Tales Of Asia

The Survivalist

2011-06-26T18:29:00.003+08:00

Hello fellow truth seekers,

Again its been a few months since my last confession. Simply very busy.

I have been doing a few things though and here is one of them, a book that I wrote that is now published in paperback as well as a Kindle eBook. Here is the link so you can check it out. http://www.amazon.com/Survivalist-Alan-Brown/dp/9889993910/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1309084092&sr=8-1

More another day.

Until then, don't forget to wipe.

Alan

Febuary 2011 Update

2011-02-13T13:28:00.004+08:00

Greetings Truth Seekers,

Its been an awfully long time since my last post so I thought I would write here today and update whats been happening.

In my last blog I mentioned that I had moved to Macau in 2009 as my work at the City of Dreams had been extended. I am still in Macau and we now have a new office here as well as in Singapore. My stars, how things happen when you don't expect them.

Our company has expanded to include a number of local casino's as clients and we have employed staff which is nice as I always like to see people develop and help to be a part of that.

In my private life a number of things have happened as well.

I am still in the same apartment that I moved in to mid-2009, have settled well, love the Asian culture, and have even bought an Audi A4 turbo to hoon around in.

I still attend 'those' meetings each week here in Macau that keep my life on track. If anyone is wondering what 'those' meetings are, they are not religious or a cult, just a bunch of like minded people coming together for a common purpose. All very wholesome and healthy. You can contact me separately if you would like to know more.

In early 2009 two of my short stories (I like creative writing) got published in a book called Hotel China. It is now available on Amazon from here http://www.amazon.com/Hotel-China-Hong-Writers-Circle/dp/9889836653/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297575247&sr=8-3

I also had another novel published. Its called The Survivalist and was released in Hong Kong book shops in December 2010. My next novel Heavens Above is at the copywriters and is due to be released in May 2011. True to form, the novel that I really want to write, have started and keep procrastinating over is still being written but more about that another time.

Musically I keep practicing and playing, mainly solo acoustic these days due to lack of playing partners here in Macau.

With reference to travel I still go down to Australia every 3 -4 months to check in at the office and to see my daughter and my friends. I love being at my Melbourne house as there have been renovations to an old, dilapidated veranda and sitting area at the rear and now it has been opened up, provided with pitched roof and decking and is a delight to just sit and 'be'.

On one of my trips to Australia I was to attend a school reunion for ex-students and Mitcham High School in Victoria, Australia. It was something I will also never forget. I thought I would run into a lot of old friends of mine from school and renew old acquaintances. My expectations (I should never have them or I will be surely disappointed) were to be dashed when when only a few people I recognized were present. Some of those people resembled nothing like their former selves and appeared to have turned into someone else. Another group of people I recognized and joined soon made me feel uncomfortable and I was to learn that this group had all gone to school together, had grown up, married and had families all within a 4km radius of the school, and all hung out together since. A 'stranger' forming a 'keyhole in the circle' of their nice tidy lives obviously made them feel uncomfortable so I soon departed and went off to a music practice with a band I was playing in while in Melbourne that trip.

As well as trips to Australia, I also had the opportunity to spend some holiday time in Shanghai as well as Beijing on separate trips. Those places are fantastic and highly recommended.

In July 2010 I went to Italy. I had never been to Europe before since I left England as a two year old child going to Australia. I went to attend the wedding a close friend of mine Carmen Gerardi. I had met Carmen ('Chicca') around 12 or 13 years ago when my daughter had introduced me to a internet based chat programme called ICQ. At the time I still had phobia's regarding heights and flying and I though the best way to find out about people in other far away lands and other cultures would be to use something like ICQ. I me a few people online and usually those communication were pleasant, sometimes taking place over a week or two, and then I would not hear from those people again or would not contact them again as it appeared that the extent of our 'conversation' was ended. With Carmen though things were different. I dont remember exactly what happened but for some reason we stayed in contact over the years, graduating from ICQ to email where we would send a 6 or 12 monthly update from time to time over the 12 or so years.

Anyway, last year I got an invitation to her wedding to (I was to find out) a wonderful young gentleman called Dan. At the time I dismissed the invitation out of hand as I was busy in Macau, but as a few days passed I thought 'why not'. I have always been one of these people who try to follow 'the signals provided by the universe' about what I should be doing or the direction I should be heading so I decided to go.

I arrived in Rome on a Saturday morning after a 13 hour flight from Hong Kong and soon was in a wonderful bed and breakfast place near the Trevi Fountain. Did a lot of sightseeing and on Monday headed on the train down to Naples about an hour away. On the Wednesday hired a car and drove the 3.5 hours on the wrong side of the road (for me) to a beautiful seaside resort nestled amongst granite volcanic mountains (its near Vesuvius after all) called Maratea where the wedding was to be held. Thursday was the wedding and I eventually got to meet Chicca and Dan. Chicca and I laughed our heads off as we were thick as thieves close friends despite this being the first time we had ever met. It was just wonderful and their wedding was fantastic. The next day I drove back to Naples and caught the train to Rome where I stayed at the same B&B again before heading off to the airport and back to Hong Kong and Macau. It was a wonderful trip, one I will always remember, and followed my belief in don't not do anything now that you might regret later.

As a note, Chicca has a starring role in my novel The Survivalist, as do a number of other real people I know. As Chicca mentioned to me 'Tesoro ('treasure'), I will live forever!'.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Remember, there's only 3 groups of people in the world. Those that can count and those that can't.

Till next time. Don't forget to wipe.

Alan

Moving to Macau

2009-08-11T17:57:00.001+08:00

Hello fellow truth speakers,

Thought I had better write something here as it's been a while once again since I have written about my tales of Asia.

As some of you will know, I have been living in Hong Kong for the past 3 1/2 years. I went there for a one-month holiday in December 2005 and I have ended up staying there having the time of my life. My experiences in Hong Kong as well as other parts of the world have been documented in this blog site since that time.

Around April this year and because of a world economic crisis I was thinking of packing up and moving back to Australia. One thing I don't like to do is just sit around idly feeling like I'm dying slowly. I much prefer to do something meaningful whether that is in the work environment or otherwise.

Anyway, in April I had a phone call from the about to be opened City of Dreams in Macau. I was invited to come over to COD in late May and stay for one month to assist in ‘critical security issues over the opening period’. Security consulting is a large part of my professional life and has been for many years. I felt honored to be asked to come and assist so I said yes.

I worked at COD for one-month and the work was intense getting some things finished and the other things put right. At first I stayed in the Venetian Casino which is across the road from COD and is very grand and lovely. Later, and although the client is paying, I moved over to the Rio hotel on Macau at my own suggestion as it was 70% cheaper than Venetian and all I was after was somewhere that was quiet and comfortable.

About halfway through the month of June, I was asked if I would consider extending my stay and to continue helping out on security issues and also to finish off security arrangements for the two Hyatt hotels as well as the theatre. As I already felt committed to finishing off the work that I had started I said yes and I was engaged to extend my original one-month engagement by an additional four months.

Having decided to stay in Macau and taking into account that I have a large three-bedroom and very expensive apartment in Hong Kong, I decided to move to Macau. My thinking was that I might as well have a nice apartment to live in while in Macau while having a small one in Hong Kong for when I go back there for my work and other social reasons. As a result, I will shortly be moving into a huge and brand-new three-bedroom apartment on the island of Taipa, and island immediately next to the main island of Macau.

I have been to Macau previously several times and do enjoy it here. I'm looking forward to having a Macau experience in the future.

Hopefully that brings you up to date as to my latest adventures. As always, stay safe, say your prayers at night time and don't forget to wipe.

Cheers

No # 1 Rule

2009-08-11T13:00:00.000+08:00

Do what you said you would do,
when you said you would do it,
the way you said you would do it.

-Larry Winget

May Update

2009-05-25T09:11:00.002+08:00

It three weeks since my last 'confession' here so I thought I'd better do the right thing and provide an update as to what's going on. I have also started writing a journal again. I had a long and lengthy journal that contained all my deepest darkest secrets on my Hewlett-Packard laptop but all that information was lost when the Hewlett-Packard the laptop decided to die last October. Worse than seeing the blue screen of death on the HP laptop was finding out later that the information that was supposed to have been backed up automatically by that laptop on a separate disk drive over the past months leading up to October was also completely destroyed.

Anyway, what's been going on in May? In summary, I had to apply for an extension of my Hong Kong Visa and that took some time. Had some nice relaxing times going up to Shenzhen on the mainland on weekends for nice food, shopping, tailoring and the fantastic 3 hour massages. Simply bliss. In addition, there were a couple of prestige jobs that I needed to get organised. One is for the opening of a new casino on Macau and it appears that I will be going over there this week and staying for one month.

Last Friday night I went to the ballet in the Cultural Centre at Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong. The event was billed as a gala night of the stars with dancers from all over the world including England, Europe, and America alongside the Hong Kong Ballet company.

It was a really fantastic night and some of those international ballet dancers are just wonderful. In particular Steve McRae from the Royal Ballet is going to be a superstar. I thought it was nice that he is actually an Australian like me.

I also found it amusing how the " American superstars" were made up of a Chinese lady and an Australian man. Doesn't America have any ballet dancers of note?

Anyway, The night was simply fantastic and I'm looking forward to going to the Ballet next time.

Other than that it's been life as usual. That's all for now. until next time, don't forget to wipe.......

You Tube Video's

2009-05-03T23:15:00.002+08:00

Getting brave now. Here is a clip of me performing a song. Check out my other videos at http://www.youtube.com/Sushinoodleguy

My Television Book Review

2009-05-03T22:54:00.004+08:00

Here is a video interview that I did a while ago for Hong Kong television on behalf of my friend Jennifer Li at the book Attic in Wanchai for Hong Kong television.

Cantonese Opera

2009-04-30T10:51:00.002+08:00

On Monday, 27 April 2009 I went to the Cantonese Opera at Kwai Chung with Delia, Janet, Anastasia and Peggy. It was the first time I have been to a Cantonese opera.

Janet’s mum, whose name I cannot remember at the moment, is a famous Hong Kong Cantonese opera star. I have met her previously a couple of times at her home where she seems just a very normal person with a lovely bubbly personality. I was interested to see what she would be like as a famous star and thought that my friends had been joking with me a little bit and that she was just some opera singer in the local theatre company. How incorrect was my thinking…..

Arriving at Kwai Chung just before the performance started, the group of girls immediately diverted me towards the nearest local Chinese restaurant for dinner. When I enquired as to why we weren’t going straight into the theatre for the start of the Opera, they replied ‘ because we don’t want to get there early, we only want to get there before Janet’s mum goes on, and besides, nothing is more important than eating!’.

After dinner we proceeded to the theatre. I had been to that theatre before one year ago during the Hong Kong Arts Festival where I saw a famous arts Troupe from France doing a musical play that in English translates to “Land’s End”. You can read about that experience in my past Web post on this website. At the time, that play consisted of a number of people in long overcoats and hats with their faces painted blue thrashing around in some huge plastic rubbish bin bags, all to the sound of music, all in the name of art. Like the intent of the plastic bags, I remember thinking it was just garbage.

Anyway, I was back at the same theatre again and we proceeded into the dressing rooms to see Janet’s mum. Janet’s mum is a wonderful person, always happy and cheerful and so welcoming. She was exactly the same that night and welcomed us into her dressing room. She looked extremely beautiful and regal in her costume that I was to learn later was just her costume for before her performance, she changed and wore another one for her performance. We proceeded to have a number of photos taken by a professional photographer and then made our way to our seats that had been arranged for us by the Opera troupe. At that point I realized that this was serious opera as the place was full with about 4000 people in attendance.

I must admit that, as a westerner, my appreciation of Cantonese opera might be somewhat confused so it takes me a little while to appreciate the beauty of what is going on. At the start, what I observed were two people standing at microphones towards the front of the stage and singing from what appeared to be church hymnbooks. One of the people sings in a deeper voice than the other and this is the person taking the ‘male’ role. The other person then sings their part in a very pronounced ‘ female’ role. Until you get used to it, you could be forgiven that the female role is trying to sound like a cat with its tail freshly cut off. The vocals are quite high, screeching and pronounced. Still, it’s all part of the plan.

Similarly, often a woman can sing the male role. It makes no difference in Cantonese opera.

Behind the two singers is the orchestra. There is a full complement of musicians and I would suggest that they are all very professional as they play things like erhu, ‘paypar’ (although probably spelt incorrectly, Chinese people will know what this means if they pronounce it), and other folk instruments. Of particular note was a young percussionist who played a number of parts and instruments all with professional dexterity and aplomb.

I was also to learn that each ‘ act’ or pair of singers actually only seen one song even though that song may seem to go for 30 or 40 minutes. Each song may have 10 parts so it all makes sense to Chinese people but to this poor Westerner it was a little bit confusing.

