Actually, when I think of it, the week with my sister and her kids was a bit of a blur. I know one thing. I didn't get much work done. The other thing I know is that school holidays at our place are always filled with tension.

I will explain.

Sometimes, it's better to have more kids than less. They keep each other occupied. And as long as you feed them, and give them money, they for the most part can survive. Taking showers and brushing teeth (2 of my wife's mandatory rules) are clearly optional on holidays though. My own son would stay in the same clothes for 3-weeks if you let him.

His mother will scream at him to put his pajamas on for hours. When he senses that she is about to implode, he simply stands up, pulls his shorts down and then says, "there - I'm done". This then tips her right over the edge. He would sleep in boxer shorts and the same t-shirt until they disintegrated.

My son has a mate called Harry. While his parents are Aussies, he was actually born in Singapore, so this is home to him. The child often appears on our doorstop on a Friday night, with nothing more than the clothes on his back. Once, he did arrive with a small backpack, but it had nothing in it. Quite why he was carrying it was beyond me.

"Where's your shoes Harry?"
"Didn't bring them?"
"What about your toothbrush and a comb?"
"Nope"
"Why not?"
"Because I use the airline ones you have in the spare bathroom"
"Really?"
"Yes"

He then looked at me with that look that only a young male can produce, which basically is "why are fathers such morons".

Sometimes I wish I was 11 again…

And that's the thing about being an FT'er. I don't know about your place, but we have enough shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes and shaving cream to last us well into the next millennium. My wife wants me to see someone about my addiction to collecting amenity kits. And stealing everything from a hotel room.

So we manage to survive the week with the extended family and they finally head home. "The Big Seats", as my daughter affectionately refers to Business Class, are once again, confirmed for my sister, niece and nephew.

As they were leaving, my sister turns to me and says, "you know what, I'm going to start to pay more attention to my frequent flyer accounts now".

I nearly had a little cry. Tears started to well up in my eyes. Not because she was leaving. But because some of my airline geekiness had finally rubbed off on her and she could at last, see the point to it all.

But this wasn't (or isn't the end). We had but another week to survive.

Long before my sister and her kids decided to visit, my daughter had insisted that because my son had visited his birth place last Christmas, that she too wanted to see where she was born. Which was Sydney. My wife, who is suffering island fever in Singapore, wanted any excuse to get out of the place so in one foul swoop of the tongue she was barking instructions at me yet again to "make it happen".

I sighed.

More Emirates points down the drain. 2 more seats procured and the Eightblack women satisfied (for the moment).

Then I thought for a moment, what the hell are we supposed to do while they go off galavanting around Australia. Certainly not sit here in Singapore, and babysit 15-different type of animals.

So I said to my son...

"Lets go somewhere on our own"
"Where" he grunted
"I don't know, what about Hong Kong?"
"Do they have video games there?"
"Probably"
"Are you going to book a cheap hotel again, like you did last holidays"
"Probably. Just to annoy you"

He thought for a moment.

I said, well, you can stay here or come with me.

Like I've told you before, kids when faced with the decision to stay at home on their own or go somewhere for an extended time, will always follow the money. He said, fine, I'll come.

I grabbed a laptop and within minutes, had burned though some UA miles to find us 2 seats on SQ. Tried to get the A380, but I was so fearful that the UA website would crash, simply agreed to whatever it spat back at me. Then fired up Hyatt.com and burned thru some of their points to find us a room at the Hyatt Regency (just behind Nathan Rd) on Kowloon side.

Truth be told, I needed to go to HKG for work - so it worked out fine. And my son had never been to Honkers before, and it is my favorite Asian city. There's something about that impatient Cantonese attitude that I find refreshing. Calming almost. I like the hustle and bustle of it all. I like the hotels. I like the Harbour. I like it at night. I don't know quite why. I just do.

Besides, I thought it would be good to spend some one-on-one time with my first born.

For those fathers out there, maybe this will resonate.

Apart from being addicted to anything with a remote control and a video console, my son has become infatuated with what I like to call "yet another small slice of what's wrong with America".

Now I say this affectionately. One, because my wife is American. And two, because one day the INS may read this and decide to revoke my green card.

