because the boy is sleeping...

This is a post by the girlfriend. Because the boyfriend is too busy taking a nap to blog about his own life, I, the girlfriend, will help him.

Christmas morning with the family. He was very happy to spend time with family back home. He's been trying to get the computer set up so he can do this more often. He misses the kids.

"Hi Steven! Hi Peter! Hi Katie!"

This picture was taken just now. As you can see, he is taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon. So lazy!

This is a picture taken on christmas day.


And this is a picture of his christmas present!

christmas dinner!

Yumz. It was good. Homemade turkey. Taters. Stuffing. Some other less important stuff. After dinner we had dessert. In trying to explain what it was in chinese to the tai chi teacher, we apparently decided that we were having chocolate hotpot.

And I'm happy because we finally got the silly webcam going and I could finally see the family a bit. Yes, I'm kind of pathetic. Merry Christmas!

The Amazing Race!

I feel like I just completed an episode of the Amazing race. I had to go up to China again for work. To a place called JingZhou. Which is in Hubei province, and I should really see about putting up some sort of map so I can list where I've been to. At any rate, it's a fairly small town, which in China terms means it's probably bigger than Richmond, but 2 hours to an airport that is maybe the size of the Prince George, or maybe Thunder Bay one.

Getting there was okay. I decided to see how difficult it would be to catch the train to Guangzhou and then fly from there. It was actually not too bad, if you discount the fact that I screwed up and bought a ticket to Donguan instead of Guangzhou so I had to get off the train, clear customs and go buy another train ticket to Guangzhou. But I did that okay.

Getting from my hotel in Guangzhou to the airport the next morning was a bit of an adventure as the taxi driver tried to cheat me but was foiled (Yay me!), then did cheat me (!!!) and then may have cheated me. First he tried to get me to agree to pay 250 RMB for the taxi ride to the airport which should have cost about 100. After that, when I insisted he put on the meter, he drove away from the airport for a while before heading back up to the airport. There wasn't really much I could do at that point though, as getting out on the highway doing 120km/h wasn't really an option and when I kept insisting on the airport, he'd point at signs saying we were going to the airport expressway. Keep in mind that Guangzhou has a ring system of highways, so you're always going towards the airport expressway, even if you're going away from the airport itself. Finally, when I paid, he gave me back 100RMB and said it was no good and asked me for a different one. It wasn't until after that I realized it wasn't the one I gave him. I asked my colleague if it was counterfeit later, and he thinks it might be okay, just very old. I don't know though. We'll see at some point.

The work itself was pretty uneventful, with things going as they should, so fast forward to when I'm coming home.

We leave the hotel and get into a taxi. It's a little overcast, but it's still super early, and other than that, the weather is fine. As we leave town, it gets foggier and foggier. I imagine there's a good scientific reason for it, like concentrations of people generate more heat and therefore less fog, but in all honestly it felt like the plot of some bad video game: The evil wizard Melifliron has cast a horrible curse upon the land, blanketing the area in an impenetrable fog through which hideous beasts are running rampant! Villages have been able to stave off this magical fog, but you intrepid hero, must venture forth, find the source and stop it!

So, what with the evil cursed fog, we got to the toll gate at the highway and found that it was closed. So we start going along through the side streets, the fog receding every time we pass through a major settlement. After 2 hours of this we finally get to the airport. 20 minutes late for our plane. I should add that the airport was perfectly clear. Blue skies. Nice and sunny. No fog.

After some consulting, we realize that the next plane to Guangzhou is 36 hours later. So, that's probably not something we want to sit around waiting for. We could try and catch a plane to Shenzen that night, but a better option is probably to head to a larger city (Wuhan) and then try to catch a flight from there. So we head into town to the bus station and catch a bus to Wuhan. It was only slightly ironic that the bus ran along the highway that was closed earlier, and we went past JingZhou where we started in the first place.

4 hours of a bus ride later, we get to Wuhan where we get in a car to take us to the airport. I honestly don't know what to say about that ride. The part through the city was fairly standard, but as we got near to the airport we started going through these really narrow back street roads and such. Like barely wide enough to pass two cars, so when we were passing delivery trucks, it was a bit hairy.