When it was Janet’s mums time to come out on stage, she arrived to tumultuous applause, far in excess of the applause that any of the other Cantonese opera stars had received. I could tell that she was quite famous and much loved by the Chinese opera goers. This thinking was also reinforced at the end of her performance when members of the audience went to the front of the stage and presented her with gifts, far more than all of the other singers combined had received. I was one of those audience members at the front of the stage at the end of her performance as it was my job to hand her a big bouquet of flowers. We both had a good laugh at the time because it was impossible to hold the flowers due to all the other gifts she was holding in her arms. Her male singing companion had to carry the flowers for her.

With reference to her performance, I can’t really say anything. She seemed to sing the role well, similar to the other female parts sung previously although there was something slightly different in her singing and maybe this is what adds the value.

For me though, the whole thing is about the experience as well as the music. My Chinese friends were very worried before we went, during the performance, as well as afterwards because they worried that I might get bored and not enjoy the show. What I tried to explain to them that I am not sure that they understood was that I loved the experience of going to Cantonese opera, loved the experience of seeing Janet’s otherwise ‘normal’ mum as a superstar, loved sitting and listening to the Cantonese operatic music, and loved being out with my friends. Even though I didn’t understand much of what was going on at the actual opera, that all didn’t matter because I had an absolutely wonderful time.

After the opera was finished, we went and saw Janet’s mum in the dressing rooms gain and all had a good laugh about the Westerner (me) in the audience. It seems I was a focus of attention for the other opera goers as well as for some of the other singers on the stage.

Would I go again? You bet I would, for all the same reasons outlined n the paragraph above.

As the Janet’s mum and her superstar status, I also forgot to mention that she is a very normal and humble person. Were all going to her house on Saturday night as she wants to cook dinner for us all. How good is that? Simply fantastic in my view.

Until next time, don’t forget to wipe.

Pretzel Logic

2009-04-22T16:03:00.002+08:00

Last week I went to a well known travel agency here in Hong Kong to arrange for a new China Visa as mine had just expired. The staff of the travel agency are very helpful and I use their services often when arranging overseas travel as well as renewal of my China Visa.

When I went to give them my Australian passport and my Hong Kong ID card so that they could arrange the Visa, I asked them to apply for a 12 month multiple entry visa. This will allow me to go into China as many times as I wanted for the next year. Quite useful as I have been into mainland China more than 30 times in the past three years. This type of Visa is similar to the 3 month; 6 month or 12 month ones that I have had in the past and so I didn’t think there would be any problem.

There was an issue however and I was told that I could not apply for a 12 month China Visa because my Hong Kong work visa expires on 11 June 2009, a little over one month from now and that a 12 month Visa would be after the expiry date for my work visa. I was told that an application for a 12 month China Visa would be rejected.

I suggested that it shouldn’t make any difference whether I applied for a 3 month, 6 month or 12 month China Visa as it was going to be attached to my Australian passport and had nothing to do with my Hong Kong ID card situation or my work situation here in Hong Kong. I gave the staff and examples that, if I was in Australia and wanted a 12 month multiple entry China Visa for my Australian passport, then it wouldn’t matter whether I have a Hong Kong ID card or not.

I think this simple logic was just too much for the poor staff in the travel agency and they looked at me as if I was an insect in a jar wondering what I was talking about. They then proceeded to tell me that they could apply for a 6 month or a 3 month China Visa and that that application was likely to be successful.

I pointed out to them that a 6 month or a 3 month China Visa would also take the expiry date of that Visa out past 11 June 2009 and asked them how it was possible to get a 6 month or a 3 month Visa that exceeded 11 June, but it was impossible to get a 12 month Visa that also exceeded 11 June date.

Once again I was scrutinized like an insect in a jar as they studied me with a look on their faces that suggested ‘ who is this idiot?’ And then proceeded to give me the unbeatable answer. They said ‘ because this is Hong Kong’. I understood immediately, because I have been through many situations like this in Hong Kong that make absolutely no sense whatsoever to common sense and a reason. However, that does not matter because, this is Hong Kong and that’s the way things are.

I picked up my new China Visa today. It’s a 6 month one that expires on 16 October 2009, 4 months after the time I’m supposed to be able to use it. When I picked it up I simply thanked the staff for their help and assistance in getting the new China Visa for me. One of them said to me ‘ no, thank you for your help’. As I type this I’m still wondering what she meant, perhaps it’s in reference to last week’s biology lesson where I played the subject in insect study.

Until next time, this is Tales of Asia signing off.

April Update

2009-04-22T09:52:00.002+08:00

Greetings truth seekers,

Once again it has been a long time since I have written here and my only reason is because I like to use dictation software rather than typing. Up until last October I was using a Windows-based laptop and Dragon NaturallySpeaking VoiceType software so it was easy for me to leave posts here. When my laptop broke down in October I purchased an Apple Macintosh and only recently bought MacSpeech Dictate to use on it, so here I am again.

Life here in Hong Kong has been reasonably interesting over past months. The world economic crisis has certainly had an effect in many of the places that I have visited. It also has had a negative effect on some of the projects that I was about to start around the Christmas period. All of them were either postponed or cancelled at that time, and some of them are only beginning to restart now. So, it’s been a bit of a frustrating time.

Looking at how our business is performing, it is going fantastically in Australia but slow in Asia although I am hoping that will change soon.

Musically, I am still enjoying playing and putting the occasional song on my You Tube site for people to have a laugh at.

Creatively, I submitted to pieces of writing for assessment for publication in a short story book here in Hong Kong. This is the first time I have ever submitted my work to the public arena. Nobody could have been more surprised than me when I found that one of my stories had come equal sixth, and the other story ninth in the top 10. The book is due to be published here in Hong Kong in June.

In a volunteer sense, I have been enjoying mentoring some guys here although, that can have mixed rewards. Most of the guys that I try to help appreciated for just that, help. I enjoy giving my help if it is asked for and I want nothing in return but to see that person develop into a better person. If I can be part of that process than that’s fantastic. One guy however had a change of heart and after asking for my help on a daily basis for the past six months, he suddenly had a change of heart and decided that he wanted no more of my help. Instead of detaching from me with care and respect, as I would normally think might be the appropriate way, this gentleman decided to attack my character and me. Now, I might be a reasonably accommodating type of person, but I don’t take kindly when people attack my good nature. This guy’s last lesson therefore was on how to treat people with care and respect, not to take them for granted, nor to expect that they would be really available at any time of the day when the other person called. The lesson I also learnt from myself was to be a little bit more selective when agreeing to help people who ask me for assistance.

Travel wise, I haven’t been too many places since Christmas except to Shenzhen in southern China and also to Macau a number of times. The travel bug is hitting me again and I am currently attempting to plan a quick trip to Taiwan, Korea, Shanghai, Beijing, Xian and back to Hong Kong all in a short period of time. Stay tuned for more on that.

Culturally, I still continue to practice my extremely bad Cantonese but I still try.

Health wise, I had an interesting experience lately. I started becoming dizzy and falling over, losing my hearing, and experiencing a sensation of being seasick even when sitting still. I went to the doctor’s and found out I had something called Meniere’s Syndrome that is an inner ear infection that has symptoms as I described above. I was prescribed appropriate medication to clear up the inner ear infection and all is well now. It was an interesting experience albeit inconvenient at the time.

I am not sure what the universe has in store for me in the future. I can feel the pull and push forces at work, sometimes telling me that my experience in Asia is over and it’s time to move back to Australia. At other times, I feel that the universe is telling me that I need to stay in Hong Kong but simply to move from the apartment I currently live in. I will wait and see what develops.

Anyway, that’s it for now, a reasonably quick post just to stay in contact. I hope your life is going well and that the universe is presenting you with something good each day.

Until next time, don’t forget to wipe…….

Cheers.

Wabi

2009-03-24T13:58:00.001+08:00

'Wabi' - Japanese - The beauty of poverty

A Simple Creed

2009-02-26T10:51:00.002+08:00

The Samurai lived by a simple creed - No hesitation, no doubt, no surprise, no fear.

I can learn a lot from this. It basically says that once you have decided on a course of action to stay committed; know everything you need to know about it; don't be afraid and get on with it quickly.

If you have ever seen a samurai sword fight you might notice that they circle each other and then there is a dramatic burst of activity, a flurry of intense violence and then its all over. One or the other, and frequently both opponents will be dead.

The circling is not preparation, that is done over years and years of training. The circling is sussing out the opponent, taking their mind. When they go into attack it is a direct, swift, no hesitation attack.

Good way to live.

Hotel China

2009-02-26T10:49:00.001+08:00

Just thought I would share this with you. Here are the results of the Hotel China writing project here in HK for the Hong Kong Writers Circle.. I missed out on the $10k first prize but hats fine as at least I will have 2 of my stories in the book to be published mid year. Its my first time published so I am pretty pleased with the result.

HOTEL CHINA:

The editorial committee have finished their deliberations and compiled their votes. The scores were out of ten and the top ten stories were the following:

1. The Inheritance by Sarah Crosby.
2. Swan Song by Mike Bishop.
3. Strangers by Jane Wallace.
4. The Bell Boy by Simon Overton.
5. Hassan's Tale by Edmund Price.
Joint 6. Hacked by Cate Jones and Still Life by Alan Brown.
7. Private Functions by Lawrence Gray.
8. The Angel in 1209 by Ian Greenfield.
9. Fragile by Alan Brown.
10. Hotel China by Mike Ashton.

You can read both stories at my www.talesofalan.blogspot.com website

The Generosity of Professional Musicians

2009-01-15T08:49:00.000+08:00

The purpose of this blog entry is to give a special mention to all those generous professional musicians out there who look after us amateur guys.

As I grew up I thought that well-known people in the public eye were in accessible to ordinary folk such as myself. I guess this is one of the reasons that the world has such things as idol worship. I imagine that the media helps build up his image and also helped to foster the inaccessibility of these people.

To my delight, over recent years, I have found out that my earlier thinking couldn't be further from the truth. In every instance that I have contacted anyone famous, well famous to me, they have been more than accommodating and generous with their time and/or guidance. Here is a little of what am talking about.............

Bob Spencer - Bob is one of Australia's premier guitar players and is easily recognisable as the guy with no hair in bands such as the Angels and Skyhooks when those bands were famous. Bob was my music and performance coach during the time that I did Weekend Warriors, the music program that gets mature aged amateur musicians back out playing music in public. Bob was always very generous with his time, was always very encouraging and will always go that extra distance to make sure that the musicians will well prepared. Thanks Bob. You can read more about Bob here http://bobspencer.iansandercoe.com/

Paul Norton - Paul is another well-known Australian musician and you can read more about him here http://www.paulnorton.com.au/bio.htm Paul was another of my Weekend Warrior music coaches is for a Christmas concert back in 2004. A great musician, Paul is a really easy-going guy who I have been privileged to meet.

Richard Hawley - I started listening to Richard Hawley's music around four or five years ago. You can see more about Richard here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hawley I saw a clip of one of his songs on a late-night music television programme and was immediately hooked. One song in particular got me at that time 'The Ocean'. After I heard the song I wanted to learn it but there was no sheet music available at the time so I contacted the web site of an English fan club telling them that I was in Australian musician living in Hong Kong and that I had heard the song and wanted to learn the arrangement but couldn't buy anywhere. To my surprise, very soon after Richard Hawley sent me an e-mail with all the chords, TAB, and arrangement for me to learn the song. How generous is that.

Sam See - Sam See is an Australian music legend having worked with bands such as Sherbet, Flying Circus, John Farnham band, and is currently working with friend Glyn Mason in a duo called the Pardoners. Are few years ago and I saw Sam and Glyn performing together. Glyn did a song that I had heard probably 30 years ago, a song called 'Its Only Love'. I had always remembered that song over the years as one of my favourites although I had never learnt it so I decided to work it out so I could sing it myself. Everything went well and until I was trying to work out the 'middle eight' which is the section of a song in the middle of the tune where the melody veers away from the progression of the song, goes off on a musical tangent, and then comes back again to the main song. Anyway, a friend of mine Peter Jones was going to be playing some music with Sam See and what I learnt of this I asked Peter if he could ask Sam to provide me with the middle eight for 'Its Only Love'. To be honest, I didn't expect much as I thought that either Peter would forget or Sam would decline. To my delight however, the next time I saw Peter he handed me a scrap of white paper on with the middle eight scrawled out on it. It was a little tricky and that's why I couldn't work it out myself. So, my hats off to Sam for his generosity and I also give a nod to Glyn for writing the song in the first place.