He has taken to watching WWE. All the time. He cant get enough of it. For those of you who are blissfully unaware what WWE is, it stands for World Wrestling Entertainment. You know those guys who pretend to pulverize each other, jump off ropes and bounce off each others bodies like they were inflated with helium. They bang each other over the head with chairs, ironing boards and wear a lot of spandex with socks shoved down the front to stop the women laughing at them.

Sadly, it is (or has become) a global phenomenon. From Wikipedia, the source of truth for everything in the universe…

"It is currently the largest professional wrestling promotion in the world, reaching 13-million viewers in the U.S. and broadcasting its shows in 30 languages to more than 145 countries. It promotes under two brands, known as Raw and SmackDown"

Staggeringly, it generates revenue of half a billion dollars a year. I just about swallowed the entire Heineken bottle when I read this.

At every available moment, my son asks...

"Dad, do you want me to show you a figure four leg lock?"
"No, go away"
"But its really cool"
"No its not"
"It wont hurt"
"Really?"
"That's what your mother said when she booked me in for a vasectomy…"
"What's that"
"Never mind"

In search of any victims, he will plead with his sister or mother to be his guinea pig. Once, in desperation, he asked our Filipino housekeeper if he could practice on her, but she thought he said something else, and she promptly ran into her room and locked the door.

Wisely, we have forbidden him to use his sister as a crash test dummy for his latest moves. Not because we think he might hurt our beloved second child, but because the small human has a scream on her which could shatter glass. In Malaysia.

Finally, after hours of begging, I gave in and said, fine, show me what you've got.

Figure four leg-lock my a$$

Because I weigh twice as much as my son, I thought I would be kind and lie down to give him a chance. Seconds later, I'm looking at my own testicles, with one leg beside my ear. The room was filled with a blood curdling scream. Which would have been ok, bar for the fact that the scream was emanating from my own mouth. It was horrific.

Howls of laughter ensued by my unsympathetic wife and daughter. And a look of almost pride and a sense of accomplishment by number one son. Even the cat was snickering at the amusement of it all.

When I managed to get off the floor, I told the child that if he ever pulled a stunt like that again, I would see to it that he never saw his twelfth birthday.

But this WWE stuff became on obsession with our first born. He would watch it morning, day and night. Every cent of his allowance was spent on these silly videos.

And he took to attacking me at every opportune moment.

Do you remember those classic Pink Panther movies? You know the ones with Peter Sellers and his trusty man-servant Cato. Sellers would instruct Cato to attack him anytime, anywhere. No matter what he said at the time. Well, my idiot son has turned into a mini-version of this half-crazed oriental attacking ninja.

Thankfully, I can still get a few punches in. Sometimes they connect, which causes the boy to redouble his efforts.

Anyway, where were we? Right, HKG. I almost forgot.

So we land in the worlds most vertical city and catch the airport express to Kowloon. Son complains bitterly at the whole public transport thing. Trust me I tell him. "You try telling a Cantonese cab driver that you want to go to the Hyatt Regency in Tsim Sha Tsui". I can promise you that your Cantonese will be about as good as his English and unless you don't want to end up in the New Territories you should stick with your old man.

He begrudgingly agrees.

Then came time for deciding what exactly we should do while we in the city which literally means "fragrant harbor". Before I could engage in a conversation with the small human, he's waving both arms in horror as he can't seem to find the DVD player in the room.

"Stiff", I say
"There isn't one. You'll have to watch TV"
He is appalled. Acts like someone has cut off his oxygen supply
"But I bought all my WWE videos" he pleads
I roll my eyes.

Within minutes, he's scouring the hotel directory. A scream of glee when he finds the bit about the hotel being able to provide DVD players. He's on the phone quicker than a phone company telemarketer out of the Philippines and is barking instructions to the hapless Hyatt operator that it is a matter of life and death and that the DVD player is to be delivered as quickly as possible.

Money is no object he yells. Except for the fact that he is all of eleven. And to him, money comes out of an ATM. Or my pocket.

He hangs up with the words "Hurry. Quicker"

So he sits there for the next few hours while I attempt to do some work. I insist that he is not going to sit in a hotel room watching moronic videos all day and night of men in spandex pretending to beat each other up.

I start throwing suggestions to him…

"What about Disneyland?" I exclaim
"Nope" he grunts
"What about we go shopping?"
"What for?"
"Anything"
"Like what?"