We got to the Wuhan airport with 30 minutes to go to catch the flight to Guangzhou, and everything after that is kind of anti-climactic. The flight, taxi, train and then taxi to my door was totally uneventful.

But all told, that was:

8-10am - taxi
11am-12pm - bus station
12pm-4pm - bus
4pm-6pm - car to airport
6-8 plane
8-9 taxi
9-11 train

And I got home sometime around midnight. I'm just flying direct next time.

I miss the kids

I was talking with Mom today and she was telling me about the kids. It's not really a surprise to me that Katy doesn't like her quiet "princess voice" and likes her "witch voice" better. This is the same kid who was walking through the airport screaming about how she's pretty like her mama after all.

I suppose it is bad that I'm all happy that Katy is apparently missing me and wanting me to come home. It's definitely a nice change from when I first started visiting her and she'd burst out crying every time I walked into the room. I miss the boys and their incessant chatter about the MMO that they want to design - not together mind you, they each want to make their own. I miss Katy, and her constant demands that I go downstairs and play computer. It's definitely different coming home to the empty house instead of coming home to the bustle of the kids.

On a work note, I'm in China again. Solving problems makes for a good job, and I solved the one that had been plaguing the system for like 4 months. It took me like 3 hours of poking around on the system, but it's good that I was there, because there is almost zero chance that I would have solved it if I were in Vancouver (off site). Yes, I'm very proud that i figured it out =)

Christmas

Yes, the missus and I put up our Christmas tree on the weekend. It's kind of weird doing that when it's still warm enough outside that I'm not wearing a jacket (though apparently it's cold enough for down jackets for the locals). I can't imagine what it would be like if I were in somewhere like Australia where it's the middle of summer now.

I actually realized that this is the first time I've put up a tree since I moved out the first time. I never did it while I lived on my own, and I don't really remember ever helping out at Jen's place. It's nice. Just one more thing to make it feel like this is actually home. Of course, going shopping for furniture that day also helped. I can't wait until we go ahead and get the new couch. Somewhere to nap on after work will be awesome!

Stupid news

I was going to talk about how D and I made some ice cream sandwiches last night. Fresh oatmeal cookies that I made around homemade ice cream that she made. But then I started reading the news this morning and saw an article on cbc about how jurors in the pickton trial can possibly be facing stress and stuff after the trial.

No shit. What do they expect? You sit there for a couple months listening to the exact details, or at least as much as has been allowed in court, of something pretty damn disturbing for a couple of months, and of course it's going to affect you. And then after you finish, and the publication bans lift and they print all the stuff that were potential factors, and you almost feel betrayed that they didn't give you the full information in the first place.

Anyways, yeah. It kind of struck a nerve, for obvious reasons. I've refused to ever go to Alouette Lake.

Pictures!

Some random pictures that I've taken and either wanted to share or - well, no. They're all random pictures that I've taken and wanted to share.

I'm not quite sure how to caption things properly in HTML, so this may not work out all that well. If you're reading this and know how to do that, please post sos I can learn.





Anyways, the first picture is a sign that has been up in Hong Kong for quite a while and I keep wanting to get a picture of it. It shows the way to Disneyland HK. Because you know, we need to funnel people on the way to the airport into tourist trap attractions.

Hmm, maybe I'll put up the rest of the pictures later once I host them properly.

I drove into town today. All by my lonesome. The parallel parking on the wrong side felt kind of strange, but I did it. Today, I became a man.

I am lazy.

Either I'm lazy, or I haven't figured out the best way to get my pictures off of my phone yet. And if it's the second, I'm too ashamed to admit it so I'm going to go with me just being lazy.

There's actually a whole series of pictures I want to do, mostly involving bad chinglish. So I definitely have to start getting those pictures up.

Nothing else is exceedingly exciting right now. Hockey is going on strong. We've now won 2 in a row! Of course, I was in Japan for one of them. And Tai Chi is right now at the part that I find really interesting. It's starting to get to the point where it requires strength and flexibility as we're doing things standing on one leg, and basically doing leg extensions and turning on them and stuff.

