Week 8 (Sept 20 - 27, 2009)

This Is It

No, I'm not making reference to the upcoming film about the late Michael Jackson. I'm making reference to a certain feeling that only comes around a few times in one's lifetime. It is the sensation of the traveler who has once again reached a summit in his long and arduous journey. It is the pilgrim who stops on the mountain top to catch his breath. He turns back to behold the vast landscape and rolling peaks he has traversed. After a deep reminiscent breath, he looks forward at the misty horizon and ponders the sea of rolling hills between him and his destination. It is the antithetical harmony of an ending synchronously engendering a new beginning. 

They say that life is marked by a series of significant milestones: birth, completion of education/adulthood, marriage, bearing of children and death. Throughout history and still in the present, these, life's milestones,  are often marked by rites and ceremonies which symbolize humanity's acknowledgement of the universal yet deeply personal significance of these rites of passage. 


This past week allowed me to witness one of these rites of passage in the life of one of my co-workers. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a Hong Kong style wedding complete with cocktail hour, pictures, a wedding ceremony and a 12-course meal from 8:30 pm to 11:30 pm wherein I explored heretofore untried foods some of which which are highly controversial (e.g. birds nest and sharks fin soup) thus challenging their traditional stronghold as wedding-menu musts in this region. 

The surrounding ceremony marked the underlying essence of the event which once again caused me to ponder on my fast approaching sacra-ment and reflect on the emotional events or milestones that serendipitously cluster around this time of year.


Oct. 8 - My parents were married - while I wasn't there it certainly had the impact on my life 
Oct. 6 - Josh meets Eliza for the first time
Sep. 27 - Josh and Eliza hold their Traditional Chinese Wedding
Oct. 9 - The average of Josh and Eliza's birthdays
Oct. ? - The birth of Yo-Yo (aka Miles Yi Tomsik)

Bem-Vindo a Macau - Hasta La Vista Las Vegas


What do you get when you mix hundreds of years of Portuguese influence on a small group of islands off the Southern coast of China? Now take that and add to it a zone open to gambling. The result of this fusion between East and West: a highly eclectic offspring filled with casinos, old Jesuit churches, traditional Chinese mansions, East-Asian temples, forts, lighthouses, cobblestone streets with quaint European houses and paved streets lined with modern Chinese high-rise apartments and all this among other curiosities like the world's tallest bungee jumping tower. Meet Macau, the city that has apparently surpassed Las Vegas in gaming revenue thus challenging Vegas's status as the gambling capital of the world.





Perhaps it was the constant talk of others that lured me to explore this special administrative region. Conceivably it was a final escapist attempt to explore beyond the borders of Hong Kong before stewardships and responsibilities multiplied. Or maybe it the draw of the coincidental symbolism of the place with where my life no stands, how I got here and what lies ahead.


More Macau Photos

Week 7 (Sept 13 - 19, 2009)

T1, T3, T8, T9, T10

No these are not references to Terminator movies nor an attempt to popularize a new quinary numeral system, these are the Hong Kong's warning signals for tropical cyclones or typhoons (and don't ask me what happened to the numbers in between).

To summarize from the Hong Kong Observatory's website:

T1: Stand-By; tropical cyclone within 800km

T3: Strong wind likely as result of tropical cyclone (40+ km/hr, gusts to 110 km/hr); don't go near the water and hold on to your hat

T8: Wind speeds of 60+ km/hr with gusts over 180; city all but shuts down - workers go home, buses stop running, don't go outside

T9: Wind speeds increasing

T10: Hurricane winds 120+ with gusts 220+; duck and cover

Last Monday I awoke to T1 notices scattered throughout building lobbies. By afternoon it was raised to T3 and in a sudden surprise the "pre T8" message went out at 4:00pm declaring T8 at 6:00pm.

This creates somewhat of a problem. At T8, EVERYONE goes home. To make it even more exciting, most transportation shuts down within two hours of the T8 signal. Put these two together and what do you get? About 7 million people trying to go home at the same time (ok so that is an overestimate only those out working, shopping, studying, or doing something else away from home has to go home but that still leaves the number I'd wager over 4 million). If you want some visual aids to help imagine try these (pic 1, pic 2).

One's options aren't very good. Do I leave now and beat the rush? Or should I wait it out until the madness goes away? Oh wait, I can't otherwise I can't get home (well technically taxis are still out to make a buck but finding an empty one may be a task plus I don't know if they begin charing the T8 special fare).

With so many options most everyone began vacating the office to enjoy the long and relaxing commute home. I even may have made the evening news. At the bus stop I frequent (and so do thousands of others) a camera crew from a local TV station was filming the excitement of people pushing, and struggling to get home, creating veritable human sardine containers out of the double-decker buses. Even though I may have had my 1.23 seconds of Hong Kong TV fame, I didn't scan the Cantonese channels when I got back home to see whether my face appeared. Maybe I was disinterested or maybe was afraid to witness the combination of my expression (being squeezed on all sides by eager commuters...I don't think I even had to walk - I could have probably been carried onto the bus by the throngs surrounding me without any effort) and hairdo (remember at T3 and Pre-T8 winds and humidity were pretty high at that point).

