Tales of Asia - Part 4 - Posted April 06
Hello to all my good freinds (and even the not so good ones!),
Firstly, just a quick message of apology to all those people who have sent me emails over the last few weeks and to whom I have not responded yet. I hope that I will be able to get around to responding to you personally over the next few days.
In the meantime, please find below "Tales from Asia - Part 4 - Lost in Hong Kong". I hope that you find it interesting.
Note; Keeping in mind that some people are very busy, please feel free to use the "Delete" button on your computer if you do not have time to read it. I will not be offended. Also, some of you may be wondering why I sent you a message. I just thought that you might like to know what I've been doing for the past 4 months, but if you do not wish to receive messages please just drop me a line and let me know and I will take you off the circulation list. I will not feel offended. Similarly, if you do like receiving my Tales of Asia stories, it would be nice to know that too.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been up to Shenzhen in mainland China a couple of times. I think that the last time was my seventh visit there at that time as I have had freinds from Australia visiting with me and we went there. Many Hong Kong people go there to shop as it is very cheap and there is many a bargain to be had if you have good negotiation skills.
Some of you may not know that on a recent trip to Shenzhen, trip number four I think, the day proceeded very well up on till the time that I went to my favourite " beauty parlour" where both men and women can have back and foot massages, manicures and pedicures, eyebrow tinting (hopefully only for the women!) etc etc. As I always like a foot massage from this place I sat down and soon the young guy who was the masseur commenced his work. I learnt later that he decided that he needed to use extra effort on the Gwai Loh (white ghost) as we are typically bigger than our Asian counterparts. Anyway, he made a one quite violent manoeuvre and, although I didn't feel it very much at the time, I learnt later that I had some substantial damage in my foot. The next day and it was quite painful to walk, and the next day almost impossible. I went to the doctor to find out that I had a broken foot and had shredded some tendons where the foot bones join the toe bones. Luckily for me, I did not need to wear an enclosed boot and use crutches but was unable to simply strap up my foot and hobble around for a while. Things needed to improve in my walking abilities quickly after that as I had two sets of visitors coming from Australia and I needed to be an active tour guide. Fortunately for me my recovery has been reasonably quick even though getting around has taken a little bit longer than usual for a while.
Some of you will know my friend, Peter, ("Peter the Drummer") came to visit me for a week early in March. We had a great week. I had to laugh though when Peter arrived and showed me the contents of his suitcase. I had suggested to him before he left Australia that it would be a good idea to travel light as the shopping here in Hong Kong is extremely good. When Peter arrived the contents of his suitcase included three T-shirts, one pair of shoes and well...........thats all! We later found that he had also forgotten to bring his underpants and we had to whip out and buy some, so it appears that he took my advice literally. When he left, he had so much stuff that he had to kneel on top of his suitcase to get closed enough to lock it. It was such a big effort. A person can buy more than their yearly wardrobe here in Hong Kong for next to nothing in cost.
While Peter was here, I was pleased to be able to take him to Shenzhen and Dongmun on the Chinese mainland, to many parts of Hong Kong, to the members rooms at the Shatin horse races (no, we are not race goers, just an experience), and also to the Hong Kong Ballet to see their version of Suzie Wong, an old Asian tale about the love story between an Asian prostitute and a Western man. The performance was extremely good and I will be going back to see the Hong Kong Ballet in other performances over the next few weeks. I did have to smile though as we had experienced both ends of the cultural spectrum on the same day, that being the horse races and then the Ballet.
A note for any of you who like to go to the movies to see first releases. China and Hong Kong are the copy capitals of the world. Even before the plane had landed with your copies of Brokeback Mountain and other first release movies for your cinemas, I had watched most of them at home on a DVD. Similarly, movies like Firewall, Walk the Line, Flightplan, Underworld Evolution, North Country, Matchstick Men, The Myth, Syriana, The New World and other new movies are being sold in the night markets of Hong Kong while before they are released around the world in some cinemas. It appears that somebody is able to get copies of DVDs that are sent for award evaluation for Oscar nominations and sells them in the black market a long time before they get released for general viewing.