After the last lesson, I went for dinner with Darmita, the tai chi teacher and the tai chi teaching assistant. We went for hotpot, and it was really good. The soup base was super spicy and I have pictures of it for when I figure out how to get pictures off my camers get off my lazy ass and upload them. The base had chilis floating around in the soup, and so much chili oil that my bowl i was eating in was filled with congealed oil after it cooled off. And that's from not even taking any soup.

It was good though. It gave me an excuse to have a beer and Darmita informed me that it was actually healthy to drink beer. I'm going to have to remember that one. See, I wasn't lying when I told you about the barley theory mom!

Japan is, er, interesting.

I flew out from Hong Kong on last Saturday for my first work trip based out of Hong Kong. Yay for getting busy finally. The work itself was fairly boring, but that's how things should be when the job is going well.

Before I left HK, I had looked at the weather report (after much prompting by Darmita) and it confirmed my guess that it would be about 10C in Tokyo and Sendai where I would be working. I packed appropriate clothes but the suitcase I had was a little bit too big, so I added in some bulkier clothes just to take up space in the suitcase. Good thing I did.

When I get to Tokyo, the weather was okay, if a little cold. But the next day when we took the train up to Ichinoseki, we got out of the train and it started snowing. So much for 10C. On the plus side, I was able to take some nifty pictures with my new phone, so I can see how they turned out. And if I figure out how to post pictures to blogspot, you can too!

Of course, this was an indication of how the whole trip would go. Keep in mind that mill shutdowns in Japan mean the entire mill is shutdown. This includes the power boiler, so where you'd normally have steam keeping the mill warm, when it is zero degrees outside during a shutdown, it's zero degrees inside the machine room too. Three days of this in Ichinoseki, where we were working with setting up computers and wiring and such was not the most fun thing. Trying to do precise work with mostly numb fingers is not fun.

After Ichinoseki, I went further north to Ishinomaki, which is where I went on my very first trip to Japan, for only one day of work. And as Kumagai-san said to me, it snowed the last time I was there too. Maybe Darmita's assertion that I bring bad weather is true.

After we finished up in Ishinomaki, we started to drive to Sendai, only to slow down in dismay at the big flashing X on the approach to the highway indicating the highway was closed (due to the blowing snow). Luckily, when we got closer, we realized that it was for the OTHER direction that the highway went, so we were able to get to Sendai okay.

On the way there, Kumagai-san said that he would like to go out for karaoke, so I said sure. Then he goes, karaoke with beautiful girls, and i said, um, okay. We get to Sendai, check into the hotel and go to our rooms to get cleaned up a bit, as we had been working in a coating kitchen, which meant we were covered in crusty powder.

When I come back downstairs, I see him flipping through a nightclub brochure for Sendai, and he tells me he has decided where we will go. With that, we walk over to the train station to buy my train ticket to Tokyo the next day. We eat the local specialty which was cow tongue grilled and served spiced depending on the restaurant. This wasn't that good, or the pieces I had were bad or something, because it was supposed to be soft and tender, and mine was very chewy. I imagine it was probably a not so good restaurant since we were eating inside the train station.

After we finish dinner, we go to catch a cab to the karaoke bar where we go upstairs and he shows me into the bar where I look around and realize that this probably isn't my definition of a karaoke bar. Girls sitting around in slinky dresses, and I realize that he has brought me to a hostess bar instead. I think Kumagai-san notices the puzzled look on my face and he goes, "sorry, no karaoke here!"

We sat down, two girls came to sit with us to pour our drinks and engage in conversation, but perhaps my enjoyment of the whole experience was lessened since neither of them could speak english very well. I ended up sitting there for most of the night watching Kumagai-san mack on some random women while I drank myself into a half-stupor. Since I didn't want to get particularly drunk in that sort of area. On the plus side, I got to try out Sujo, which I was told is a Korean rice liquor, or maybe it is also popular in Korea as well as Japan. As I said earlier, there were some pretty serious communication problems.

It was interesting, if a bit depressing. I guess that's a cultural bias coming through, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. It just felt wrong to be paying for people to sit there and talk with you. Well, that and the fact that the girls there didn't look so much pretty or attractive to me, but bored - no, that's not the word for it. More weary, or something. I don't really know how to explain it. They didn't appear genuine I guess. Anyways, it wasn't particularly endearing, and I don't think I'd want to repeat the experience if it was offered again.

