Thoughts beyond my life & my travel - Bel

What do you expect to see at 10 something at night time in the heart of Central? Drunken men? I walked past the business and shopping district tonight and found many couples posing for wedding photos so late in the streets. Then I found more young girls posing for photos. Are there more and more people who want to experiment with their new cameras? Or just more and more people who love to be photoed with the backdrop of the night time?

While I was still pondering whether I made a right decision today, I received a call from a friend of mine whose aunt is very sick staying in a hospital. My friend is worried that her aunt will not be well taken care of after she's discharged as she lives alone. I made a call to a friend of mine to get some information about the Home of the Aged, to enquire about the application of government subsidies and the options that she can choose from. I feel great that I can make use of my connection to help her and give her peace of mind. Somehow I'm really glad that my friend called me and gave me an opportunity to help the old people. That reminds me that I should have one more useful contact who is a hospital social worker. Though we may not be working in a charity organization, we can always enjoy the happy moments by helping the others.

There are always times you found yourself standing in an intersection where you want to change but somehow might not want to change. I read a story today about a man who reached to the top management when working in a hotel in Beijing. One day he gave up everything and decided to take care of his mother back to Hong Kong. He lost his high-paying job, ended up in a divoice and some years later, he lost his mother. He was hopeless and had a thought of committing suicide. But he was being trained and "reborn" again for living a more meaningful life. He was now very successful in providing care service to the aged. Maybe I can retrain myself to do a meaningful job that benefits the elderly but I hope that the future elderly care service can give senior people more respect and dignity. After all, we will all get old and who wants to be taken care of and live without privacy and dignity?

This was my first time to see the HK Sevens. I didn't quite know the rugby games but sure I enjoyed watching the games a lot especially that Hong Kong has taken the title of the Shield Champion and Canada beat Wales in the Bowl final . The ambience was great, it's good for families and friends having fun the whole day. Now, I'm thinking, maybe it's better than seeing football live as the 14-minutes rugby games are in full action all the time!

I read this book because I do like Freakonomics a lot. I still enjoy reading it but this book is not that "Super" as compared to the previous one. I know that one of the authors comes to Hong Kong for doing some research. I do hope to find some interesting podcast on his blog .

I was walking back home after a hair cut. The streets were calm and not that interesting until I saw a man carrying a big fridge with his back walking down from an old building. I'm sure he did that as the building does not have a lift. To see how people can lift something so heavy is amazing. His back might be hurt but that's what many people did before the elevator or the lift was invented. I just wonder, "Will there be some invention that can help people moving heavy objects downstairs?"

My friend wanna enrol in a social media course, so I signed in the course with her. Here's the first assignment for the course - open a business group / interest group and try to attract as many people to sign up as possible. I came up with the idea of a Shopping at Taobao tips as this website is a hit overnight in China. More and more people shop there and ship items over to Hong Kong. Some even stock items and resell them in ebay. But it seems like a similar group was set up in Facebook already. What I should do next? Any ideas?

What if your ex-subordinate works in another department and tries to "betray" you? You might think that it's a storyline in a movie but it happens all the time especially when someone is young and ambitious. When you hire someone, you probably hire the person who can impress you over the other candidates. But those who do well in the interview may not be loyal to you and do their jobs well. So you might fall into the chance that picking up the wrong candidate who might betray you one day. I know it's hurting to face such situation but somehow we can't deny human beings can turn bad when their souls are rotten. I might be too honest but I definitely hope that less such stories happen!

One of the things that caught my attention in my China trip is that there were quite many sweet couples. My friend and I sat on the right hand side on the tour bus and there was a couple sitting on the left next to us. I told my friend, "look, they're holding hands all the time, even they're resting on the bus." My friend said, "yes, there are many sweet couples in our tour." We then had a conversation about whether our parents are still holding hands. Of course not, we didn't see them doing so. Maybe these couples we met are younger than our parents and their concepts on love are different. But it's still uncommon to see married couples in their 50s holding hands in public in Hong Kong. That's why I'm a bit surprised but feel happy about how sweet they are.