Eric Clapton - Eric Clapton needs little introduction. After all, the guy is world-famous. For anybody who's been living under a rock just check out this website http://www.ericclapton.com I have long been aware of Eric's philanthropic and generous nature in the areas of recovery from drugs and alcohol. Early in 2007 and having learned of Eric's world tour, I got this crazy idea in my head to track Eric down and ask him to speak at a 12 step recovery group in Hong Kong. Since most of my brilliant ideas usually appear to me around midnight when everybody else is sleeping and I decided to send out some e-mails to places that might be able to forward my request to Eric, places like 'Where is Eric' as well as his own website and also to Crossroads, the recovery centre he started in Antigua. The following day I decided that although my idea might have been a good one with all best of intentions, it would be highly unlikely that I would ever get a response. To my surprise and absolute delight, about two weeks later and e-mail arrived in my inbox from Nicky Hewitt, Eric's personal assistant, asking me why I was trying to track down Eric. I contacted Nicky and explained my request. There were some subsequent communications and I was to learn that Nicky had spoken with Eric, showing him my request and given him my contact details as Eric was agreeable provided he had the time. What more could I ask. Eric's tool came through China and Hong Kong and I had the pleasure of going to see him perform at Asia World Expo. I was to learn later that the tool was on a very tight schedule going through China and that Eric had the flu at the time and that this was probably the reason why he wasn't able to fulfil my original request. No hard feelings though as I really never expected the reply from Eric or any of his staff in the first place. Am just amazed that they took the time out to consider my request and put it into their schedule spending time commitments.

Broderick Smith - Broderick Smith is another Australian music legend. Best known for his time in bands such as Carson and The Dingoes, Broderick is a singer songwriter, harmonica, guitar and banjo player. You can read more about Broderick here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderick_Smith Anyway, I asked Broderick's help in a roundabout way. Just like with Glyn Mason's song 'Its Only Love' discussed above, back in 1980 I heard a song done and the memorial concert for a young Australian songwriter Andy Durant. Andy was one of Australia's most talented songwriter's and died of cancer. He used to play in a band called Stars with Mick Pealing (see below). The song was 'Ocean Deep' and I was hooked on the song from the start. Maybe its something about songs with the word 'ocean' in them.... who knows. Anyway, I only ever heard the song performed once back in 1980 but in the past 28 years I would often hum it or sing it to myself. I once had the album of that concert in record form but it went missing however the song never did from my brain. I guess my skull is so thick that once music gets in there it keeps bouncing around because it can't find anywhere to escape. Late in 2008 I learnt that the Andrew Durant Memorial Concert had been released on DVD. Of course I knew I would have to buy it even if only for that one song, even though I knew that there were many other brilliant songs on it. So I ordered it from Hong Kong and waited until I was down in Melbourne at Christmas time to watch the video. I was delighted to see this song performed again by Broderick Smith. Coincidentally, a young Glyn Mason also did a sterling performance for that concert. Although I said diligently watching the screen and trying to work out the progression so I could perform that song myself, I wasn't able to understand it all and so was a little bit disappointed. I decided to do what I had learnt through previous experience, that is to ask the people who performed it if they would mind sharing the song with me. So, I sent an e-mail off to Broderick Smith and Mick Pealing asking them if they would mind sharing the song. To my delight, I had a reply from Broderick Smith within five minutes complete with the chords, TAB and the arrangement. Absolutely brilliant. That was two days before my writing of this blog and was the motivation for me to acknowledge the generosity of professional musicians towards us lesser lights. Thanks Broderick, I really appreciate getting that TAB.

Mick Pealing - Mick was a lead singer of the Stars, a well-known Australian rock 'n' roll band and has been a force in Australian music ever since. His web site is http://mickpealing.com.au At the time that I was looking for Andy Durants 'Ocean Deep' I sent a similar e-mail to Mick as I had to Broderick Smith and I did receive a reply from Mick. He was very friendly in his reply but unable to help me as he said that although he knew the lyrics world and sang the song, he didn't have the chord progression is that I needed. My thanks to Mick anyway for his kind reply.

Peter Jones - Peter is my good friend and is the person I blame for giving me back into playing music a few years ago and the reason why I have in excess of 40 guitars these days. You can find out more about Peter here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jones_(drummer) Peter has played with anyone worth playing with including Kate Ceberano, Renée Geyer, Daryl Braithwaite, Crowded House, Ross Hannaford, Lisa Miller, the list goes on........ I met Peter around 11 years ago and we quickly became friends. It was through Peter though I learnt that most musicians are just ordinary people and that most professional musicians are always willing to help amateur musicians make progress and play music. At the time that I met Peter my musical ambitions as well as my playing ability had hit an absolute rock bottom. Thanks to Peter he introduced me to a guy who was to become my music teacher to the next two years. Peter was also a big help in motivating me at the time when I joined the weekend warriors program. I even had the privilege of having Peter play in one of two bands at my birthday party three years ago, so not only have I made a great friend of us played music with him as well. Thanks mate.

So there you have it, some of the people I thought would be totally accessible but who have been not only available but extremely generous with their kindness and talents. My thanks to all of them.

Until next time, don't forget to wipe

Tales of Asia's signing off.

Greetings Truthseekers

2009-01-15T06:46:00.000+08:00

Greetings truthseekers,

It's been about 3 1/2 months since I've written anything here and, this time, I have a reason why. In October my computer broke down and was away for repair for a total of 22 days. In the end, the Hewlett-Packard repair centre in Hong Kong decided to throw my hard drive in the rubbish bin thereby deleting a lot of data including one particular program that I used as an e-diary before uploading some of that information to this web site.

So what's been happening in 'Alanworld' since I last wrote here? Hmmmmm,........... well he's a bit of a summary of what's been going on.....

Apart from computer problems, things have been going well in Hong Kong. Business life and social life was good and I was starting to make major inroads into major projects into my area of endeavour. The business side of this has since all come crashing down during the world financial crisis caused by the Americans sub prime market. I'm not in financial services, I am a service provider and often work on major projects and developments, in Asia are those are mostly casinos on Macau. Unfortunately for me and my company, all of the projects we were about to start on have been either postponed, delayed, or totally cancelled. I am still intending to stay in Hong Kong and see what happens over the coming months.

Leading up to November, I was also doing a course of study in my profession. It's the equivalent of a CPA in accounting. The exam was held on Saturday, November 1 and my compatriots and myself toughed out the four exam and then crossed their fingers for the next two months hoping for the best that we had passed. I got my results in the week before Christmas and there was no one more surprised than me to find out that I had not only passed the exam, but passed well, especially as I then found out that a number of other people had not been successful. I can now call myself a CPP or Certified Protection Professional. It's nice to have but I don't let it pump up my ego, my head has not swollen so much that my head won't fit through the door, and you don't have to genuflect if you seen the passing by.

As I mentioned above, my computer was out of action during October. As I needed to continue my work I bought an Apple iMac as a desktop computer and as a backup to the laptop that I normally use. One of the benefits of having the iMac is that it has a good on board camera and has a really easy way of uploading videos to You Tube. Being a curious type of guy, I took advantage of this and you can see some of the results at http://au.youtube.com/user/Sushinoodleguy Please just take it for what it is, a bit of fun.

Speaking of web sites, I also updated my other web site that has some of myinformation. You can see that at www.sushinoodleguy.com Again, it's just a bit of fun.

Living in Asia continued to be fun and I have enjoyed my three years in Hong Kong considering that I initially only ever went there for a one-month holiday. Not only have I had a wonderful holiday, but I have lived my dream of not only visiting Asia but live in fair for quite some considerable time. I really do feel that I'm one of the most privileged and fortunate guys walking around the planet.

I continued with one of my other loves, creative writing, during past months too. In particular, I wrote two short stories with the Hong Kong Writers Circle, a writing group that I am associated with for a project called ' Hotel China'. The idea is that a number of writers will write short stories based on a fictional hotel in Wan Chai, a suburb of Hong Kong but also has a famous red light district. The compilation of short stories is then intended for publication at the 2009 Hong Kong Book Fair. You won't have to buy the book though and you won't even have to fly to Hong Kong and go to the book fair to read the stories as you can just follow this link and read them for free www.talesofalan.blogspot.com

On the 1st of December I flew down to Melbourne to spend Christmas with there with family and friends. I am currently in Melbourne and writing this blog entry from there. Things have been good in my time here and I must admit that at times it has been quite difficult to leave my beautiful home and venture out in the world as I just feel so relaxed and comfortable sitting in my family room, looking out into my very private and peaceful rear garden and watching native birds including parrots feed on some food that I'd put out for them earlier. Its 9:30 a.m. in the morning, the weather is mild, the sky is a beautiful bright blue, the sun is shining and is just bliss.

My stay in Melbourne has been good and I really did enjoy a night time at my friends Mandy and Wards house on Christmas Day, as well as going to other friends Cheryl and Beau's on Boxing Day. These are probably the two days that I look forward to most each year. Also whilst in Melbourne I was able to catch up with a lot of other friends and, in particular, play music with some of my mates including my good friend and bass player Robert Edwards as well as my young friend Mark Donat. You can see Mark perform music if you follow this link http://au.youtube.com/user/markdonat If you are a good detective and also check out the song 'No Other Baby' on my You Tube site and then you will see Mark playing in the band with me when he was 14 years old. Please note that there are two versions of 'No Other Baby' on my You Tube site and you will need to look at the birthday party one to see Mark.

So that's it to now. A short update to let you know what's been happening since my previous blog entries.

Cheers for now and I hope to catch up with you again soon. As always.................... don't forget to wipe.

Alan

Thought for the Day

2008-09-23T09:59:00.003+08:00

"Giri, ninjo. Tatemae, honne"

Duty versus desire, conformity versus self-expression.

Eternal and unresolvable.

Every man must decide for himself what matters most.

Thought for the Day

2008-09-23T09:57:00.000+08:00

Never bump your grandma when she is shaving.

Thailand........... the Land of Smiles

2008-08-18T11:42:00.000+08:00

Recently, I travelled to Thailand from July 31 to August 4 for a short holiday with a group of friends. Prior to leaving on this vacation it was necessary for me to attend the Australian embassy here in Hong Kong to renew my passport which to meet was a joyous occasion. For a person who suffered a flying phobia all of my life up until 3 years ago when it became possible to travel, you can imagine my delight at having to renew my passport having filled up all 32 pages of the previous one with stamps from different countries that I have visited since the start of 2006. Needless to say, I've gotten 64 page one this time as these days I am always ready and eager to hop on a plane to any destination as flying has become an absolute delight rather than a terrifying experience.

The Kingdom of Thailand includes an irresistible combination of breathtaking natural beauty, ruins of ancient kingdoms, inspiring temples, breathtaking natural beauty and renowned hospitality. No wonder Thailand draws more visitors than any other country in South-east Asia. From the pounding dance clubs of Bangkok, the tranquil villages along the Mekong River, the verdant limestone islands of the Andaman Sea, Thailand has something on offer for every traveller.

Landing in Bangkok on a Thursday afternoon and proceeding to the Banyan Tree Hotel after a short limousine ride I was immediately impressed by the warmth, friendliness and carefree charm expressed by the Thai people.

Staying on the 56th floor I had a great view of the surrounding city and precincts. Bangkok became Thailand's capital in 1782. Prior to that it was an outlying district of Thonburi, a trading post in the mid-18th-century. The government of the day seeing that Bangkok was close to Siams capital, Ayuthaya, and noting Bangkok's military significance built a fortress there on the banks of the Chao Phraya and suspended their huge iron chain across the river to block unwelcome arrivals. In modern times, Bangkok grew and numerous roadways were added and the constitutional government established. Today Bangkok is noted as a financial hub of mainland Southeast Asia.

After visiting Bangkok we departed for Phuket province a short flight to the south. The Pearl of the South in the land of smiles, Phuket is Thailand's largest and most visited island. The economy revolves around tourism but still retains its loyalty to real Thailand culture.

Formerly called Ko Thalang, Phuket combines Chinese and Portuguese influences with that of the Southern Thais as well as the Chao Leh, a seminomadic, seafaring people who rely on fishing and boat building. The island's location on the main sea trade route between China and India historically raised the importance of Phuket as a trading station and fishing centre. In more modern times, rubber farming was introduced to Phuket. This industry drew other ethnic groups including Chinese immigrants and southern Thai Muslims. Thailand is one of the largest exporters of rubber in the world.

In more recent times, the 2004 tsunami wreaked havoc on the island's southwestern and western coasts and took many lives. Some of the damage is still evident although it appears that Phuket has recovered well from this natural disaster. In September 2007 a budget airlines plane crashed at Phuket airport. The tragic accident temporarily closed the airport at that time.

I stayed in a Lagoon villa at the Banyan Tree Hotel at Laguna resort. These villas are large and have their own very private swimming pool. Mine also had a rear access from the courtyard to a small jetty landing on the lagoon where guests could relax in banana lounges. My stay there was extremely pleasant and my compliments go to all of the Banyan Tree's staff for their great service. While staying at the Laguna resort were also able to venture out and explore some of Phuket including massage and spa at the palatial Sukko Spa in Amphur Muang, the Patong Beach area where we dined most nights and were able to sample some of the night life and shopping. If anyone is looking for good places to eat then Baan Rim Pa and the Savoey at Patong Beach as well as the Watermark restaurant at the boat Lagoon Marina at Muang deserve a mention.

