Thoughts beyond my life & my travel - Bel

PCCW and HSBC were being attacked when they received the "caring company award." While they might be doing some work to be socially responsible, their act of cutting staff salary and laying off staff did not make many people convinced for how "caring" they are. Likewise, Park n Shop rebranded some of its supermarkets into "International" a years ago to emphasize that they stock more products from around the world and give customers more choices. I like such concept and am happy with the new look till recently that I realised that the management of the shop is so bad. Firstly, they always price food wrong or their cashiers' record are not in line with the price update, so I sometimes either pay more or have to spend extra time to speak to the cashiers to get the price right or cancel what I pick up originally. That didn't add up to a good buying experience and you find yourself in an embarrassing situation if the line is long. Then a customer found ...

I never celebrated Valentine's Day. When you like someone, you can celebrate any day. You don't have to be just happy on this day. It happened that the Valentine's Day fell on Saturday this year so there wasn't a race for getting flowers in the office. I did a brief research asking my married friends to see if they still receive flowers on that day. Most of them don't and don't think it's a must. So maybe married persons don't want flowers anymore and become more practical. Valentine's Day was such a happpy day this year. I did some experimental pictures and shared with a friend. We had good fun and laughs and played some games, too. Just need more creative ideas to make every day a fun day! Flowers are not a must but humour and fun ideas definitely help!

It is probably the worst year for the world economy that I experienced. The SARS period was sad and I almost felt being discriminated as other countries considered Hong Kong as an "epidemic" city. Overseas clients just knocked themselves up upon their arrival and felt so scared to the extent that they didn't want to meet anyone from Hong Kong. Some businesses were just moved out of Hong Kong but many of them could actually overcome the financial crisis. I was home, jobless for a while but I felt some positive energy like people exercising more, caring much more about hygiene and nurses saving lives. I did things that I didn't normally do such as waking up early in the morning for a gym class and helping kids to test their fitness with my fitness trainer. And finally I got help from a friend who helped me find a job and later I found another one, too. The financial tsunami this time is different. It's more global, more layoffs and we saw the world is more cruel to ...

I never saw someone who blushed so long except myself. I had such a good laugh and maybe I blushed a bit as well. It's really a good start of the weekend when you can laugh that much! Some people who look very serious if not smiling but they look totally different when they blush. The blushes just soften the character and make someone soft, adorable and cute at the same time. A photographer told me that goverment media officers only allowed him to take pictures of a government official when he smiles and at certain angles. That official looks unfriendly when he doesn't smile. I thought only women do mind whether they look good on photos, so some men do really take it seriously and hate being photographed, too. So we shouldn't be feeling bad when we're blushing in front of people 'coz we probably look more friendly, approachable and lovely when our faces are all red. We might feel like we're younger and being kids again, too.

Have you ever explored more about yourself with pictures? I'm not photogenic but I definitely have more pictures than before because of the digital cameras. We can take as many pictures as we can and see whether we like them or even fine tune them. Also we could take some experimental pictures like taking pictures of yourself in different mood, angles or in different dresses. It can be a bit crazy, creative, wild or even intimate. It's fun to check out pictures of people whom you know. You might realise they can be more fun, interesting and behave in a totally oppositive way that you expected.

The finanical tsunami has really affected many people. I started to learn from my friends who got less business, less job or their employment contract being restructured with less benefits. I hate to hear what one of my friends keeps talking about how bad a year she had. I think she should think twice how lucky she is having a job, still having some friends and does not lose so much money in the stock market like what other people did. It's the time for us to reflect what we have and what things we don't need. Life and living can be still good if we live simply with wanting a lot more. Definitely it's a lesson for us to learn to save to weather the bad times and how to think positively and live happy in another way. There was a very good TV programme talking about a few happy families. They are not rich. The dad of one family is going to be blind and couldn't work too. The floor of their apartment is discolored and it's not a big apartment at all. But the couple tog...