I did find it particularly amusing that one of the girls that sat down with us at one point introduced herself to us as "Aho". I guess it is wrong of me to be giggling about that, but there you go.

At the end of the night, Kumagai-san asked me if my girlfriend would be angry, and I was like, I dunno... we'll find out! I'll probably be sleeping on the floor when I get home.

A big win!

My hockey team won it's first game last night. 4-3. With their 3 goals being scored (2 of them) and set up (the other one) by someone that seems to play in every game, because I've played against Frankie in the last 3 weeks. It's kind of weird being part of such a small hockey circle that you see the same people every week, but I suppose it's not a particularly bad thing. It makes me feel kind of bad when I start getting a little greasy in front of the net or give guys little shots after the whistle for digging at our goalie.

It's also really weird getting adjusted to different people and their styles of play. I haven't had a steady defensive partner so far, and you have to get used to the little things that each player does. Who will just ring it around the boards, who will hang back and give you support when you're rushing the puck, not to mention which forwards will stay low for an easy outlet, which ones will help cover defensively, look out for their pointman or help out with the center.

Apart from the hockey, I've got my new computer and managed to run cables through the wall to give myself the interweb. I felt very geeky as I crimped the RJ45 cable back together after I had cut it to fit the wire through the small hole in the wall. Geeky in a good way. Like how I imagine some people feel when they use power tools.

And I got me some new geeky toys too. I got an iPod Touch, which is basically the same thing as an iPhone minus the phone. A 16GB 3.5" widescreen iPod, with motion sensing so it detects which way you're holding it and makes the text the correct way. The cool thing is it's pretty easy to load in the videos, which is the main reason I wanted it. It's a super small form factor video player for me right now, which comes in especially handy when I'm travelling. Now I just have to find a nice dvd ripper program so I can avoid having the big "evaluation version" watermark in the middle of everything that I rip.

And I also got my new phone. If you want the number, get ahold of me on MSN, because it should also always be on MSN. I got one of those fancy data access plans so I can send MSN messages from the phone, which means it should always be fairly easy to get ahold of me. At any rate, it should save on some of the long distance if I'm not at home. And it's got a GPS, which hasn't seemed to manage to find itself yet, but I haven't left it on for very long for the most part. I'll leave it on for a while tonight and see if it can start working better.

I'm heading out to Japan on Saturday, to go visit three mills. One of them is to help out with the installation and start up of some new equipment and the other two are to help out with some troubleshooting. I'll have a Saturday free in Tokyo though, so I need to figure out what sort of goodies I need to pick up for people.

And no, before you ask, I'm not visiting one of those vending machines for you.

Hong Kong > Batman

It's pretty big news in Hong Kong, but I'm not sure how it plays out in Vancouver. Anyways, they're filming part of the next batman series in hong kong right now. Apparently they were supposed to have a scene where batman jumps out of a plane into the harbour.

Well, apparently batman is a whee girly man, because they decided that pollution was too bad in the harbour for them to carry on with that scene. Wuss.

Rubbin's racing!

I really wish I was into Nascar so I could give a reason why I agree with that slogan. Unfortunately, I think nascar is stupid, so it's not a good excuse for me. Because yes, you guessed it, I've started driving in Hong Kong. If you're here, go ahead and get all the get off the sidewalk jokes out of the way now.

You'd think that after 16 years of driving that it wouldn't be hard, but it feels very, very, very different to drive on the left hand side of the road. All of the habits that you have suddenly become wrong. You reach for the gear shift in the wrong location, you can't find the handbrake. It's like the first time you drive an automatic after a long time of driving a stick-shift and how you frantically try to find the clutch. Except ten times worse.

And it doesn't help that you're driving along, you turn onto the main road off the side street and the first thing that happens is you get pulled over by a cop. Yes. That sucked. Sitting there for 5 minutes while they peer at every single page in my passport, and look at my canadian driver's license was kind of nerve wracking. I was glad I knew what he was talking about when he poked his head into the car and asked in broken english what the class 5 and 6 on my driver's license meant.