Returning back to Hong Kong on a Thai Airways flight wasn't all that bad either or too hard to handle. When I walked into the front of the Thai Airways flight and saw the new capsule seating with the wide aisles, I could have been forgiven for thinking that I was in a Gold Class theatre somewhere. The words "I'm impressed" kept coming into my mind.

We plan another holiday to Thailand soon, this time to Chiang Mai as we are keen to experience nor all that wonderful Thai culture. For me, will be another opportunity at whittling away at those 64 pages in my new passport.

Until next time, don’t forget to wipe………………………..

Waaaa!! Its been four months since my last confession.....

2008-08-05T23:26:00.000+08:00

I cannot believe that I have not written an entry here since April 2008. It is now the fifth of August 2008. I will do my best to try and summarise the past four months in this entry. So, here goes..............

At the time of writing my last entry, I was in Melbourne, Australia. I had gone there from Hong Kong with the purposes of moving our office to better accommodation. I originally planned to stay for two months but ended up staying to nearly 3.

Whilst in Melbourne I was able to identify potential office buildings in the form of office/warehouse combinations and at the right price. One in particular caught my eye and I focused on that one but also kept negotiations on other buildings continuing in reserve just in case I couldn't get the one I wanted. The building I liked was brand new, untouched and had a really nice corporate presentation. It is situated in the new Aero Link business Park at Tullamarine near Melbourne airport. In the end, I got the one I wanted at a much better price than I anticipated. Either I am a better negotiator and I give myself credit for all the real estate salesman who did the negotiations on behalf of the owner caved in to early. Either way I was quite happy with the result.

After the building had been negotiated there were obvious things that needed attention such as additional power points, telephone outlets, data etc. These were quickly attended to and the removalist organised. There were a great number of other things that needed to be done in relation to moving but in the end they were quite simple to facilitate as I had already planned them all before leaving from Hong Kong to Melbourne, so it was just a case of " following the bouncing ball" to get things done. Step one followed by step two followed by step three etc. Some of my new friends were impressed by the facilitation process but my attitude was that if we advertise ourselves as project managers, then we better handle our own project well.

Whilst in Melbourne I also engaged the services of a new employee, a project manager whose name is Glen. Speaking of names, some people ask me why I don't write more about my friends. It's quite simple, it's called private life for reason. I write a little about them, as much as is necessary for the purposes of telling a story but I don't like to delve into the right private business. That's for them to tell.

Also while in Melbourne I was also able to complete writing the content for all of our web site updates. These include www.trma.com.au , www.trma.com.hk , www.intersec.com.au , www.alanjbrown.com.au So, it's been a busy time.

We also restructured our business consistent with moving so we could separate our business into business units that were more logically set out to deal with the businesses that we are in.

Also, as a bit of a side project I wrote my own personal web site were I could coordinate various links to other web sites such as this one all from the same place. If you would like to check that out than please go to www.sushinoodleguy.com You will also find a song there that I wrote on a plane in September last year on my way down to Melbourne. It's called " The day you when away". I did the recording in one take sitting in my kitchen in Melbourne Victoria. I simply played an acoustic guitar and saying what the recorder did the rest, so any bum notes are not the recorder's fault they are my own. I wrote the song after reading about a lady doctor in Australia who was sick and suffering from either a leukaemia or Hodgkinson's disease (I think). At that time, this lady was pregnant and had a decision to make. Basically she had to decide whether to keep taking her medicine for her illness so that she could stay well but at the same time pulled her unborn baby at risk, or not to take her medicine which would put her at risk but give her baby a better chance at survival. In the end she chose not to take her medicine knowing the likely outcome. Her husband was an American gentleman who is also living here in Australia. I felt that there was a lot of love and that family. I believe that the baby was delivered prematurely after the lady died, or at the time of her death. I wrote the song from her husband's perspective. I hope you like it if you take the opportunity to have a listen to it.

I enjoyed my time in Melbourne very much. I was able to catch up with old friends and make relationships with new ones. I miss Melbourne when I'm away but I do accept that I'm trying to get a business going in Hong Kong.

After my return to Hong Kong to meet with some business people, I found the lot of business people have gone away on summer holiday. A number of the meetings that I was going to attend were postponed. Still, I turned my attention to marketing and similar activities and have been busy ever since.

As far as travel is concerned, I made a couple of trips over to Macau for business and also when up to mainland China a couple of times, mainly for pleasure and relaxation. I may have mentioned before that it's quite easy to get from where I live in Hong Kong to the Mainland China border, just a train ride away.

I have just returned from a short holiday in Thailand. I went there with the group of friends on July 31 and returned on August 4. I went to Bangkok and Phuket. I found Thailand to be a mixture of Vietnamese, Malaysians, Singaporean cultures, all very pleasant. The Thai people too are very friendly and pleasant and I really did find their custom of saying " Sawadeeka" or "Sawadeecup" to be a very pleasant greeting.

When I take a look back on the past four months, or indeed the past few years, I still think that I'm the luckiest guy on the planet.

Until next time, take good care, and don't forget to wipe.................

What love means to a child.......

2008-04-17T08:15:00.005+08:00

________________________________

'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.'

Rebecca- age 8
________________________________

'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'

Billy - age 4

________________________________

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'

Karl - age 5
________________________________

'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'

Chrissy - age 6
________________________________

'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'

Terri - age 4
________________________________

'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.'

Danny - age 7
________________________________

'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss'

Emily - age 8
________________________________

'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.'

Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)
________________________________

'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,'

Nikka - age 6

(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)
________________________________

'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.'

Noelle - age 7
________________________________

'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.'

Tommy - age 6
________________________________

'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.'

Cindy - age 8
________________________________

'My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.'

Clare - age 6
________________________________

'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.'

Elaine-age 5
________________________________

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.'

Chris - age 7
________________________________

'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.'

Mary Ann - age 4
________________________________

'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.'

Lauren - age 4
________________________________

'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image)

Karen - age 7
________________________________

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.'

Mark - age 6
________________________________

'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.'

Jessica - age 8
________________________________

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.

The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,

'Nothing, I just helped him cry'
________________________________

Today and the future

2008-03-19T17:33:00.002+08:00

"You do not need to know what is in tomorrow to live in today. You don't have to see the future in order to walk towards it."

A quote from page 598 of the novel Brethren by Robin Young

Pondering......................

2008-03-18T13:51:00.002+08:00

Recently I have been doing some pondering. Questions have been coming up in my mind such as:

Where is the centre of the universe?

Where exactly is the edge of the universe?

Where are you if you take one extra step past the edge of that universe?

If a star falls from the heavens, where does it fall to?

Astronomers and scientists say that if you could explore every inch of the sky there would be a star in every part of the sky. Okay then, if there are so many stars in the sky, how come we have night-time?

Do aliens have arseholes?

Serious questions really.......

Santana at AsiaWorld Expo, Hong Kong – Friday 7th March 2008

2008-03-09T12:04:00.002+08:00

Last night I attended the Santana concert in Hong Kong with some of my friends and about 20,000 other folk. I am a long time Santana fan and was looking forward to some trademark playing.

The show began with a bang, quite literally, as the percussion section — made up of Dennis Chambers, Raul Rekow and Karl Perazzo pounded the intro to the opening volley of Peace.

Carlos Santana then strode centrestage to cheers, and splashed his trademark spitfire melodies over the rhythmic canvas provided by the band. Wearing his trademark hat to hide his now-balding head Santana showed that despite being over the retirement age, he still has a few surprises up his sleeves. Not satisfied to just play his hits (Into The Night, Smooth, Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen, Oye Como Va), he often injected snippets of other songs into his own works. No One To Depend On, for example, merged into an instrumental take of Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall while Evil Ways melded into John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.

Throughout the rest of the gig, he peppered his songs with riffs that ranged from classical music (Beethoven's Fur Elise) to reggae (Bob Marley's Could This Be Love) and jazz (Herbie Hancock's Bring Down The Birds) and everything else in between. Now for the bad stuff. Despite of some great playing, my musical friends and I that attended the concert ended up feeling very bored. Even after we tried to infuse ourselves with the experience and the music, participate, and be one with the infectious rhythms, the melodies, the sonic textures and layers that the band weaves through the course of the gig, the whole show just didn’t seem to connect with the audience.

Sure, the band said hello to the audience once or twice and Carlos gave his traditional “love your brothers and sisters” message out to the crowd, the whole show just seemed to be disconnected from the spectators.The fans and "sightseers" (mainly Chinese people who aren't really fans but went to the concert because it's a brand-name artiste and Hong Kong people love idol worship) found themselves listening to a “wall of sound” with little music separation between instruments.

One other thing that marred my appreciation was the fact that someone decided that Santana's guitar amp had to go down to 3, making him sit level in the mix with the rest of the band every time he played. Even during the louder moments, he was quiet. He never seemed to cut through the mix. When I attend concerts I often sit near the mixing desk if its in the middle of the hall to try to get the best sound, but It still didn't cut it.

Although I never said so to my friends, I felt that I was watching a band rehearsal with no audience. The players related to each other but not the audience. At times Carlos would sit on a low stool at the side of the stage to play his solos. If you missed him walking over and sitting down you could end up thinking "where's he gone?". At other times he kept standing side on to the audience and performing for a camera operator ( perhaps a concert DVD?) and ignored the crowd. There seemed to be an invisible barrier between the performance and the spectators, “You can watch but you can’t participate” seemed to be the order of the night. It just never connected. I wonder if this was the case in Melbourne for anyone that went to Santana’s concert there?

Still, would I pay the top-tier price go see him again? Maybe not. Considering that the last time I saw him was in Melbourne in around 1977, if I wait that long again I think I’ll meet Carlos in the next life instead of at a concert hall.

Observations on life - A world record attempt......

2008-02-20T18:51:00.001+08:00

As you may have realised by my earlier posts, I like to observe human behaviour. Some of the behaviour that I observe is admirable whilst at the other end of the scale, some of the behaviour on observe is downright disgusting. This post is about some behaviour in the less admirable category.

For anybody who has spent any period of time here in Hong Kong, they will remember that good food at a reasonably cheap price is a priority amongst most Hong Kong people. There are a multitude of restaurants throughout the many cities and towns of Hong Kong and the majority of people eat out each day because it is cheaper to eat out than to cook at home. The food is fresh, the portions are generous, and the taste is fantastic.

During the daytime I can find myself outside visiting clients were doing various errands. I like to have a healthy lunch which often includes some barbecue pork or some steamed chicken together with a rice noodle soup. One of the places a lot of frequent here in Hong Kong is called "Can+Teen". There is a number of Can+Teen's around the central business district of Hong Kong and they are part of a larger company.

As I have been to this particular restaurant chain a number of times over the past two years, I have noticed the same people also frequenting the establishment to partake of their nice lunches before heading back to their offices often in the building above the restaurant.

Of these people, two in particular have taken my interest in recent months. A man and a woman.
The man looks like typical mainland Chinese person. Dark hair, reasonably thin, around 175 cm, approximately 55 years old, and often wearing what I term as typically mainland Chinese attire, that being a shirt or a sweater, a black leather jacket during the cold weather, grey trousers and black shoes.

The woman however does not dress as a typical mainland Chinese person. She has short-term hair red in colour, is dumpy and fat, wears spectacles, is around 150 cm tall, and likes to wear the latest in young woman's fashions. The problem with this is though that this woman is probably around 50 plus years old. This lady likes to wear short miniskirts with black stockings when the weather is cold, all leopardskin jackets and coats, funky accessories, and in my quiet humble opinion looks totally ridiculous. Notwithstanding my opinion however, she can dress however she wishes.

Although the lady wears a wedding ring, I don't think this man is her husband. I think the man is her boyfriend. They tend to meet at lunchtime and go and sit at an out of the way table, hidden from outside view of passers-by. On several occasions, they have sat near me and, without being focused on them, I have come to observe some of their behaviour in passing.

I think the gentleman is quite happy to be with the lady and just spend time with her. He sits there and talks, never eating any lunch or having a drink. He is just there to spend time with the woman.

The woman however always likes to eat. She often waits for the man to come and then tells him what she wants and he goes and purchases her lunch for her and brings it back to the table. Now, I have this secret belief that the woman is going for a world record attempt in the Guinness book of records. I think this woman is practising for the world record attempt at how much food a person can stuff in their mouth while still talking, but without spraying any of the foodstuff all over the front of her partner as she continues her never-ending dialogue.

On the odd occasion that she has looked in my general direction and I have seen her molars thrashing up and down as she eats and chatters away talking at the same time, it has nearly been enough for me to want to go and throw myself out the nearest window and in front of the nearest moving vehicle. It is absolutely disgusting. Still, it's her right to do whatever she wants whether I like it or not. The man doesn't seem to pay any attention to it, either he is used to it or love blinds him from saying anything about it.

Hong Kong, a great place to live, the great place to observe human behaviour, and a great place where world records can be challenged even during lunchtime.

Until next time, don't forget to wipe.........

2008-02-11T11:22:00.000+08:00

Its Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong.