After all that fun, what did I learn.

1) If you want a day off of work, hope for a T8 (but first thing in the morning not after you've already got there)

2) Adrenaline surges are extremely effective at impeding sleep. Our T8 lasted about 16 hours - the first half of the night I was conveniently woken up every minutes when the wind rattled the windows, so hard in fact I could feel the vibrations moving the bed. And just when you were almost back to sleep a nice little gust would come along where you swear the windows were about to shatter. Which leads me to the next point...

3) Invest in some quality ear plugs (or perhaps good sedatives). It was until probably 3 AM or so that I stumbled out of bed to search for the travel kit from the journey over. Luckily, the airline provided ear plugs since even the 24 hours stores probably weren't an option as that point.

4) Have connections with the HK observatory. In such situations they control when the T8 signal is lifted which in turn means everyone back to work 2 hours later (repeating the exciting commute). BUT if you can bribe someone to keep it at T8 until 12:01pm then you get the rest of the day off (and can make up some sleep). Unfortunately, however, I do not have connections yet with the HK observatory but may start hanging out meteorologist networking events just in case. The T8 was lowered to T3 at about 10:30 AM.

And after all that fun, words of encouragement from others: "It's good preparation. You might as well get used to not getting much sleep now anyway."

"Climb every mountain, search high and low" (not once but twice) 
"And in the naked light I saw...ten thousand 'Buddhas' maybe more"

So as Saturday strolled around I decide to brave the heat and humidity yet one more time in order to hike a small mountain to a monastery. In order to do so, however, I had to make my first preparatory stop at the Hong Kong Space Museum where I took in the feature "Extreme Planets." (I'll let you figure out what that has to do with a Buddhist Monastery.)

While the museum and movie weren't entirely all that invigorating I was surprised to learn the movie was created by Clark Planetarium (formerly Hansen Planetarium) I believe and a place I loved in Salt Lake City growing up as a kid. Kind of strange to see the words "Clark Planetarium, Salt Lake County" in large letters with music on a overhead planetarium screen half way across the world. I suppose that's one of the "miracles" of globalization.

Away from the air conditioned dome and towards the mountain. This time, for real, I'm headed for the monastery. After my arrival, I saw the Buddhist statues high on the hillside blended amidst the sprawling green foliage. Before me was a large white gate with gardens and pagodas which I assumed was not part of monastery but part of the path to the monastery above as there were multiple staircases leading up every which way. As I climbed up and up (going through one liter of water on the way) I beheld beautiful waterfalls and smelt the burning of incense. I passed many alcoves with Buddhist figurines on my way up. Upon reaching a series of buildings I soon realized that this definitely wasn't a monastery, it was a cemetery. To be completely accurate it is best described as a memorial site. Dozens of small buildings each with hundreds of names of ancestors and loved ones who had completed there time on earth. I felt somewhat awkward walking by individuals and families who had come to memorialize their dead. I guess it is a reasonable thing to have on a path to a monastery though. Problem was, I soon found out, it wasn't the path to the monastery. After reaching the top of the memorial hill I looked down to take in the spectacular view and reflect on the fragility of life. As I turned around a tall, wiry fence separated me from the courtyard of the monastery temple, just a few meters away. Best part was, there was not gate and no passage.

I had travelled this far out into the new territories and felt almost obliged to myself to fulfill  the purpose of my journey. So I slowly made my way back down the hill to the gate of the memorial walked a few steps across the parking lot and onto another path. I then started my journey up the same mountain again to the 10,000 Buddha Temple and Monastery. This time I felt confident about my journey since I could easily see there were going to be a lot of Buddhas.

The path, however, is misleading because those statues are not the 10,000 Buddhas of the 10,000 Buddha Temple. I would venture that the 10,000 Buddhas are the ones in temple shown below. That's probably about 1/4 of the room - go ahead and count if you like if you disagree with my hypothesis.

After a nice vegetarian meal, I made my way back down the mountain (again) and onto my final destination for the day; another alcove of meaning and cultural significance and perhaps home of one the world's biggest beagle houses.

More photos from this week's adventures. Also, note below the new feature for emailing blog updates if interested.

Week 6 (Sept 6 - 12, 2009)

The Time is Near at Hand

Soon the 8-month barrier will be crossed. I can now count the days before I fly back on my fingers and toes. As the probability of arrival of the new addition goes up exponentially with each (at least that is my unproven hypothesis) the mind becomes flooded with a myriad of questions: am I ready? what will the first days be like? how does the baby passport picture work? how many diapers do I need to pack on a 15 hour flight? and how many diapers will I need to use over the next couple of years?

