One of the must-dos on this trip was to spend time with family together.
Yum Cha doesn’t count. I wanted to go somewhere with my family to do something. It could be going to a park and play some ball games, or go hiking and have a picnic. I kept researching, reading local magazines and blog recommendations, but I failed to come up with a good plan since Hong Kong’s weather seems turning to be very hot by the week we visit. Curry Boy and I like hiking, Mom as well. I was looking forward to hiking with Mom, if the weather allows. But when the trip was approaching, the temperature also rose relentlessly, leaving Mom saying, ‘Hiking? Don’t ever think about it, some people hiked and died of heatstroke!’ Sounds very dangerous. What about going to the islands? If it was all day out with no shade to hide, no air-conditioning to chill, maybe it could be very tough too.
If outdoors is not possible, then what to do with 6 adults and 1 kid indoor? Shopping mall? You don’t shop as a group; Museum? Weird. Then a farm name popped up in my mind – Kadoorie Farm. I discussed it in our family WhatsApp group and everybody seemed okay with it, although my brother’s family has been there twice already, it would be the first time for Mom. This farm, of course, is outdoors, surrounded by a lot of plants, like a fun-sized botanical garden with a tiny zoo. Occasionally you can hide in a chilled reptile house, or somewhere that has air-conditioning would be fine.
The day before, I was still bothered by the 7-hour-gap jet lag and I couldn’t fall asleep until morning. By the moment I was forget where I was, it was time to get up and meet everybody. We met at Tai Po Market station before 10am, hopped on a bus for this precious family farm trip which I was excited about though I couldn’t get rid of tiredness. On the bus, Mom and I sat together, browsing at those independent stores from the bus like we usually did, and my brother chit-chat with Curry Boy while my sister-in-law looked after Hailey.
The farm had fewer visitors than we expected. We were warmly greeted by the staff, which I seldom experienced in Europe, I mean, genuinely. We roamed around slowly, mostly led by our little guide – Hailey, and we saw a huge chubby piggy, leaping frogs, many different varieties of plants that you tend to forget, and a parrot which marked this trip.
While we were finishing the reptile house, a miserable loud screaming caught our attention. It was some kind of bird, rapidly flipping their wings like fighting with each other, and that animal call made me feel they were in pain. We slowly approached, took a closer look at them, realised they were parrots. One of them wearing white fur was a yellow-crested cockatoo, I believed. When he saw us, he stopped noisily yelling and slowly crawling down the fence until he was level with us. ‘Look! he is coming to us!’ My brother first showed his excitement. We all knew parrots could talk, then I looked at his description, written he often says ‘hello’ and ‘bye’ to visitors. I immediately said ‘hello’ to him, just kept saying, ‘hello hello hello hello hello hello……’ Then Hailey follows, ‘hello birdie!’ And Curry Boy, Mom, my sister, everybody, saying hello to him. Suddenly, a non-human and robotic kind of ‘hello’ stopped in the air. ‘Hello!’ the parrot said. It’s not like our ‘hello hello hello hello hello hello……’, it’s just one ‘hello’, but we were already amazed and WOW! He said hello to us! And the next thing we tried was urging him to say hello one more time, so we, again, ‘hello hello hello hello hello hello……’ him and waited for his one, sharp and clear ‘hello’ back. Mom and I took out the phone with barely restrained glee, tried to capture his interesting greeting but forgot it had to be a video.
How often can it be. We focus on a parrot we barely know, put aside all worries or anything trapped in our minds, simply enjoy ourselves – we are all together. This farm certainly has more than animals and plants to offer us, isn’t it?
While we were sitting near the entrance, waiting for the bus back to the city centre, Mom asked Hailey, ‘Which animal do you like the best today?’ Hailey was thinking about all the animals she had met today, not yet spilled out a word, ‘Of course it’s the talking parrot! No need to re-think!’ Mom had already given an answer to her. ‘Yes! It’s the birdie! He was so excited to see us!’ Hailey agreed, and off to make her keychain, which was the first gift she gave to me.
(To be continued)