It's easy to tell that it's Chinese New Year because one of the customs is for people to buy new shoes and to start wearing them at the start of Chinese New Year.

It's really amusing to sit on the MTR train network and look up and down the carriage at all the nice, clean and colourful new shoes. Even more amusing is to look on the underside of the sole and see the price sticker still stuck on the bottom of the shoes.

Although I am a "Gweilo" (Westerner) here in Hong Kong, I also like to observe the Chinese customs so I bought some new shoes to wear for Chinese New Year. It's also being nice to give out red pocket (red envelopes with some money in them) to friends, the guards at the apartment where I live as well as to the concierge staff downstairs.

Until next time, this is Tales of Asia saying " don't forget to wipe".

One Man's Theatre is Another Man's ........

2007-12-31T12:37:00.000+08:00

Last night I went to the Kwai Tsing Theatre in Kwai Fong to see a theatrical performance of La Fin des Terres (Lands End). The write up for the show described it as being the story of a meeting between two people and its imaginary resonance in the landscape of dreams. It went on to describe the show as conjuring up a series of enigmatic characters, sometimes real, sometimes projected which would reveal secret emotions and hidden histories. It further described the show as poetry, incarnated in animated forms and actors/magicians which captivate and explore with passion undiscovered theatrical continents.

What I witnessed was a bunch of actors in overcoats and bowler hats frollicking around with plastic bags on stage. I think I missed something......

Christmas 2007

2007-12-26T23:31:00.000+08:00

Today is the 26th of December 2007. Christmas 2007 has now come and gone and I negotiated it reasonably successfully this year.

You see, for many years I have lived alone since my divorce in 1994. Sure, I have had a couple of medium-term relationships since that time but, for most of the time, Christmases have been a solitary affair for me.

Over the years my daughter Alana has usually gone to her mother's side of the family. My son Dylan usually goes to my side of the family. I can't go with my ex-wife's side of the family and, to be honest, I have never liked going to my side of the family so, the consequence of all that is that I usually get "hung out to dry" and spend Christmases alone.

Most of the time frame usually okay about spending Christmas alone and have arrangements were I spend time with friends. For example, for a couple of years I would join my friend Vivian's families lunch. They are a large Italian family and would meet at a restaurant or hotel. There would be 30 or 40 people and I would be made welcome. Fortunately for Vivian, but little unfortunately for me, a few years ago Vivian met a guy who became her partner. Her partner perceived me as some sort of romantic threat to Vivian (although nothing could have been further from the truth in reality) and so soon my invitations to Christmas started to drop off. I could understand how this guy might feel little threatened so I didn't feel too badly when the invitations started to cease. Soon after that, my really good friends Ward and Mandy started to invite me to Christmas lunch at their house and that was usually followed by a late afternoon tea at my housekeepers house. My housekeepers, Alexandria and Spiro are an elderly Greek couple and I love them like they are my parents and I love to visit them and spend time with them.

I am aware however of how people can become lonely and isolated at Christmas time. For 10 years between 1995 and 2005 I worked for a suicide and crisis counselling service in Melbourne Australia. I was a volunteer counsellor there and also a trainer. I loved doing the job even though most councillors " burnt out" after only a couple of years. I was well aware that many single people become lonely and isolated around the Christmas period and some of these people attempt and complete the act of suicide. Being aware of this, I have always run my own safety even though I can also get a bit edgy and feel alone and isolated around Christmas period.

This year I am delighted to report that Christmas has come and gone and I have had a nice time. Last weekend was pleasant and eventful and Christmas Eve, being Monday was also a busy day. At the end of the day I joined a couple of people for a Thai dinner at Knutsford Terrace in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. It was a lovely evening and the restaurant gave out Christmas hat's, streamers, noise makers to get into the spirit of things. Christmas Day was a very relaxed affair, I just went out walking for part of the day and at the end of the day I joined the same two friends for dinner at an Australian restaurant in the deluxe shopping mall underneath the apartments that I live in. Woolloomooloo is our restaurant based on Australian cuisine, whatever that is. We had an absolutely lovely dinner in lovely company.

Today is Boxing Day and I slept in late. After heading out from my apartment I went over to a suburb called Jordan for lunch and then walked up through a suburb called Yau Ma Tei to another suburb called Mongkok to do some shopping. After that I went to Prince Edward, another suburb, and brought some pot plants and also some goldfish and a goldfish bowl. it's been a great day.

Tomorrow I plan to go up to Shenzhen in mainland China and stay there until Saturday. A nice conclusion to a great week.

Until next time " don't forget to wipe".....

Memories....

2007-12-26T23:12:00.000+08:00

I have a friend called Hugh.

Hugh and I first met 26 years ago when Hugh had just arrived in Australia from Scotland and I was a manager in a large Australian company. At the time Hugh was one of the applicants for a number of jobs I have available and, being impressed with his skill set and his keen attitude, I gave him a job as a security alarm technician in that company. The company was a major Australian company and had an electronic Security Division as well as a Guards Division.

Hugh proved to be a friendly and humourous guy, a hard-working man and soon was being promoted through the ranks of his colleagues into positions of responsibility. A couple of years later I left that company and continued my career elsewhere. Hugh stayed with that company and started to achieve positions in management. As time went by he switched to the guards division and became extremely successful.

Of course, with success comes hardships. For Hugh it was in his marriage. As the years went by Hugh was getting a seriously big salary. When his marriage broke up his wife applied to the Australian legal system and did everything she could to get every cent possible from Hugh.

Hugh found it impossible to continue working for the security company even though he was getting a large salary, because he was having to pay for his wife's house and expenses, 100% of his two daughters upkeep, as well is trying to pay the rent for a place he was living in and to feed himself. Hugh never complained about having to contribute to his daughters upkeep. After all, he loved them dearly and wanted to see them grow up properly and successfully. What he did have a problem with however is the same thing that many divorced men in Australia have a problem with, and that is that sometimes the ex-wives become unreasonable and try to get the ex-husband to pay 100% of the outgoings of the household that they have left rather than 50% of the costs of bringing up children.

Hugh soon found that he couldn't afford to pay his own rent and buy food after he had paid his ex-wives mortgage and all costs for his ex-wife and the children. His situation was becoming desperate.

Hugh's solution to his problem was to quit his very responsible and high-paying job and start a lawn mowing service. He went straight from being a high-powered and highly intelligent corporate executive to a home handyman. We'll also happened was that he ceased having his salary paid by a corporation that kept taxation records in their computer system and went to a system where he was the owner/operator of his own business and, since most jobs were paid for in cash, declared only as much money as he needed to to satisfy his ex-wife's needs. He then was able to keep the rest of the money for himself and eke out a meager lifestyle. His ex-wife's lifestyle also suffered dramatically as she was not unable to garnishee his salary from the large security company. In the end, she got far less than she would have gotten if she had been reasonable at the start.

My observation is that it's really sad when a marriage gets to this situation and the person has to trash their career to save being savaged by next partner.

Hugh, if you are out there somewhere reading this, I tip my hat to you.

The Black Emptiness

2007-12-21T01:34:00.000+08:00

When I was 20 years old my parents took my three sisters and my brother on a holiday to England. I went to Melbourne airport to see them off and remember waving goodbye to them as they left.

They never told me why they never took me with them. I never asked as it was too painful.

When they did that they gave me something. They gave me a " black emptiness" that I carry around with me to this day. Sometimes that black emptiness is very heavy.

Some well-meaning people have suggested to me various reasons are excuses as to why my parents did what they did. In the end though, they went away and took my family and left me behind standing there are alone as they disappeared in the plane.

If any parents are out there reading this, please learn through my experience. Please never do this to your children. It will just sit with them forever and eat away at them.

A Secret Revealed....

2007-12-21T01:03:00.000+08:00

Greetings truth seekers,

Those people who know me reasonably well know that I started off my working life as a construction site bricklayers labourer and a while later realised that I had a skill for something in a different profession that I then followed.

This particular profession has held me in good stead for the past 30 years or so and has provided me with a very reasonable livelihood and lifestyle. After all, who would have thought that I would have spent the last two years basically on holiday here in Hong Kong.

Anyway, I believe that although I seem to live a complex lifestyle that seems to be terribly busy, especially when I'm in Melbourne, I am actually just a very simple person who is also a very deep thinker.

As I was growing up in the Australian working culture, I learnt that certain things were off-limits to construction site workers and macho Australian males. For example, there was an unwritten rule that nobody was allowed to talk about opera, the ballet, art or similar things. Worse than that, it would have been a cardinal sin if anybody had actually owned up to going to one of these particular events or viewings.

As the years went on I found myself yearning to experience these cultural things in life. To that end, about eight years ago I visited my first art gallery (ever so secretly and quietly I must admit in case somebody saw me there....) and went to a country art gallery in the Victorian countryside.

Whilst I was there (and the only person there) the curator, whose name turned out to be Peter. asked me if I had a particular liking for any particular artist. I think he could tell from my embarrassed silence that I had absolutely no idea of art or artists at all. Peter offered to take me around the Castlemaine Art Gallery and give me a bit of a guided tour. He kept things reasonably simple and I remember him discussing a particular European artist who had come to Australia and painted Australian landscapes using European palates. The difference in the colour in the paintings was obvious. Australian landscapes painted like English countrysides.

Soon after I left the Castlemaine Art Gallery, I booked myself in for a guided tour of the National Art Gallery in Melbourne. Once again, a volunteer took us around and explained the old masters as well as some of the modern painters.

Since that time, I have been too many art galleries both in Australia and overseas and thoroughly loved the experience. One of the last art galleries that I visited was the Chicago Art Gallery in America.

Similar to my love of art, I always held a hidden ambition to experience ballet and opera. Of course, as an Australian guy, I could never admit to liking these things and so I never went. A little over two years ago a good friend of mine who is a ballet lover suggested that I come along and experience a contemporary ballet at the State Theatre in Melbourne.

On that particular night, I went along with her and we saw La Boheme. I had no idea what to expect so you can imagine my surprise when the curtain went up to find the audience looking into what appeared to be an 1800's Paris loft with two guys in it, a writer and the painter.

You can probably understand my further surprise when all of a sudden these two guys grasped hands with each other and started prancing around the stage. I nearly burst out in laughter when they danced up to the front of the stage and both this is a kick in their tights and lifted a leg high into the air in a movement that I have effectually come to call "the hello boys".

Anyway, as the ballet progressed I settled down and started to watch the various movements and understand the story. By the time that particular ballet was finished I was hooked. I wanted to see more ballet.

Not long after that, I went to another performance of State Theatre but this time by a Chinese ballet troupe who put on the performance of " Tales of the Silk Road". 120 Chinese dancers onstage sometimes 90 at the time and they put on a magnificent performance.

Since then, I have seen various ballets including a medley combination done by the Hong Kong Ballet Company, the Hong Kong Ballet companies rendition of Suzie Wong (I saw it twice last year), and the Australian Ballet companies Raymonda at the Sydney Opera House last Christmas.

Last night I went to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre to see a performance of The Nutcracker. I had been a little bit reluctant to see a more formal style of ballet, but last week I went to see my doctor from small medical complaint. I learned last year that this particular doctor "Doctor D" is a ballet devotee and attends every performance of the Hong Kong Ballet company at least twice every performance. He suggested that I do myself in favour and book some tickets and get along and see this performance.

I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. I ran into Dr D whilst I was there and he commented on how pleased he was to see me come along and inquired as to whether I was enjoying the ballet. I just told him that I was having an absolutely wonderful time.

As it turned out, tonight I ran into the conductor of the orchestra from last nights The Nutcracker in Starbucks in Tsim Sha Tsui. He is an Australian who lives in New York. We had a bit of a conversation about the ballet and the musical score and I joked about my past reluctance as an Australian male to experience these things. He agreed that many guys all over the world think it's uncool to experience these things.

Soon I intend to go and see an opera and include that in my life. I'm not sure what to expect but, if it's anything like the jewellery I have gotten from experiencing art and ballet then it will be well worth the effort on my part.

To any guys out there who might be macho men, tough Australian males, or just Aussies who think the guys who are only supposed to go to the football and drink beer, all I want to suggest to you is don't shortchange yourself. Get out there and experience these things and form your own opinion. If you like them then fantastic. The experience than and decide that you don't like them at least you'll have a basis to your decision rather than contempt prior to investigation.

That's all for now folks. As always, don't forget to wipe...............

Observations on Life - Beauty on the MTR

2007-12-21T00:56:00.000+08:00

Tonight I was on the Hong Kong mass transit rail system (MTR) going from Central Station to Sai Wan Ho Chi to have dinner with some people I was being introduced to.

While on the MTR I was sitting opposite a Chinese lady who appeared to be in her 40s, permed hair, very round face, wearing a tracksuit that, although big, seemed to be doing its fair share of stretching.

At one point the Lady opened her handbag and took out one of those little compact mirror arrangements and proceeded to hold it in front of her face while she proceeded to preen herself and make herself beautiful.