After Peter had left I had three days by myself before my friends Ward and Mandy arrived to spend another week with me. We also had a lovely time and we went to many places in Hong Kong as well as to Shenzhen and Macau. Macau is a one hour high-speed ferry ride and seats just off the coast of mainland China. Macau used to be under the control of the Portuguese but was handed back to Chinese rule a few years ago. Macau is also a wonderful place and has old and new sections. The older section has some wonderful architecture and often is a mix of olden Chinese, period Portuguese, and current day designs. The newer section of Macau is built on reclaimed land from fill that comes from mainland China. Many casinos are built or are being built on this new land as many Chinese like to come and have a gamble. The pace of life in Macau seems to be quite a bit slower than the pace of life in Hong Kong but it is equally appealing. On the day that we went there, we hired the services of a tour guide named Jimmy. Jimmy was absolutely fantastic, very attentive, extremely knowledgeable about Macau and took us to many places of interest including a very old Buddhist temple (see attached pictures), an old Portuguese fort which is now the Macau Museum, antique shops, Christian churches and other places of interest.
It has been a week now since Mandy and Ward went home and I have been busy catching up with other things. On the weekend that they went home to Australia, I had a job here in Hong Kong facilitating some sessions at a seminar on over at Stanley, a village on the other side of Hong Kong Island from the central business district. The sessions I facilitated were similar to sessions that I used to facilitate as a volunteer counsellor trainer in Melbourne and I was pleased to get the help of my Melbourne training partner and good freind Shyama Fuad who was gracious enough to send me some information to help me in the sessions.
Yesterday, I went to Lamma Island. Lamma Island sits just off the coast of Hong Kong Island and is a 30 minute ferry ride from Central Pier. Lamma Island is an incredible place and probably one of Hong Kong's and China's best kept secrets. The whole feel of the place is a mix between a tropical paradise and living somewhere in a exclusive village resort on the coast on the south of France (not that I have been there, but that is what I have been told). Some of the locals on the island have made up the website and for any of you who are interested, here is the link so you can see just what I'm talking about. http://www.lamma.com.hk/ Having been there yesterday, I can understand why some people choose to live on Lamma Island and commute to central Hong Kong each day for work.
Some people have asked me why I like living in Hong Kong. A friend of mine sent me a link to a short video about Hong Kong and it probably shows you much better than I can explain just why I love being here. Here is the link. www.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?SID=4758653 (if it doesnt't work with just clicking on the link, then cut and paste it into your web browser. Its worth it)
I am still in constant contact with my office in Melbourne constantly and things there are going very well there. I have a wonderful bunch of people who have taken the responsibility of looking after the business whilst I take the opportunity to do some business development and work in Hong Kong as well as to have some " Long service leave". It's just great.
Recently I met a lady here who walked up to me on the subway train and asked me if I was an English teacher. I learned that she runs a business teaching English to Chinese people and was looking for additional teachers. When I explained to her that I was not an English teacher but what I was doing here in China, she asked me for some help in her business. For the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of being a business mentor for this lady so that she can not only expand her business, but to also share more quality time with her husband and family, which is a thing that many people here in Hong Kong have in short supply.......... adequate time.
At the end of this month I will be going to Guangzhou. It is a two hour train ride from here and apparently is a great place and also has some health resorts at a reasonable price. I'm also thinking of starting to travel to other Asian places such as Japan, Vietnam and the like.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this instalment of Tales of Asia. To those people who have sent me messages recently and to whom I have not replied, my apologies. I will try to reply to you soon. To those people who think that my Tales of Asia is a bit long, please feel free to hit the "delete" button as I really won't be offended as I know your time is valuable too.