So with that fun encounter behind us, we continued on into town, did our shopping and went home. Keep in mind that I had Darmita beside me telling me that I was going to have to pay a penalty for everytime I hit the curb, because that is something that she claims all North American drivers do when they move to HK, and of course, I told her that I wouldn't.

And I made it right to about 100m from home, on the tiny little sidestreet when we're cruising along and there's that raspberry of the car wheel rubbing up against the curb. Darnit. Oh well. Maybe next time, Gadget. Next time.

Feel the chi... FEEL IT!

Yes, as some of you guys know I've taken up tai-chi. And no, I'm not out in the park at sunrise with the old ladies practicing. It's quite interesting so far, which is the part that is supposed to be less fun, where we learn to relax (loosen up baby!) and learn the movements for later when we actually are supposed to learn to feel the chi. It's basically learning the movements and such for an especially long kata if you did karate.

Though, I wasn't very smart about it when I started. Knowing I had a 4 hour tai chi lesson later that day, I went to the gym downstairs and did the free trial day. Probably not the brightest idea, but I really wanted to see the facilities and how busy it would be in the approximate time that I'd be using it. For the record, the answer was decent, nothing to write home about but pretty clean and REALLY quiet, like only 10-20 people in there. So if you're ever thinking about starting tai chi, my advice to you is not to have a 40 minute run earlier in the day. Bad. Bad. Idea. Or at least be in a lot better shape than I am right now.

I actually don't know what the chi is supposed to feel like, since well, I can't understand Teacher. Which isn't that big a deal, because it sounds like more than me can't understand because he speaks mandarin in the class. Of course, I also can't understand the assistant teachers when they speak cantonese, but I have two or three people who are helping to translate for me, which is super awesome of them, and I really appreciate it if you're one of those people looking at this. I was telling Darmita the other day that I thought I could feel tingling in my hands and my fingers were getting all swollen, which she says is kind of the beginning of maybe feeling chi, but it could also be that i was swinging my hands around, or maybe I'm just getting fat fingers. At any rate, I'm not sure it was chi I was starting to feel, but I'm going to say it was because then I feel like I've accomplished something!

I'm slowly picking up cantonese words, mostly the ones that I think are fun to say, like si-to-be-le, and chu-go-lik. Actually, I think all of the words that I've learned have to do with food, because that's the easiest thing to learn when you sit down and go, what's this? And going with my above theme of getting fat, there's a lot of food being eaten, even muck pay. I should start titleing every post with a word and it's translation so I can learn at least a word a day.


I was also attempting to fill out some forms I found on the Canadian embassy website. The one where they say to register with the embassy in case something bad happens so they can alert everyone you know, like a piano falling out of a 37th floor window, landing on the street in front of you causing you to jump backwards, bop your head on a lamp post and forget who you are.

It took me a while to figure out why the heck Australian is a status in Canada. It's obvious that we have to keep a careful eye out on those subversive Aussies. Either that or they don't have an embassy in HK, which is a close second guess. That website was actually a pretty good source of information. I was surprised to learn that there are apparently 250,000 Canadians in Hong Kong. It was on the internet, and the internet is never wrong, so that's the number I'm going with. I'm dissapointed though, because I've only met about 30 or so. 249,970 to go!

Oct 22

So, it's my second week of work and things are starting to look okay. I haven't yet ventured into an actual restaurant to try and order anything, but I'm content with the assortment of cake shops around here. Considering I ate at one place for the past 7 years for lunch, I'll probably be happy with this routine. Besides, it's cheap. Of course, so are the restaurants. Assuming you're happy with noodles or fried rice or something else similar that is easy to mass produce, you can eat for $20HK a day. Which works out to $2.50 CDN. Of course, my cake shop pastries usually work out to about $2 CDN, so that's even better.

I don't think it's related to the cake shop lunches, but I'm starting to seriously think about signing up for the gym downstairs. It's nice and convenient, and as I alluded to above, I'm not currently able to effectively order meals, so I have a lot of time on my lunch break. What better way to waste it than sweating to the oldies?

Other than that, things are still pretty hectic. I haven't any trips planned for work yet, but I believe that the Japanese organization was making noises about having me come out for a visit. And of course, work still hasn't finished transferring over my information so I can't access a number of important work websites. I'm betting it will be another week or so before it's all set up. If it's that quick.