As I sat there watching, two words came into my head. Give up.

Observations on Life - Mr X.

2007-12-18T20:37:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I was sitting at home reading a recently acquired book named " How to fossilise your hamster" when a friend called me. I met this guy about three months ago and we have become friendly. For the sake of anonymity, I will refer to this guy in this article as Mr X.

Mr X. lives here in Hong Kong and is a friendly type of person. He runs a business that employs around a dozen people and has some major accounts in the profession he is in.

In recent times, Mr X. has asked me to meet him for coffee from time to time, or he has called me on the telephone to ask me to provide him with business advice when he is having difficulty making a decision or just wants to bounce an idea of somebody.

Now, I wouldn't call myself any business expert or guru. All I would say is that I have learnt how to run my business the way that suits that business and the things that we do have worked well for us so far. Having said that, I wouldn't guarantee that it would be successful for any other business, it is just successful for our business.

Mr X. has put various scenarios and business problems to me and I listen to him, try to help him clarify his thinking all his decision-making processes and, if asked, I would offer a suggestion as to what I would do if put in a similar circumstance.

The trouble with all this however is that I have noticed that Mr X. rarely stops to listen to anything that I say. What I have noticed is that when I start to speak, Mr X. just cuts me off and talks over the top of me loudly so that he can get his opinion heard, or he can push his new idea on to me. Recently, I have become quite tired of this behaviour.

Last Friday, Mr X. invited me to coffee because he wanted to talk to me about a particular business issue that he was having. In short, he told me that he was leaving the company that he had been with for only a short time and he wanted to know whether I thought that was okay for him to quietly and dishonestly poach some blue-chip clients from his current company to his new company. His justification for this was that he had put in a lot of hard work to secure the business from this client and that he wanted to enjoy the benefit in his new company.

I advised Mr X. that I thought that his proposal was quite unethical and dishonest. I suggested to him that it had been his job in his current company to secure the client for his current company and that he could leave the company on good terms and having acted ethically at every turn. Mr X. wasn't happy with this but, following a phone call that he had in the middle of our conversation with somebody else about the same topic, and receiving the same advice from that other person he capitulated and agreed that he would not try to poach the client.

Yesterday Mr X. called me in the morning. I wasn't that upset about having to take a break from my book, but I did start to get slightly irritated when Mr X. said that he wanted to bounce a business idea off of me and then started to cut me off, disagree with me, justify his unethical and dishonest behaviour, tell me that he was better informed at this particular topic than I, and then went on to suggest that perhaps I didn't know what I was talking about.

That was all fine with me, because, who says I'm right? After all, I am only just the guy having a go and I don't know everything about everything. All I know is that I've been living here in Hong Kong in a luxury apartment for the past two years whilst on holidays because my business in Melbourne is doing well.

Being a big believer in giving away the behaviour that I want back, I thought that I might try this theory in reverse. So, when Mr X. would talk I started to cut him off and talk over the top of him and push my point of view.

Mr X. didn't like this type of treatment at all and tried to butt into the conversation go wasn't having any of that, I just kept talking and talking. I challenged Mr X. about his dishonesty, his lack of ethics, the reason as to why he needed a pat on the back just to doing the job that he was employed to do and generally told him to be quiet what I had my turn at talking.

Mr X. didn't like this at all and the line went dead, I suspect so that Mr X. could go off and ring someone else are who might listen to him and agree with his point of view.

For me, it has been a very valuable lesson in not wasting my time trying to help people who do not want to have an equal discussion or listen to the other person and who only want someone who agrees with their own point of view.

So Mr X., I wish you well, but please, do not call me anytime soon as I'm busy learning how to fossilise my hamster.

Until next time, this is Tales of Asia saying " don't forget to wipe".

Observations on Life - Place Names

2007-11-29T22:12:00.000+08:00

I live in Hong Kong. The suburb that I live in is called Tsim Sha Tsui (pronounced 'Chim Cha Choy')

Nearby there is a suburb called Hung Hom yet everybody pronounces it 'Hong Hum'.

Why?

Observations on Life - One Day at a Time

2007-11-29T22:08:00.000+08:00

Here is a song by Joe Walsh and the Eagles. I identify with every single word he sings......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9iIq3Tm44A

Observations on Life - Cancer

2007-11-29T14:30:00.000+08:00

I have a friend of mine who is undergoing treatment for lung cancer.

A smoker consuming an average of 40 cigarettes each day for the past 32 years, she has consumed a little under 466,000 cigarettes in that time.

Recently she went for a second opinion on her treatment and she was told that what the previous medical practitioner was doing was not what the second medical practitioner would do.

Now she has someone to blame for her cancer.

Observations on Life - Attack of the Killer Pot Plant

2007-11-29T14:13:00.000+08:00

I have a Filipino domestic helper who comes for a few hours each week to do some housekeeping. She is a lovely young woman named Jo Anne. She is always happy and cheerful.

My house is fairly clean and tidy but still needs some of that detailed cleaning that I never want to do. Each week Jo Anne comes and cleans the bathrooms, dusts the place and does some ironing.

Today I walked into my living room and Jo Anne was standing there, back to me, legs spread slightly apart, bending over slightly and leaning forward, with the straw brooom raised horizontally in front of her. On the low table in front of her was a small pot plant.

I made an offhand remark and enquired as to whether she was defending herself against the pot plant. She burst into hysterical laughter and tried to tell me that she was just getting some stuff off of the end of the broom. I said "oh......" but inside I knew what she was really doing. After all, pot plants can be very dangerous to deal with. Right?

Until next time, this is Tales of Asia saying "Don't forget to wipe".

Quote for the Day

2007-11-26T00:03:00.000+08:00

There are two kinds of people in this life:
Those who walk into a room and say,
“Well, here I am!”
And those who walk in and say,
“Ahh, there you are.”

- Unknown

Observations on Life - Mister Peace

2007-11-25T13:46:00.000+08:00

Last Friday I met Mister Peace.

We walked down to the Star Ferry terminal in Hong Kong together and Mister Peace told me a little bit about his life.

An Irish man, Mr Peace made his fortune in the hospitality industry when he was flat broke and found a derelict building in Ireland. He put together a business plan and presented it to a bank. Shortly afterwards this destitute guy was spending €2 million on the redevelopment of this derelict building as it was turned into boutique serviced accommodation. Mister Peace went on to tell me how his drinking problem will often find him sleeping on the bathroom floor of one of his guest rooms but how none of the guests discovered the wreckage of his private life.

Not happy with being a successful businessman and hotelier, Mr Peace sold his accommodation house in Ireland, popped the money in the bank and then went travelling to the past two years. I met Mister Peace some months ago when he was travelling through Hong Kong on his way to Miramar (formerly Burma) for a holiday. Mister Peace told me on Friday that he had recently returned to Miramar. On this trip he had done some volunteer teaching work in a local school for underprivileged children. On one particular day, one of the Buddhist monks gave him a Burmese name. The literal translation means "peace".

That's why I call him Mister Peace.

Observations on Life - People

2007-11-09T17:36:00.000+08:00

Last weekend I was sitting in a Vietnamese style restaurant at Telford Plaza in Kowloon Bay Hong Kong.

As some people might know, space is at a premium in Hong Kong as there are so many people but space is scarce. Often, in restaurants two tables will be side-by-side and then there will be a little gap for the next set of two tables etc etc.

Anyway, sitting next to me was a guy who obviously liked to make those various open mouthed eating noises as he chomped into his Vietnamese lunch. Lipsmacking, teeth sucking, belching, chomping noises, sucking, splurting, speaking......... you get the picture.

Now, I am usually one of those people who think that everybody has the right to do whatever they wish provided they don't cause anybody else any harm or suffering when they are doing whatever they wish. I must admit though that the eating noises did start to get to me a little bit. I'm one of these people who was taught as a child to close your mouth was eating.

I looked over and noticed that the guy didn't have much food left to eat so I just thought I'd concentrate on my own business and leave him be. Shortly after, he finished his meal and I thought that I would then be able to commence my lunch in a pleasant circumstance and atmosphere. That was before the girl at the next table along sat down..........

This guy sitting next to me had nothing on the new girl sitting at the next table. If I thought that he made various loud noises when he ate, he had nothing on this girl.

Not only could she make all of the noises described above louder and more intensely than he could, she could also make other noises that I can't even know how to describe here.

In addition, she had the art of being able to talk through a mouth completely of food. She must have practised for years to be able to get so much food in her mouth that there was hardly any room left for air and then still be able to make noises from her throat through the food and to the outside world in a muffled sounds somewhat like someone trying to yell from the bottom of a well whilst wrapped completely in layers of wet burlap sack cloth.

Now, to her partner sitting across the table the conversation probably sounded a little like this "Wop hab yooo bein doooon deday?" or "Ware shwall weee goe apder dis?" and stuff like this.

Anyway, I thought this young lady who I dubbed "Barnyard Betty" deserved a mention here on Tales of Asia as you probably won't make a listing in the Guinness book of records although I think she should...........

After this uplifting experience in the Vietnamese restaurant I then went to IKEA to help someone find a wooden paper towel holder that is combined with a cling wrap holder as well as an aluminium foil holder. Now, chances are that these things aren't even invented yet or in existence anywhere in the world but that didn't stop us from scouring the whole of Hong Kong in case there was one.

Whilst in Ikea I had the opportunity to observe a family discussing a new dish rack, one of those things that you put on your kitchen sink and put your dishes in so that they can dry.

I could tell by the way that the lady was holding on to the dish rack and by the way that the whole family was having a very deep and meaningful conversation about the purchase of the new dish rack that the ownership of this new dish rack was going to improve their quality of life dramatically. I could even tell how ownership of this new dish rack was going to improve the drying quality of the dishes that they washed, as well as the overall cleanliness and hygiene of the kitchen. The mother looked passionate and she spoke and gazed lovingly at the dish rack, her mother obviously agreed because her head was bobbing up and down in agreeance like one of those little bobble head dogs on the back parcel shelf of the car. Her hildren looked impressed too as they could obviously see how this new dish rack was going to be a fantastic addition to the home. The father though, well, he just looked bored as usual. The tone of his voice seemed to suggest that he was saying " hogwash, what do you need a new dish rack for? We have a perfectly good 20-year-old rusty one right there at home."

People............. aren't they fantastic.

.........until next time, " don't forget to wipe".

Quote of the Day

2007-11-09T11:56:00.000+08:00

That the birds of worry and care
Fly about your head,
This you cannot change.
But that they build nests in your hair,
This you can prevent.

-- Chinese Proverb

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day

2007-10-26T12:07:00.000+08:00

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

-- Abraham Lincoln

Thought for the Day

2007-08-28T00:52:00.000+08:00

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.

-- Albert Einstein

New Online Business

2007-08-27T01:24:00.000+08:00

After ten long months of development my autobiography/memoirs service that I created 4 years ago is finally online and has a shop front that steps people through a process that allows them to create a biography on someone they love or, alternatively, create their own autobiography.

The new website site allows a person to make a documentary video production to tell the life story of someone, a mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, friend...whoever you choose.

The new site is at http://www.enduringmemories.com.au/

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

(Oh, and by the way, I know there are a couple of spelling mistakes on the site and I will fix them in the next revision)

Until next time, this is Tales of Asia saying "Support Your Local Planet”

Thought for the Day

2007-08-27T00:47:00.000+08:00

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.

A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.

A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.

-- Tao Te Ching

A Spiritual Experience - Little Things

2007-08-24T01:11:00.000+08:00

On Monday I went to a meeting at lunchtime in a room at a local Church in Garden Road Hong Kong.

The meeting was just a group of people meeting for a common purpose, nothing religious even though It was being held on a church property.

Just before the meeting began a few of us entered the room and a butterfly flew in the door with us. The meeting started and the butterfly flew around taking some peoples attention including mine. When the meeting finished the attendees left and the butterfly was promptly forgotten.

Now, on Wednesday I needed to be back at the same place for the same reason and at the same time. Running early I entered the empty room and noticed the butterfly sitting on a window sill at the rear of the room.

I looked at this butterfly and thought Hmmm, this little guy has probably been stuck in here since Monday. Must be a bit lonely stuck in here all by himself (if in fact it was a him). I wondered if Mrs Butterfly was missing him and wondered if little kid butterflies were missing dad as well.

Wandering to the back of the room I cupped my hands and gently guided this little guy into them trying not to squash him in the process. When he was safely in my palm prison I wandered back to the entry door and though How do I get the door open without letting this little guy fly away? Negotiating the closed door while not letting Mister Butterfly escape back into the room I stepped outside and opened my hands and watched as Mister Butterly flew away. Free at last, off home to his butterfly family.

I wouldn't say I'm a very religious person by any stretch of the imagination but I do know a spiritual experience when I trip over one. Sure lifted my spirit.

Until next time, the is Tales of Asia saying "don't forget to wipe".