Have you looted your friend's happy farm in facebook? These farms are probably guarded by a dog but they still find a way to get some veggies from your friend's farm. I visited a few farms in this China trip and joked about playing the real time happy farm. But I found the dogs in these farm are very faithful and stay alert all the time. They will simply bark at you when you get any closer to their owners' farms. Watch out!

I planned to pack light for the trip as we were advised Hailuogou should be 0 C only. It was until the tour guide told us that it should be 0 to -15C. So I digged out the ski pants I had never worn and brought the tights and all the wool long socks along. I know my ski pants are a bit too sharp in colour but they kept me warm even under -11C with tights and socks inside. Of course, the boots I rent did the job well. You can rent them for a day for $10 yuan or buy a new pair for $40 - 60 yuan. But it will be way more expensive if you buy them up the snow mountain.

In this trip, I expected to wake up early in the morning to see the sunrise in Hailuogou in Sichuan as its sunrise is very famous. When the sunlight hits the snow mountains, it turns the mountains into golden shining colour. Some adventurers even travelled more than one time in a year in order to witness such beauty. I couldn't see this special sunrise this time as it's been snowing heavily but you can still see this spectacular view online . Try thi s out, too.

Face changing show is famous in Chengdu but I didn't know that they have an artist who is good at hand shadow performance. Enjoy this marvellous show . See the delicate hand movement, brillant transition and every detail that he captured.

I'm never a fleece jacket fan. I know it's warm but somehow I don't like the feel of the material. I once got a fleece pullover. I didn't wear it much till I got rid of it. But I don't want to be freezed to death in this trip to the glaciers in Sichuan Province, especially when you're told that there will not be any heat in the hotel in that area. Though it's still around 0 degree Celcius, I just wonder it might feel colder as it should be. So, to be safe, I knew I needed to look for a fleece jacket plus bringing my down jacket as well. I like the brand, lafuma but I didn't seem to find anything that I liked. Eventually I picked up a jacket from this brand - Pjall Raven jacket in an outlet shop. And it's HK$159 only. I'm sure that it costs a lot more in the US and the quality looks good. Next will be doing a "on-the-spot trial" to see whether it's a good winter jacket or not.

When you joined a tour and realised that the tour guide didn't pick you up in the airport, what would you do? A group of Phillippines tourists arrived in Hong Kong and encountered such situation. Luckily, the Hong Kong government quickly found them a place and located sponsors from a hotel, a ferry operator and Disney. They simply need to pay HK$550 for a hotel's stay, a trip to Disneyland and Ocean Park as well as going to Macau. They went to the Peak for sightseeing yesterday that got a lot of media attention. Guess what? Every HK citizen wants to pay the same price for such a trip. The Disneyland ticket simply costs almost $400 and the round trip ferry tickets cost almost $400. See how generous Hong Kong taxpayers to tourists. Do you want to travel? Come to Hong Kong!

I never booked and paid for air tickets so early. Traditionally, the special offer for tickets in May won't be available till March but many airlines launched their offers as early as late January/early February and surprisingly, many seats in June were booked up already. So that left me no option but to buy my tickets by the end of February despite that there might be a lot of unknown till the departure date. Maybe, people are so hungery for long haul flight after the swine flu pandemic.

When I planned for my coming trip to see the glaciers in Sichuan, I know the place is cold, its altitude is high and the air will be thin. But I didn't expect the place is so remote that no mobile phone is accessible except the local one. So, it will be quite a challenge to have no mobile phone access for four days once I cross the tunnel to the mountains. I didn't usually use the phone overseas but I still like the feeling of having mobile access that connects you to the modern world. So check out this place called Hailuogou Glacier Park to see if you find it worth having days without phones.

The Hong Kong government has been promoting a number of geoparks in Hong Kong. 7 of them are now qualified as National Geoparks of China. Among them, the High Island one is the biggest with massive hexagonal rock columns. They are truly amazing as the columns are believed to be one of the highest in the world. Hopefully the park will become one of the World's Geopark. Then someone showed me the other version of Geopark - somewhere in Vancouver. The look of the rocks resemble the ones in the High Island Geopark here but were being put at the back of a building in downtown Vancouver. See if you can find it out if you're in Vancouver.