Best wishes to you all, I miss you all heaps.
Alan
Firstly, just a quick message of apology to all those people who have sent me emails over the last few weeks and to whom I have not responded yet. I hope that I will be able to get around to responding to you personally over the next few days.
In the meantime, please find below "Tales from Asia - Part 4 - Lost in Hong Kong". I hope that you find it interesting.
Note; Keeping in mind that some people are very busy, please feel free to use the "Delete" button on your computer if you do not have time to read it. I will not be offended. Also, some of you may be wondering why I sent you a message. I just thought that you might like to know what I've been doing for the past 4 months, but if you do not wish to receive messages please just drop me a line and let me know and I will take you off the circulation list. I will not feel offended. Similarly, if you do like receiving my Tales of Asia stories, it would be nice to know that too.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been up to Shenzhen in mainland China a couple of times. I think that the last time was my seventh visit there at that time as I have had freinds from Australia visiting with me and we went there. Many Hong Kong people go there to shop as it is very cheap and there is many a bargain to be had if you have good negotiation skills.
Some of you may not know that on a recent trip to Shenzhen, trip number four I think, the day proceeded very well up on till the time that I went to my favourite " beauty parlour" where both men and women can have back and foot massages, manicures and pedicures, eyebrow tinting (hopefully only for the women!) etc etc. As I always like a foot massage from this place I sat down and soon the young guy who was the masseur commenced his work. I learnt later that he decided that he needed to use extra effort on the Gwai Loh (white ghost) as we are typically bigger than our Asian counterparts. Anyway, he made a one quite violent manoeuvre and, although I didn't feel it very much at the time, I learnt later that I had some substantial damage in my foot. The next day and it was quite painful to walk, and the next day almost impossible. I went to the doctor to find out that I had a broken foot and had shredded some tendons where the foot bones join the toe bones. Luckily for me, I did not need to wear an enclosed boot and use crutches but was unable to simply strap up my foot and hobble around for a while. Things needed to improve in my walking abilities quickly after that as I had two sets of visitors coming from Australia and I needed to be an active tour guide. Fortunately for me my recovery has been reasonably quick even though getting around has taken a little bit longer than usual for a while.
Some of you will know my friend, Peter, ("Peter the Drummer") came to visit me for a week early in March. We had a great week. I had to laugh though when Peter arrived and showed me the contents of his suitcase. I had suggested to him before he left Australia that it would be a good idea to travel light as the shopping here in Hong Kong is extremely good. When Peter arrived the contents of his suitcase included three T-shirts, one pair of shoes and well...........thats all! We later found that he had also forgotten to bring his underpants and we had to whip out and buy some, so it appears that he took my advice literally. When he left, he had so much stuff that he had to kneel on top of his suitcase to get closed enough to lock it. It was such a big effort. A person can buy more than their yearly wardrobe here in Hong Kong for next to nothing in cost.
While Peter was here, I was pleased to be able to take him to Shenzhen and Dongmun on the Chinese mainland, to many parts of Hong Kong, to the members rooms at the Shatin horse races (no, we are not race goers, just an experience), and also to the Hong Kong Ballet to see their version of Suzie Wong, an old Asian tale about the love story between an Asian prostitute and a Western man. The performance was extremely good and I will be going back to see the Hong Kong Ballet in other performances over the next few weeks. I did have to smile though as we had experienced both ends of the cultural spectrum on the same day, that being the horse races and then the Ballet.
A note for any of you who like to go to the movies to see first releases. China and Hong Kong are the copy capitals of the world. Even before the plane had landed with your copies of Brokeback Mountain and other first release movies for your cinemas, I had watched most of them at home on a DVD. Similarly, movies like Firewall, Walk the Line, Flightplan, Underworld Evolution, North Country, Matchstick Men, The Myth, Syriana, The New World and other new movies are being sold in the night markets of Hong Kong while before they are released around the world in some cinemas. It appears that somebody is able to get copies of DVDs that are sent for award evaluation for Oscar nominations and sells them in the black market a long time before they get released for general viewing.
