Hello everyone,
I hope that you all had a wonderful 2006. Having spoken with a number of people, I know that many people had an interesting year, some good and others not so good.
For me, I probably had one of the most interesting years of my life. As many of you know, I lived in Hong Kong for the whole year. I originally went to Hong Kong not knowing how long I would stay there, but thinking that I might last two or three months before coming home. Little did I know that I was going to love the place and stay there.
Some of you might remember that I didn't fly for many years prior to 2006 due to a flying phobia. As I have written about in a previous blog, my fear of flying seems to have been relieved from me in the middle of 2005 and in November 2005 I went for my first flight for many years and spent a week in Singapore. Shortly after that, in December 2005, I went to Hong Kong and basically, I have been living there ever since.
I feel myself very fortunate to have two homes at the present time. One in Melbourne Australia, and the other a luxury apartment on the 15th floor of a residential tower that sits on new reclaimed land on a peninsula that juts out into Victoria Harbour in West Kowloon. It is just one station away from central Hong Kong under the Harbour.
Some people have asked me why I went to live in Hong Kong. There are many reasons and the main one that I am happy to mention is that I needed a rest after many years of having an interesting life which included a relationship that ended two years ago that affected my emotions at a deep level.
With reference to my travels since I have been able to leave Australia, I am delighted to say that I have been to Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Japan and mainland China in the past months. Some of these places I have been to many times including mainland China that I visited 18 times during 2006. I would have to say that the best time I spent in the whole of 2006 was when I had the opportunity to visit Japan and spend time there looking at temples, shrines and castles while gathering information for a book that I'm writing.
I have been privileged to have immersed myself in the cultures of other countries and learn a lot about people and their history. As many of you know it was always a dream of mine to visit Asia. Little did I know that I would have the great fortune to live there and experience the culture first hand and love the experience.
Whilst living in Hong Kong I have made many friends. Whilst some of these people are Caucasians from the West, most of my Hong Kong friends are either Chinese or Japanese and are absolutely wonderful people. Of course, I have been able to retain most of my friends here in Australia as well and I am fortunate to be in contact with them either by telephone, e-mail or face-to-face when I'm in Australia.
With reference to my business, I must thank Bob, Michael and Melissa as well as the inspectors for all their wonderful efforts during 2006 in keeping our business growing and making good progress. As a suggestion to any business owners out there that might read this, if you want your business to be a success, get great people like the ones that work with me. Michael left in the latter part of the year and we were pleased to welcome John on board shortly after and look forward to a bumper 2007. Whilst I was in Australia in December 2006, we were presented with an opportunity in Asia. We are currently in the process of setting up our Hong Kong office and look forward to a positive future there as well.
My children and Dylan and Alana both continue to develop as young adults. Dylan commenced his own business in 2006. He took an idea and developed this idea, learnt about business and then started his business. The name of his businesses Playstation Xtreme. His business supplies accessories for PlayStation's and similar consoles as well is doing repairs. Although in its fledgeling year, I am quite proud of him for having a go and becoming self-supporting. Alana also did well this year and passed her final exams and became qualified in event management. She is currently waiting on offers from universities to commence a degree and continue her studies. I am extremely pleased at the way that my children are growing up into responsible young adults.
While I was living in Hong Kong, I decided to do a lot of things that I wanted to do for many years. One of the things that I have always wanted to do is to write a novel and that's exactly what I did during 2006. My novel is called "The Survivalist" is in excess of 58,000 words long and tells the story of a 17 year old street kid and trouble that she gets into. It also tells the story of a counsellor named Jack who helps her and by helping her resolve some of his own problems. I am currently in the phase of doing the final editing and rewriting of some of my story and it should be finished by mid-January 2007. I already have another story under way called "Heavens Above" but,....... that's another story............
Musically I continued to compose and write songs and put them on my web site for public comment and/or criticism. I was also able to do some musical performances in Hong Kong and they were extremely enjoyable. When in Australia during my three visits in 2006 I was able to play with the three bands that I perform in, Kool Change (formerly Audio Assassins), Loose Connections and the Screaming Teabags. The latter band ended during 2006 and some of the members including myself am now in a new type 3 piece band called Trick Question. In this band I not only play guitar, slide guitar and sing, but also play bass guitar in some of the songs. It was quite challenging learning the bass guitar and I have found it a lot of fun.
On a sad note, my little friend of 15 years, my constant companion, and sometimes the biggest pain in my butt, Stussy the Incredibly Amazing Wondercat died in the latter part of the year after being hit by a car out the front of my house in Melbourne. If you read the previous blog to this entry you will be able to read the story of this amazing little cat. Suffice to say here that there are not enough words in the English language for me to express my appreciation to my little friend for the joy she brought me.
Another low note that occurred during the year was some trouble brought upon me from a previous relationship. Unfortunately, I had to attend a court case in December in Melbourne. I had heard about the legal proceedings way back in February and the thought of the upcoming court case hung over my head like a great cloud during the whole of 2006. Although, to be honest, I didn't care less about the outcome of the court case, whether that be jail or a huge fine or whatever, because I thought it was all a farce and that I had nothing to answer for, all I wanted was for some equality and fairness to be exercised in the courtroom by the judge. The problem that I had was that I wasn't guilty of what I had been accused of doing, but I was guilty of doing one thing that I believed was the right thing to do. Essentially, I got myself into trouble by doing something morally right that was legally wrong. I'm delighted to report that when I went to the court case, I decided to represent myself as my own lawyer because I didn't want lawyers to stuff things up with all their legal mumbo-jumbo. The judge listened to the accusations, invited me to tell my side of the story, restored a balance to what I considered was a previously one-sided affair, made a comment that the whole thing was ridiculous and brought the case to a satisfactory conclusion while restoring my faith in the Australian legal system. To the judge, if you ever get the opportunity to read this, thank you for your sense of fairness and for seeing through all the bullshit that have been conjured up along the way. To the person who made the original complaint, I don't resent you, I wish you well, and I hope that you are able to eventually resolve the emotional issues that brought you to do this thing to me.
On a relationship front, yes, there has been some activity and I'm looking forward to a brilliant future in that area of my life. I am not going to write anything about that here because in the past I have been reasonably open about relationship issues and I have decided that I would much prefer that they remain private and between myself and the other person involved. I will say though that one of my goals in life is to be able to get married again and potentially be married for many years. Keep watching this space for an update............... you might be surprised what happens this year..................
So, this ends my "Reflections Of 2006". Although there were some things that I would have preferred didn't happen such as Stuss's death and the court case, 2006 was an absolutely brilliant year. I have been able to do many things I have wanted to for a long time. I have travelled, I have lived overseas, experienced different cultures and their people, made many friends, developed my business, I have written a novel, and composed and performed music. The future looks bright and promising and I'm looking forward to the future where before perhaps I might not have been.
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog. I know that I haven't made too many entries to my blog site in the latter part of 2006 and I will try to win proves that in 2007. I hope that you all have a wonderful 2007 and, to all my good friends, I hope to catch up with you all again very soon.
Best wishes,
Alan