On the weekend we finally had some slack time that we could spend outdoors, and I started to miss everyone. I don't know how long it will be before I get really sad when I'm home alone and don't have Katey telling me to go play computer, or to stop dancing, or the boys asking me to play games. Not yet anyways!

Oh, we have geckos. They're so cute. I suppose they're technically vermin, but they eat insects, and anything that clears mosquitoes from my place is fine by me.

So I've started work. I always thought that a tie was like a noose, except it just hung the wrong way, but halfway through the second day, maybe it's not so bad. I feel spiffy for sure, but maybe I'm just being vain.

I had my first tai-chi lesson on Friday morning. It was interesting, and I realized how I do a lot of things unconcsciously that are not very conducive to relaxing. Quite a few times I had to stop, consciously relax my body and start over again. I wonder if that's something everyone does or just me. Because I always thought that I was pretty easy going and relaxed. I'd hate to see how tense the people I think are uptight are.

I also spent part of the weekend looking for my office building. For all of you budding stalkers out there, I'm in the Honeywell Tower (big surprise there!) at 255 Kings Road, North Point, Hong Kong. Of course, since I think it's in North Point, I get out at the North Point MTR (subway) stop to go see if I can find it. 15 minutes of walking later, I'm one MTR stop over, and realize that the building is right at the Fortress Hill MTR stop. At least it's going to be easy in the future.

The building itself is okay. There's a bunch of restaurants on the lower floors, and some little shops and things as well. There's also a fitness club in the base of the building as well. Who knows, I might become motivated and attempt to work out a bit at some point. I doubt it, but maybe.

The best thing about the building is the number of cake shops around. Go outside and there's like little cakeshops all over. You can go wandering around and find them everywhere. Fresh egg tarts, char siu bao, little char siu pies... Mmmmm.

Sunday was spent as a lazy day. Wandering around Sai Kung, helping D bake, and messing around with the computer. The only problem is the computer is in her dad's room, and I'd much rather we put one down in our room. Or two ideally. I think it's going to be a while before I'm WoWing again.

Monday was interesting. I'm definitely not used to the crush of people getting into the MTR on the way to work. I've always taken it in the middle of the day or on the weekends so it's not so busy, so I never realized how busy it was. The station attendants with the whacking batons was an eye opener.

Work is going to be interesting. I have nobody that I will actually work with in the office, so I am dealing with everyone remotely. I had my boss tell me he doesn't have anything for me for the next couple of weeks, so I'm kind of on my own doing learning and such until I'm needed in Japan, which if I understand things should be extremely quickly.

Until then, I guess it's time to see if the hour long commute is worth living out in the sticks and actually having lots of space.

More of week 1

So yeah. Dealing with being sick and getting over jetlag all in one isn't really pleasant. On the plus side, it gives you an excuse to lie around in bed all day. If only. Between hockey, tai chi, shoping and god knows what else I haven't been able to lie around at all.

I also haven't found time to look at getting a PC, which is something that I definitely need to do, and soon. And somewhere to put it, or at least run LAN cables into the room. Once I start working, and D goes back to her normal work schedule, I imagine I'll have an awful lot of spare time.

The good thing about the whole being sick was I got to visit the herbalist twice! And no, it's not those kinds of herbs. I always forget how well those things work, though I'm not sure if it's partly because the herbs taste so disgusting that you can't help but feel better when you stop drinking them.

The hockey here was better than I expected. I'm pretty excited about it, since it's about the level of the work team I was playing on before I left, if not a little bit better. There wasn't much defense help from the forwards at all, but it's something you get used to.

And there's really lots more I should be saying, but I'm feeling lazy. And I can't remember what I've already put in. I also have to figure out how to get pictures out of this camera phone so I can post some pictures for comparing living expenses and stuff.

But that can wait. It's Sunday afternoon. Time to go be lazy!

Hong Kong - Week 1

So I've left Vancouver and am in Hong Kong now. It hasn't hit me that I'm here to stay yet, and I doubt it will until a couple of weeks when I don't head home. Though maybe when I start work on Monday, that might help convince me I'm staying.