Then I remember the nice man at reception telling us about a place called Ocean Park. It is a theme park. With lots or rides. Perfect for prepubescent males. And their fathers.

His eyebrows start to raise, just slightly.

"Then what about Ocean Park?"
"Ok"
"So you'll go?"
"Yes"

He grabs an iPad thingy and looks it up for himself. Slowly, the becomes more and more interested. So minutes later, he has me on their website booking tickets because he decided in all of 5 milliseconds that it would be best if we got there at sparrows (an Aussie saying meaning "when the birds get up")

Or something like that.

I start to humor him

Look, it says on the website that you can catch a bus.

He turns and gives me the bird
"So I take it from that - that a bus is out?"
"Yes"
"Ok, what about the train?"
"Dad, stop being a loser, were taking a cab"

The next morning, we wake to a cloud filled sky and that Asian drizzle. It doesn't look good. Son is unperturbed by the inclement weather and decides that we should set off as early as we can. Much to my dismay. I had glanced at the Ocean Park website the night before and sadly discovered that there were 4 roller-coasters. Number one son was insisting that I go on everyone with him. To be honest, I would have been happy to sit in a bar and drink and waved through the window.

Anyway.

We get there and there is not a soul in sight. I felt like Chevy Chase in one of those silly Griswold family vacation movies, where he takes his long suffering wife and kids to something called Wally's World, only to arrive and the place is shut.

But sadly, and as my luck would have it, it wasn't shut at all. We were just there before the gates opened. As soon as the staff rolled up and let us though, we set off on what seemed like a 5-mile hike to get to where all the rides were. For those of you who haven't been there before, this place is huge. By any standards. Not to mention the fact that it is carved out into a hill in the middle of Hong Kong. Well not the middle. But you get the idea.

Son insists on going on something called the Hair Raiser. It's a newish looking roller-coaster where you sit in normally, and these rather alarming looking claw type bars come down on top of you, on top of which, they buckle it further with a seat-belt. It is there for the illusion of safety.

Because we were the first ones there, we were also the only ones on the ride. As in only 2 of us. My foolish child insists we sit at the very front. The ride attendants just smile and pretend not to speak english. I swear I thought I heard one of them say to the other something about putting the ride in test mode.

To an 11-year old, pulling 4G's (or being subjected to I should say) is kids play. But for an old, tired fuselage like mine, it was agonizing. I actually screamed like a girl for the entire time I was on the thing. Number one son laughed hysterically. See, I'll even show you a picture as proof that I don't make all this stuff up.

[

I staggered off the thing, hurling abuse at the ride operator and hoping that he was struck by lightening quite soon. Am then dragged off to another ride, which was worse, because it was where your feet dangled and you literally felt like you were being hurled through the air. After about an hour of going on aptly named attractions such as The Flash, The Mine Train, and The Raging River, I felt like puking.

I thought the Raging River was going to be one of those gentle, water type rides, where you were gently carried along the man made canals in a faux canoe. No such luck. Like all of these damn things it starts out calmly. Then all of a sudden, you find yourself going vertical at an alarming rate of knots. Then the sun disappears, you black out and hurtle towards the bottom. See, like this.



Son then says, oh look we should go on this ride, called The Abyss.

Now call me old fashioned, but I kind of think that amusement parks should provide exactly what is says on the box. Which is amusement. Not terror and fear.

The Abyss. Good lord. It's one of those things which you strap yourself in and the smiling ride operator wishes you a nice time. The seating part is attached to a hydraulic ram which raises you up in the air. It does this all relatively calmly. Until it gets to the top which feels like 400-feet from the ground. Then without warning, it drops like a friggin' stone. My underwear got sucked into my spleen. Yet again, more screams of terror. From me. And again we were the only ones of the silly thing. When it finished, I had body fluids seeping out of every opening in my body. I was trying to reach for my son to perform a Homer choke on him but he yelled to the moron controlling the thing to "do it again" but to give it the beans this time.

At this point, I think I had a little cry.

In fact, I know I did.

By noon, we were both spent. I could hardly walk. My walnuts were still stuck to the insides of my eardrums, my neck was killing me and I was walking like John Wayne. After a prostate exam.

It wasn't pretty. I demanded that we go home. To the quiet sanctuary of the Hyatt. And beer.

Which brings me neatly to the actual end of this story. School holidays. Don't start me.

Safe travels.