For the most observant of you, you will notice Easter was, like, months ago. Well, let's imagine for a second that we travel back in time and we are still in March, and I've just come back from the Easter week end, m'kay? Soooooo, "LAST" week end was fab, I sampled at last the Great City, the Great Palace, the Great Wall, the Great Food. Yes, I was in the beautiful city of Beijing, on a week end trip with Linda, an equally adventurous HK friend whose memory proved to be a life saver, as you will discover later on in [View Full Entry]

---

---

This morning Hong Kong woke up to some unusual news: all the schools in the country had shut down, following the death of three children, apparently from the flu. The reassuring thing is that it's normal for flu to cause fatalities and we are told there is nothing to worry about (in 2003-2004 about 160 under-18 year olds died of flu in the US, which means the numbers here are not disproportional, though personnally I still find that shocking to hear in our day and age the standard flu can still kill). The schools were closed in order to limit the [View Full Entry]

---

---

An old Chinese proverb says : For Chinese New Year you should head off to Macau for a Police concert. Well who am I to resist the tradition? I thus spent a couple of days in Macau, which is a small group of islands an hour away from HK, by ferry ride. If you are super posh you can also go there by helicopter, which is super fast and glamourous (given my already glamourous life in HK I felt it was time to do things a bit more normally). Macau used to be a Portuguese colony and you can still see [View Full Entry]

---

---

Good news for those of use who have had trouble sticking to the new year resolutions: it's New Year time again, but this time, it's Chinese new year! The preparations for the event are in full swing in HK. We get two days off next week, people are decorating the streets, offices, homes. It's tradition to eat something sweet (to ensure a sweet year to come) so you get huge displays of chocolates and cakes in the shops which suits people like me just fine.. A few things I've learned about the new year: - It's the most important of traditional [View Full Entry]

---

---

WANTED: A tall 90-floor tower. Usually found on the waterfront in Hong Kong. If anyone has any information on its whereabouts please contact us. So basically the sun has not been shining that much (and it's cold) and on some days when I wake up I can't see the IFC2 tower which is just in front of my bedroom window, and usually quite unmissable. And it's cold! Did I mention it's cold? :) [View Full Entry]

---

---

Incredibly, I have been quite good at sticking to my New Year's Resolution number 543: Go Hiking And Exploring Hong Kong More. Excluding last week end (which has been miserable weather wise) I spent the last three week ends sauntering about up in the mountains of Hong Kong. Actually let me requalify that, it's more like panting, dragging myself over the mountains of Hong Kong. But the effort is worth it! In under an hour's transport time you can be somewhere very exotic away from the madding crowd. You can be standing on top of a green hill gazing into the [View Full Entry]

---

---

My mind is buzzing with the excitement of learning a new language: Cantonese! We had our first lesson this week with my colleagues. The teacher is a little bit unconventional because she is... Norwegian! Yes a little bit unusual you might say but actually it makes perfect sense. Who better than a foreigner can understand how difficult it is to learn a language? She has been living here for 18 years and according to a mutual friend her Cantonese (and Mandarin) is excellent. For anyone interested in fun and good Canto classes in HK here is the link: http://www.happyjellyfish.com/ A basic [View Full Entry]

---

---

Ok so these are the sausages I got served in a restaurant the other night. The thing that puzzles me is: what on earth is the bone doing in the middle of it? Are they really trying to make anyone believe sausages grow on animals, a bit like a chicken drums? And if yes, what sort of animal is it supposed to be?? [View Full Entry]

---

---

This is it, 2007 has come to an end. It's been a year full of changes and travels. In the past 12 months I have visited: Brunei Cambodia China France Hong Kong India Japan Laos Malaysia Singapore Thailand The UK Vietnam Visited is a big word for some of these as sometimes it's been more like passing through. At the moment no forecasts yet on wether 2008 will be as active. On some level maybe for the size of my carbon footprint it's better to keep the travelling a little more local! On Dec 31 the New Year's partying took place [View Full Entry]

---

---

Christmas in a warm climate. Now that is something I want to do again and again and again. Last week for Christmas I flew myself away to Vietnam, to the lovely city of Saigon, also known as Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh was one of the founding fathers of communism in the country and the party decided to rename Saigon after his name in order for all to remember him. Vietnam is indeed one of the 5 communist countries in the world, and I guess you can tell so by the number of red flags flying around, as well [View Full Entry]

---

---