I was a lot less mopey when I left Vancouver than I thought I would be. Maybe it was because I was getting excited, maybe it was because I was too tired to be mopey, maybe it was because we were walking through the airport with my 2 year old niece screaming how she's "pretty like her mama".

I have to say that my decision to splurge on the business class ticket was a good one. The girl who checked me in didn't blink when my two regular checked in bags totalled 65 kg, on top of which I checked in two oversize bags. They were supposed to charge me extra for everything over 60 kg, so the fact that she didn't charge me for those 5 kg, or the entire hockey bag extra that I checked in was kind of nice.

Though, business class Oasis airways wasn't anything to be excited about. The food was horrible as far as business class goes and I couldn't really say anything about the service because I was asleep the entire time. At the least I managed to sleep the entire flight with it because, damn, those fully reclining chairs are worth the extra money.

I managed to get into HK okay, but I incubated Katie's cold all the flight and I was SICK when I got into Hong Kong. It's taken me almost a week, and I'm still not completely over it, but I'm mostly getting better. I'm getting bored of typing right now though, so I'll finish updating this later, when I can fully go into why it took me an hour to claim my bags.

29 hours, and counting

Things done so far:

1. Last day of work.
2. Sold my truck.
3. Packed most of my stuff.

Things yet to do:

1. Pick through my CDs.
2. Go to the airport.

I'm beginning to get nervous.

Visa approved

So my Visa application has been approved. I'm getting the label shipped to me on Tuesday. One more step completed. I'm beginning to get really nervous.

Last game

On Sunday I played my last soccer game. I imagine I'll still be around and available next week, but I'd like to heal a bit and have all of my skin when I arrive in Hong Kong, so I'm sitting out that game.

This is the team that I've played with for 6 years now, being one of the founding members of the team. I've brought in my brother and my brother-in-law to play with us, as well as some other friends who only lasted a year or two.

It was kind of fitting that the game played out how it did. For the record, it was a nil-nil draw, which is somewhat appropriate as the team always has had defence as it's strong point. We've probably had the least turnover on the back line (where I play) as it's been the same 5 guys there for probably 3 or 4 years now. I played left back, as I've done for the last 3 or so years, since we acquired some height and I didn't have to play inside back anymore. I managed to stop a couple crosses, draw a couple fouls, take two or three people down with clean slide tackles and of course, go down in a heal as I took a shot to the testicular region. Oh, and I removed a layer of skin. I also got a yellow for an extremely late tackle that was deserved.

I'm going to miss the team a lot. The team went from being doormats the first 2 years (think 11-1 losses) to being one of the upper echelon teams of the middle division, and it was sometihng that I helped build. I'm going to miss the camraderie of the guys, and I'm going to miss playing with my brother and brother-in-law. I'm not going to miss the carpetburn from dry astroturf, and I'm not going to miss the sore ankles for 2 days after games, but they were definitely worth it.

Fokkers!

Getting started

So, I promised that I'd start this and update it with my struggles with moving and adjusting to a new life, and stepping out of my old one. I imagine everyone that could possibly be looking at this is someone who knows me, so introductions probably aren't necessary, but for the sake of arguement, let's go ahead.

I'm probably known to you guys as a number of different names, but whichever one you choose to use, I'm still the same person. Addle/Pip/Phil or whatever else you may call me (which I'm almost sure I don't want to know). I've lived in Vancouver, Canada my entire life. Born and raised in Vancouver, I think of myself as Canadian first, and Chinese second. I speak one and a half languages, English.... and French; I play hockey and live and die with my Calgary Flames.

Don't get me wrong, I still consider myself Chinese, no matter what my girlfriend thinks. I believe strongly in the whole family thing, and think people putting their parents into nursing homes is disgraceful. I think family is more important than anything, and feel bad when I see so many people I know who have had divorce been such a major factor in their lives. And I am extremely happy that my brother, sister and I are close.

But, as time went on, and I realized that certain things in my life would have to change, I made the decision. It was time to move on. Move on and see more of the world, see if I could live outside of the comfy confines of Vancouver and my family. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be a huge adjustment, and I hope that this space might help me with that. Hong Kong, here I come.