Observations on Life - Elevator Safety

2007-08-24T00:09:00.000+08:00

The other day I was in the Wanchai MTR station on Hong Kong Island.

While I was there I saw a young lady with yellow T-shirt with the words "Elevator Safety Ambassador" in large black print on the back.

Apparently this girls job is to watch the large screen TV screens while texting her friends on her mobile cellphone while commuters push and shove and trip down the escalator behind her

I want a job like that.

Womens Beauty Products - A Comment

2007-08-11T14:36:00.000+08:00

What is it about women's cosmetics? What is all the buzz about the latest and greatest skin products all about?

Here's what I am talking about. I was in the IFC Mall in Central, Hong Kong the other day and was walking past one of those really expensive looking boutique shops in the main section of the mall which indicated that the products will also be very expensive.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think I saw a new wonder product advertised for women's skin that included things like peat moss, squashed up toad's legs, bats semen, typical garden compost, all mixed together with a wonderful fragrance added so that the ladies don't actually smell like they've been sleeping comatose under a rubbish bin for the past week.

Apparently, the ladies plaster this stuff all over their face and it is supposed to make them look years younger and much better. Now, that might be the case for certain women out there, but I'm sure it doesn't have any effect on some of the others. This new wonder product was advertised as the better than sliced bread, newer than new, better than best, the never to be bettered again skin revolution product. Apparently, women will never, ever need to use any other skin product ever again.

Now, I'm not arguing the claim of the advertiser, nor am I doubting that trowling this stuff all over a person's face might actually make them look better, but what I am a questioning is, whatever happened to last year's new (at the time) wonder skin beauty product for ladies? If I'm not mistaken, over the past years I have seen similar advertisements all the time, but for different products. So, how come this latest beauty product that I saw emblazoned across advertising banners in the IFC Mall last Saturday is the best one yet? I thought the best one was last year's one, or the year before is one, or the year before that's.

Maybe I'm just a dumb Australian male who knows nothing about women's beauty products. Thank God.

Until next time, this is Tales of Asia saying " don't forget to wipe".

Observations on Life - Hong Kong Mass Transit Rail System

2007-07-25T18:30:00.000+08:00

Today I was following my usual routine and around 4:30 p.m. I went to catch a train from Hong Kong station under Victoria Harbour in the subway system one station away to Kowloon MTR Station next to where I live.

Whilst I was sitting down at the drivers end of the train waiting for the train to depart, I noticed the train driver approaching carrying his bag ready to take up his shift. He was a young guy, perhaps 35 and dressed in an MTR Corporation uniform. I noticed a golden wedding band on his right ring finger.

When the train arrived at Kowloon Station, I got off the train and a number of other people naturally got on. As I was walking towards the escalator I heard the electronic Chinese and English voices from within the train warning people to stand away from the doors and then I heard and saw the corresponding train and platform doors closing.

At the same time I also noticed a young Filipino domestic helper with a young boy come off the bottom of the escalator and walk towards the train doors just as they closed. I could see that they were the only people on the platform of a station that was perhaps 300 m long. It appeared as if they would have to wait a while for the next train.

Train drivers of MTR trains in Hong Kong have an override button to override the automatic door opening and closing systems for trains. I have seen the train drivers use the override system from time to time when there is a malfunction in doors opening and closing.

As I walked towards the escalator I expected to see the train depart the station but instead I saw all of the doors on the train open again so that the Filipino domestic helper and a young boy could get on the train. The train driver didn't have to open the doors, he could have simply just pushed the lever to make the train depart the station.

Perhaps his action and gesture could be seen as not very energy-efficient, might not be seen as environmentally friendly due to the wasted energy of of perhaps 30 pneumatic and hydraulic doors having to open and close one more time, but gee, it made me feel good.

So, my hats off to you today Mr Train Driver. Good on you for your kind gesture and your random act of kindness. I hope your wife gives you a big kiss when you get a home. You deserve it.

A Star is Born

2007-07-25T18:27:00.000+08:00

Over the past week I have watched a particular video clip several times on the Internet site YouTube.

Call me touchy-feely if you will, but see how gob smacked American Idol's Simon Cowell and the other judges of the new show "Britain's got Talent" are when this mobile phone salesman starts to sing.

It's the first time I have ever seen anyone get a standing ovation and rapturous applause from an audience at their first audition.

Paul Potts walked out on stage a nobody and three minutes later was well on his way to becoming world-famous. He went on to win that talent show and within the next month had released his first album and sung on television shows on two continents.

He later commented that he wasn't happy with his performance at the audition because, he said, that his top "B" note at the end was a little weak. Who cares. The guys fantastic!

Check this out..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oxTy7KIAaA
And then see the judges give him a standing ovation in his semi final
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDB9zwlXrB8&mode=related&search=
And then, the final performance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwKexzaPhQ&NR=1
I hope that guy goes on to have a great life in a great career.

As the female judge said " a little lump of coal that turns into a diamond"……

Tales of Asia - Quote of the day - July 12, 2007

2007-07-12T14:36:00.000+08:00

If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.

Chinese Proverb

Signposts in Life

2007-06-30T12:37:00.000+08:00

Words that brought a smile to my face from highway billboards on Highway 10 that runs between Houston and San Antonio when I was in Texas recently.

" no beavers were harmed during the making of this advertisement"

" jerky. One of the five basic food groups"

From the "Buc-ee beaver restaurant"

Vail - Billy Thorpe

2007-06-30T12:26:00.000+08:00

I just learnt today that one of Australia's rock legends Billy Thorpe died of a massive heart attack on February 28. What a tragedy. Whilst I accept that everybody must pass on, it still was a big surprise to learn the news.

Bill, thank you for the years of pleasure and enjoyment that I have gotten from listening to your music. You have been one of my major inspirations are really appreciate all you have done for the Australian people. From going to see you play at the Whitehorse Hotel in Nunawading each Thursday night when I would pester my older sister to take me because I was definitely under age at that time, as well as the days at Sunbury and beyond to many years later when I would see you at places like the Ringwood RSL club, there has been nothing as good as listening to your music at anytime.

Wherever you are now, please say hello to my beautiful father and tell him that I love him and miss him. And by the way, you'd better tell God to get some earplugs if you intend to play some music there.

Cheers mate.

Quote of the Day - Saturday, May 12, 2007

2007-05-12T19:20:00.000+08:00

The rabbit at our house laughs a lot and gets mad a lot. I understand him.

Koichi Yoshikawa, male, age 6, Fukui, Japan

Quote of the Day (2) - 17 April 2007

2007-04-17T19:01:00.000+08:00

"Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American dream?"

Homer Simpson

Quote for the Day - April 17 2007

2007-04-17T16:50:00.000+08:00

"My mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope.' instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso".

Pablo Picasso.

Observations on Life - Hong Kong Park

2007-03-20T01:22:00.000+08:00

Today I took a stroll through Hong Kong Park. I love to walk through this park and looked at the multicoloured Koi (carp) in the large pond. It is very peaceful and relaxing and a great place to spend some time.

This Park, which cost HKD$398 million and opened in May 1991, covers 8 hectares in Central (the central business district of Hong Kong) and is an outstanding example of modern design and facilities blending with the natural landscape. For example, large workshops and garages are hidden under the large pond and accessed from a pathway further down the slope from the pond.

A further attraction is the way of flowing water, which has been employed as a thematic motif to link the different features of the park by waterfalls, streams, ponds and cliffs from artificial rocks.

The park occupies the upper area of the former garrison area known as Victoria Barracks. The lower area of the is used for commercial development (Pacific Place Shopping Mall) and Government buildings while the remaining portion became a park.

The park site is quite steep but amid the old vegetation are good specimens of large trees, which were originally planted by the military. Most of the trees have been retained during the development

The concept for this park was to provide an enjoyable leisure experience for the community as well as being educational. The main features are an aviary, a conservatory, a squash centre, a sports centre and landscaped gardens, which include children's playground and restaurant.

Today my observation focused on at guy who I later called "Joe". This guy works for the security patrol at the park and I first saw him as I entered the park. He was about 5' 3", approximately 40 years of age and came striding towards me in his light blue uniform with peaked baseball style cap, but not one of those baseball type caps with the rounded top, no, this one was one of those baseball style caps has sides that go straight up and has a flattop like the military wear or Fidel Castro and makes the wearer look like they mean business.

Anyway, as this guy came walking towards me, he had a look on his very expressive face that said " don't mess with me, I am a very serious guy" (well, as serious as you can be when you're wearing a light blue uniform and you are only 5' 3" tall....). He looked like he had just returned from a dangerous mission saving a damsel in distress from some killer butterfly somewhere in the deep dark reaches of the park. As he came towards me I noted that he looked like a cross between a Cantonese G.I. Joe and one of the characters out of the Thunderbirds puppet/cartoon series ('Brains' I think). He strode along purposely with his hands hanging loosly at his sides ready to spring into action again. He had an equipment belt with so much stuff on it I thought that it was no wonder he was not very tall, all this jangly, jangly stuff was weighing him down. As he walked past me, he eyed me up and down and I thought that he was going to arrest me for standing on an ant or something but he kept striding off into the distance looking for another soul to save.

I saw Joe again later in the afternoon. He was down near the koi pond letting his presence be felt by a group of children and Filipino housemaids who were at the waters edge so that the children could get a close-up view of the fish. Joe was standing close by, hands on hips looking like a sugar bowl, knee of one leg slightly bent in a haughty attitude with a look on his face that said to all closeby " don't go any closer to the water's edge or I will arrest you for intimidating a fish, for I am Joe, slayer of butterflies, rescuer of little children and protector of Filipino housemaids ".

I had to leave at that point as I had an appointment in Central to attend so I never did find out whether one of the little children was arrested or saved from attempting to swim with the koi. Nevertheless, I tip my hat to you Joe (metaphorically speaking of course because I don't actually have a hat) and wish you well in your job as a superhero and protector of Hong Kong Park.

Until next time,

Tales of Asia signing off.....

Alan

Observations on Life - Growing Old

2007-03-14T00:48:00.000+08:00

Old age........................... getting older..................... looking old............ when does it all happen?

Tonight I was walking home after dinner from an adjacent suburb and I passed three older Chinese gentleman walking towards me. One of these gentlemen was talking very loudly and very seriously and got my attention. As I looked at them coming towards me I made some visual and mental observations. Side pocket grey trousers pulled up so that the belt line was approximately at navel level, zip up shoes, checked shirts tucked in tightly to accentuate the curve of the tummy, thinning and receding hairline's, and a walk that says " I am old" even though they only looked about 60. I wondered to myself as I walked towards these guys when I would make the transition from middle age to "old bloke".

Is it a transition that people don't notice until it's too late? Is it something that people just don't care about? When does a person realise that its time to hang up their favourite pair of jeans in favour of some grey side pocket trousers? When do T-shirts become flannellete checked shirts tucked in so that the look resembles a Gut Buster's advertisement? Does sharing a meal mean that you eat half of it and then pass the false teeth to your partner so that your partner can finish the meal? Does going to bed involve putting your false teeth and your hair on the side table, checking that you have really exhausted every drip in your bladder so that you don't wet the bed, and try to remember your partner's name before you say goodnight so you don't get into trouble?

I pondered these mysteries of life as I passed these three gentlemen and looked at the one who was gobbing off at the other two and thought to myself " I hope getting older takes a very long time"........

For now, Tales of Asia signing off.

Alan

Tales of Asia - Memorable Moments

2007-03-12T15:19:00.000+08:00

This weekend, I had some memorable moments centred around customer service.

It all started when I went to Shenzhen on Saturday to do some shopping. One of the ways to get to the city of Shenzhen and the Lo Wu border crossing is by train. The East KCR (Canton -- Kowloon Railways) rail line goes from East Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong through a number of stations before arriving at Lo Wu in Shenzhen China. A person normally takes one train that stops all stations long the train line. This time however things were different.

The journey from Hong Kong to Shenzhen usually takes around 45 minutes. The journey is a pleasant one and its simply a matter of finding something mindnumbing to do during the train journey before realising that you are at Lo Wu and then getting off the train to go through border control.

This time however the train pulled into the station of Fo Tan and I sat there blissfully looking out the window and waiting for the journey to continue. A Chinese gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was going to Lo Wu. When I answered in the affirmative, he told me that the train I was on was terminating at that station and that we all had to get off and wait for another train. Upon looking around I noticed that I was the only person on the train so I heeded his advice and we all piled onto the platform whilst I wondered why this train was on going any further. Shortly afterwards, all the lights in the carriages on the train that I was on were turned off, the doors were secured and the train was driven off to some dark, desolate and lonely location until required for service the next day. I give a nod to this Chinese gentleman for not only suggesting that I needed to get off that train and get another train, but for saving me from spending the night as a train prisoner in some cold, steel railway carriage prison in the middle of nowhere. This gentleman then proceeded to look after me until I got to Lo Wu. The next train we got on at Fo Tan only went as far as Sheng Shui and we had to get off again and wait for another train. This kind gentleman even went so far as to suggest that I come with him when he moved further along the platform so we could be at the position of one oncoming carriage that will have less people in it and be less crowded and be more comfortable for us. When we eventually got to Lo Wu some time later we parted company with a smile and a few words. To my friend who I affectionately call "Mister Chong", when I said to you " thanks very much for your help, I really appreciate it", I meant every word I said because you saved my bacon.