After Peter had left I had three days by myself before my friends Ward and Mandy arrived to spend another week with me. We also had a lovely time and we went to many places in Hong Kong as well as to Shenzhen and Macau. Macau is a one hour high-speed ferry ride and seats just off the coast of mainland China. Macau used to be under the control of the Portuguese but was handed back to Chinese rule a few years ago. Macau is also a wonderful place and has old and new sections. The older section has some wonderful architecture and often is a mix of olden Chinese, period Portuguese, and current day designs. The newer section of Macau is built on reclaimed land from fill that comes from mainland China. Many casinos are built or are being built on this new land as many Chinese like to come and have a gamble. The pace of life in Macau seems to be quite a bit slower than the pace of life in Hong Kong but it is equally appealing. On the day that we went there, we hired the services of a tour guide named Jimmy. Jimmy was absolutely fantastic, very attentive, extremely knowledgeable about Macau and took us to many places of interest including a very old Buddhist temple (see attached pictures), an old Portuguese fort which is now the Macau Museum, antique shops, Christian churches and other places of interest.
It has been a week now since Mandy and Ward went home and I have been busy catching up with other things. On the weekend that they went home to Australia, I had a job here in Hong Kong facilitating some sessions at a seminar on over at Stanley, a village on the other side of Hong Kong Island from the central business district. The sessions I facilitated were similar to sessions that I used to facilitate as a volunteer counsellor trainer in Melbourne and I was pleased to get the help of my Melbourne training partner and good freind Shyama Fuad who was gracious enough to send me some information to help me in the sessions.
Yesterday, I went to Lamma Island. Lamma Island sits just off the coast of Hong Kong Island and is a 30 minute ferry ride from Central Pier. Lamma Island is an incredible place and probably one of Hong Kong's and China's best kept secrets. The whole feel of the place is a mix between a tropical paradise and living somewhere in a exclusive village resort on the coast on the south of France (not that I have been there, but that is what I have been told). Some of the locals on the island have made up the website and for any of you who are interested, here is the link so you can see just what I'm talking about. http://www.lamma.com.hk/ Having been there yesterday, I can understand why some people choose to live on Lamma Island and commute to central Hong Kong each day for work.
Some people have asked me why I like living in Hong Kong. A friend of mine sent me a link to a short video about Hong Kong and it probably shows you much better than I can explain just why I love being here. Here is the link. www.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?SID=4758653 (if it doesnt't work with just clicking on the link, then cut and paste it into your web browser. Its worth it)
I am still in constant contact with my office in Melbourne constantly and things there are going very well there. I have a wonderful bunch of people who have taken the responsibility of looking after the business whilst I take the opportunity to do some business development and work in Hong Kong as well as to have some " Long service leave". It's just great.
Recently I met a lady here who walked up to me on the subway train and asked me if I was an English teacher. I learned that she runs a business teaching English to Chinese people and was looking for additional teachers. When I explained to her that I was not an English teacher but what I was doing here in China, she asked me for some help in her business. For the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of being a business mentor for this lady so that she can not only expand her business, but to also share more quality time with her husband and family, which is a thing that many people here in Hong Kong have in short supply.......... adequate time.
At the end of this month I will be going to Guangzhou. It is a two hour train ride from here and apparently is a great place and also has some health resorts at a reasonable price. I'm also thinking of starting to travel to other Asian places such as Japan, Vietnam and the like.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this instalment of Tales of Asia. To those people who have sent me messages recently and to whom I have not replied, my apologies. I will try to reply to you soon. To those people who think that my Tales of Asia is a bit long, please feel free to hit the "delete" button as I really won't be offended as I know your time is valuable too.
Best wishes to you all, I miss you all heaps.
Alan
posted by Alan at
12:14 AM
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