(my estimate on the last is [#Diapers = 360t^-.37] with t being baby's age in months, thus estimate for the penultimate question yields 7.5 diapers for the flight alone...I'm sure I can let someone else borrow the other half of the diaper since I won't be needing it)

Yet besides all these questions spinning around in my head, the past week has primarily been fraught with anxiety over "baby-friendly" living arrangements. While I'm not too worried about baby-proofing just yet (since he won't be crawling, climbing, and wreaking havoc just yet, mostly lying there like a starfish), I am concerned about facilitating the care of a baby in Hong Kong. Simply trying to imagine life with a stroller opens one's eyes to a tremendous amount of things unseen before. Thus, this week I've reconsidered the original plan to stay in this apartment building and reverted to apartment hunting to find the ideal environment. To be fair, it isn't so much hunting, Citi has provided me with information but it is still up to me to visit and assess. Perhaps a more accurate term is "Apartment Evaluation."

While Eliza and I think we found the one we want, we have to cross our fingers to make sure there is availability sometime around D-Day +15...and on that note, negotiating a contract with a wide range of starting dates is moderately problematic.

The Reprieve from the Housing Search

After a action packed weekend of residential treasure hunting, I sought for liberation from enclosed areas and braved the heat once more in search of a different kind of gem. I suppose it is due to my simple addiction to beauty, tranquility, and maybe escapism that I wandered around Kowloon City for a time, pretty much lost and starting to despair. This was the second attempt to find a certain location there. I was unsuccessful on the first attempt (no iPhone acting as my second brain anymore) and also beginning to worry that after such effort, what if the finding was a letdown-a small, forsaken, and unkempt area that would make me wish I was again apartment hunting the comfort of air conditioned buildings.

Below it a snippet of what I found (trying out the new media format this time around):

I was in no way disappointed. In fact, I fell in love and have found one of my favorite places in Hong Kong.

The history of the park is quite colorful and interesting. I suggest interested parties take a few minutes for a quick read of the history here. It's almost like the Princess Bride, where there is "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Revenge. Giants. Monsters. Chases. Escapes. True love. Miracles." Well maybe not all of that but probably close especially if you include the "Depictions in Popular Culture" section from Wikipedia as well as part of your perusal of the history.

More photos of the park.

That's all for this week. Stay tuned next time to learn more about the heavy pelting rain and 50 MPH typhoon winds pounding my window as I put the final period on this relation.

Week 5 (August 30 - Sept 5, 2009)

All Quiet on the Far Eastern Front

I believe it's time for a deep breath both to unwind from the pressures of the past (new role, relocation, baby anxiety and preparations, exams, etc.) and to prepare for the frenzy of the future (new role redux, re-relocation, baby arrival, one more exam, etc.). Furthermore, the summer has all but ended. Work thus far has been busy but relatively stress free as almost everyone has been on vacation and off capitalizing on the final days of summer. Yet now the quiet is threatened as Labor Day in the U.S. marks the beginning of school, the end of vacations and consequently increased market activity which will carry through the end of the year (remember I do work for a New York-Centric financial company). Thus, with one final act of prolonged respiration, many in the global community relax, reflect, and refocus on the coming months.

December 31. The date strikes me as interesting in its passive power. An arbitrary date but yet a date which silently dictates "the end" and marks a significant cut-off point to measure performance. Is the money manager beating the market? Have organizations meet their goals? Did I (or you) fulfill the list of New Year's resolutions established at the beginning of the year?

(And just because I've never been a fan of New Year's resolutions, I think I'm going to move my goal-setting to March next year and enjoy the hiatus between the deadline of when I was supposed to do things and the new arbitrary date when I supposed to start doing things again. Plus, winters in the Northeast are too long anyway.) If the answer to those questions is "No," now is a realistic time to ponder on what needs to happen between now and then to increase levels of performance and potentially reach those goals.

So to make a long story short, this week was quiet, a time of reflection and yet a welcome respite knowing what has already past and what lies ahead. And I'm completely happy to simply savor the calm before the storm.

This Week's Stops: Plum Nest and Tai O Fishing Village

And speaking of storms and respite, this week I ventured again to Lantau island. There one can experience both the hustle and bustle of the city with the international airport, shopping centers, residential high rises, Disneyland...and yet just across the hilly landscape, one can escape the concrete labyrinth and enter landscapes filled with rolling green hills, picturesque beaches, and quaint villages which I find is a combination perfect for reflection. One such village on the far end of the island is known as Tai O, a fishing village, where many of the houses are built on stilts over the waterways leading to the ocean. This village is easily affected by storms and in fact was severely damaged by flooding in typhoon Hagupit last year.

And what do you expect to see in a fishing village? Fish. However, not as you may think. Scattered all throughout the town are shops filled with the scent and sight of all kinds of varieties of dried fish. And I must say the sight of the immense product display at some of the shops is nearly spell binding but the scent of those same shops can quickly help unbind the spell.
One house has their catch out to dry. Notice the multitude of hanging fish but also below in the baskets the matrix of fish also arrayed in the sun in a process of unpretentious desiccation.

A couple more views of stilted houses and fishing boats semi-silhouetted by the distant hazy sun.

More of this week's photos.