron’s cheek helped!

The last time Cameron and Darren saw Grandpa was two years ago when we last visited Hong Kong! Amazingly, Grandpa looks the same even though he’s surrounded by yet another grandson, baby Julian, among three others, two of whom—mine of course—decided to monkey around, so our rare three-generation family picture turned out a bit silly!

I needed to run to the bank today. While I was waiting a long time at the bank, Vincent took Darren and Cameron to the small children’s playground at Kowloon Park, which is very close to our hotel. Although I wasn’t there with them at the park, this is a familiar scene where one brother copies the other—I just love how engrossed Cameron looks and how he spreads his little hands!

Sometimes Cameron is the goofier one, but good thing he’s cautious by nature—even though he’s coming down on his knees, he’s holding onto the sides of the slide!