When a foreigner goes from Hong Kong to mainland China it is necessary for them to go through border control both with Hong Kong customs and also with China customs. In my past experiences, there usually has been a noticeable difference between the customer service skills and attitudes of Hong Kong custom officials to Chinese customs officials. This may be because the Hong Kong counterparts may have been better trained in the past. I am not sure and it is only my observation. This weekend though I was delighted with the attitudes of the Chinese border control customs officials in both when entering and exiting the mainland. The gentleman who handled my documents for Chinese customs at Lo Wu border control was extremely pleasant and greeted me in English. He not only engaged me in small-talk but also wished me a pleasant stay in China. So " Mister Border Control Customs Official", I give a nod in your general direction for your pleasant manner and for continuing my weekend of awareness of good customer service.

After I had cleared customs I walked a few hundred metres to a hotel that I stay in when in Shenzhen. The Shen Zhen Hui Zhan Hotel is not the smartest or most modern hotel in the world, the décor might be straight out of the 1960s and the cockroaches seem to have been from the same family that were there last time, but the place is reasonable. Situated right next door to the Shangri-La hotel it looks more like it should be in Gotham city with Batman than sitting in the largest city of the southern Chinese economic zone. It also beats the Shangri-La hands down on price if not star rating. After all, when I stay in a hotel I only want somewhere to sleep. I don't want to feel as if I am taking out shares in the place. If the establishment provides me with some free company in the form of my cockroach family then who am I to argue. Outside I was greeted by the usual throng of spruikers, sidewalk salesmen, prostitutes and thieves and was again delighted to be approached by a hotel employee by the name of Sawyen (yes I know, but that's how he spelt it) and was escorted into the hotel where he helped me negotiate my arrangements for my overnight stay. It's always helpful to have somebody like this in China or any foreign land if you don't speak the local language fluently as is my case. Sawyen assisted me to complete the paperwork and the financial transaction before escorting me to the same room I have stayed in before where I had my reunion with Bob and Betty the familiar cockroaches. So, a nod to you Sawyen for your good service. I know you'll never read this but perhaps somebody else will and think well of you, so it's worthwhile.

Again, went exiting the mainland and coming back to Hong Kong, I was pleased to observe some really nice customer service from the Chinese customs officials and the Hong Kong customs officials. One way I measure this is when a customs official gives me my passport back after processing the document. If they flick it back in my general direction through the little hole that separates me from them so that my passport nearly spears me in my chest like a Ninjitsu throwing star, then I consider this bad service. However, when they place my passport on the countertop for me to take or when they hand it back to me in a pleasant manner, than I consider this good service. Very simple.

And finally, a nod to "Jimmy Starbuck" at Starbucks coffee, Shatin Plaza, Hong Kong. While on my way home from Lo Wu, I decided to break my journey and stop off at Shatin and take a walk around the shopping mall, Shatin Plaza. Shatin Plaza is one of those shopping centres that always has me wondering how they stay in business. It is big like all Hong Kong shopping malls, has many specialty shops such as Benneton, Laura Astley etc, and although I see people in the shops looking at stuff, I rarely see anybody ever buy anything. Anyway, whilst I was walking around and looking and not buying anything I decided to have a coffee and went into Starbucks. Now, you have to understand that in Australia I wouldn't go within 500 metres of the Starbucks coffee shop but in Hong Kong good coffee is few and far between so a tall soy latte and the lemon tart at Starbucks is quite acceptable to this coffee lover. Having made my purchase and with latte and tart in hand, I looked around for a place to sit and begin my feast. Having looked around it soon became obvious that all the tables and stools were taken and I might have to sit on the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the Starbucks employees, a young Hong Kongese guy who stopped what he was doing and came over to me asked me if I was looking for somewhere to sit down. When I answered that I was, he took off like some old day American Indian stalking here and there, scouting this way and that, checking out quiet corners and secluded positions before coming back to report that he had successfully negotiated a seat at a low table with two lounge chairs occupied by a young lady who seemed to be using Starbucks as a quiet place to do her school homework whilst having a coffee. After seating me and making sure I was comfortable, he then went back to take up his former duties. So, I nod in your general direction Jimmy Starbuck. With an attitude like that, you are destined to go far.

So, herein ends my blog for customer service memorable moments. My thanks to Mister Chong, Mister Border Control Customs Official, Sawyen and Jimmy Starbuck for bringing my attention to good service. My hats off to you all.

Until next time, Tales of Asia signing off.

Alan

Tales of Asia - Lost in Penang Malaysia

2007-03-05T22:29:00.000+08:00

Greetings truth seekers,

February 22nd 2007 and it was off to Penang Malaysia for nine days to celebrate Chinese New Year and my birthday on February 24.

Penang, the Pearl of the Orient, is an interesting fusion of East and West. The state embraces modern day living while retaining its traditions and old world charm which are reflected in its harmonious multiracial population and well preserved heritage buildings. Long regarded as the food capital of Malaysia, it also entices visitors with its beautiful coasts and delightful cuisines.

Penang needs little introduction to many visitors to Malaysia, having long been known as one of Southeast Asia's finest destinations. Penang's outstanding beaches and exotic sights have made it one of the most popular destinations in the region.

I stayed at the G Hotel on Gurney Drive. It's convenient location overlooks Penang's most famous boulevard, Gurney Drive. The location is right next to a large shopping centre, Gurney Plaza and directly across the road from the beach. Luckily for me there were no tsunami's forecast as this was one of the areas that was hit two years ago during that Asian disaster.

As fabulous as its beaches are, some of Penang's deeper mysteries should also be experienced.

The People -

Cultures have been meeting and mixing in Malaysia since the very beginning of its history. More than fifteen hundred years ago Malays welcomed traders from China and India. With the arrival of gold and silks, Buddhism and Hinduism also came to Malaysia. A thousand years later, Arab traders arrived in Malacca and brought with them the principles and practices of Islam. By the time the Portuguese arrived in Malaysia, the empire that they encountered was more cosmopolitan than their own.

The Food -

Malaysia's gastronomic heritage has drawn from each of the constituent cultures of Malaysia as well as from neighbouring states to produce what many people consider to be the most delicious cuisine in the entire world. The internationally-renowned cuisine of China's Canton and that of southern India are significant sources of Malaysia's culinary heritage, as is the sublime cuisine of Thailand. Fresh tropical fruits and succulent Malaysian seafood are featured ingredients, and the chilies and curries of India and Thailand form the basis of spicy preparations. Coconut milk is ubiquitous in Malaysia, imparting a delicious smoothness to curries and other dishes.

The mainstay of every Malaysian meal is rice. At each meal, a generous helping accompanies a selection of dishes, including fish, seafood, vegetables, and poultry. Beef is conspicuously absent, as it is across much of Asia. Individual recipes vary widely from state to state. Basic ingredients may be the same, but the method of cooking and accompanying dishes changes with each state's own tastes and special produce.

Breakfast is a major meal of the day, not a neglected snack. Dine on fragrant nasi kandar, fish curry served with meat in chili sauce and boiled eggs. Or try the nasi dagang, glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk, served with fish curry, coconut sambal, and cucumber pickle.

Excellent and inexpensive food can be obtained virtually anywhere in Malaysia, largely because of the strength and ubiquity of food stalls, often called hawker food. Whether it be in villages, small towns, or big cities, visitors can find stalls offering mouth-watering treats. Dining at a cart or streetside stand may sound plain and piecemeal, but in Malaysia eating food at the roadside stalls is a much-loved practice. The best stalls are as popular and as crowded as any permanent restaurant--VWs and BMWs are equally likely to be parked close by, and their owners rubbing shoulders in the long line. Some stalls are open from morning to evening, while others are open from evening to dawn. Others are open around the clock, seven days a week.

Sightseeing -

Kek Lok Si Temple - at Air Itam, is reputed to be the most beautiful and largest Buddhist temple complex in Southeast Asia. Its seven-story pagoda, over 90 feet high, is a harmonious blend of Chinese, Thai, and Burmese architecture and craftsmanship.

Wat Chayamangkalaram Temple - This Buddhist temple of Thai architecture houses a magnificent gold-plated reclining Buddha that is said to be the third largest in the world. The niches behind the statue house urns containing the ashes of devotees

Fort Cornwallis - the fort was built on the site of Sir Francis Light's historic landing in 1786. Originally a wooden stockade, it is now a concrete structure and currently houses cannons, a history gallery, cafe, handicraft and souvenir centre as well as an open air ampi-theatre.

Chinatown - large and well preserved, its numerous clan houses, shophouses and temples provide a fascinating insight into the lifestyle of early Chinese immigrant settlers who came to Penang in the 1800s.

Little India - this quaint Indian town dates back over two centuries and includes the 167 year old Sri Mahamariamman Temple. Worth browsing for the pre-war terrace buildings which housed restaurants, jewellery and textile shops, dress retailers, music stores, Barbers as well as shops selling spices, sundries and cutlery.

Batu Ferringhi - this village houses a world renowned beach retreat. Its beautiful coastline, budget inns and five star hotels as well as its golden beaches make it an ideal choice for a holiday getaway.

Penang Butterfly Farm - this well-planned butterfly farm is home to hundreds of species of butterflies and insects. One will be truly amazed with the number of butterflies fluttering in the air. A subterranean subway made of stone's lead a visitor to a live scorpions pit. The farm abounds with beautiful gardens, waterfalls and ponds which add beauty and splendour to the farm. Be careful though, foreign visitors are charged twice as much as locals for entry. As I was with three families of local Chinese and paying for everybody's entry, it left a sour taste in my mouth when I had to pay double. Even my friends complaints fell on deaf ears and this is the one experience that I remember about Penang that was very disappointing.

Penang Bridge - stretching over 13.5 km, the Penang Bridge is the longest in Southeast Asia. The bridge links the island of Penang to the Malaysian mainland. Very busy in peak times but quite quick to travel over late in the evening as I did when I went over to look at some buildings in a place called Auto City.

Khoo Kongsi - also known as the "Leong San Tong", the history of the Khoo Kongsi spans more than 70 years. Considered the most beautiful temple in Penang, and I definitely agree, it's carved beams are made of the finest would an architectural design which never fails to awe its visitors. I visited this on the evening of my birthday as there was a multinational cultural festival taking place. Definitely a place to visit if going to Penang.

Botanical Gardens - covering an impressive area, the botanical Gardens is an attraction that is not to be missed, not because of its vegetation and tropical plants but for the monkeys. The monkeys linger around visitors eagerly waiting to be fed. Even though they can be quite friendly, be careful if you pull piece of candy out of your bag as the monkeys show no fear when going after food. So, be warned.

Beach Street - some of the best examples of colonial architecture are located in Penang's banking district.

Gurney Drive - to protect the environment and the sanitation problem, the Penang state government established a permanent hawker centre at different places in Penang. Other land the tasty and mouthwatering local foods, some local singers will come to Penang to perform and entertain tourists. Among the hawker centres, Gurney Drive is very popular as hawker centres for local and tourist from abroad. I didn't get the opportunity to go here, but I was not disappointed, as the Chinese family that I went to Penang to visit used their local knowledge and took me a call over Penang to backstreet hawker stalls were delicious food was the goal.

I would like to thank all of the Lee family for their generous hospitality, generous nature, for including me as a member of their family and for being some of the nicest people I have ever met. I hope to see you all again soon. On another note, I thank Stuart and Christina for "keeping the doors open" on Monday and Wednesday night. Much appreciated to you both.

Until next time take good care,

Alan

Tales of Asia - 18 February 2007

2007-02-18T11:42:00.000+08:00

"Kung Hei Fat Choy!" or, in gweilo speak "Happy New Year"

Its the first day of the Chinese lunar new year today and people here in Hontg Kong celebrated by spending time out shopping, eating with their families and visiting temples.

Its the year of the pig and its a good year, so good luck to everyone and all the best for this Chinese New year.

Roger Waters - Dark Side of The Moon Concert - Wan Chai Exhibition and Convention Centre - Hong Kong - 15 February 2007

2007-02-16T02:18:00.000+08:00

The Dark Side Of The Moon is one of the best selling and most acclaimed rock and roll albums of all time, recorded by one of the greatest bands in history, Pink Floyd.

Tonight it was performed in its entirety by one of that band's founding members, Roger Waters. Waters seems to cherish and respect the music and legacy of Pink Floyd a little bit more than David Gilmour and company, and his performances come across as more poignant and personal. He also has no problem putting on a good old fashioned mind blowing stage show too.

My group of friends sat dead center in the reserved seating area right in front of the stage at the Wan Chai Exhibition and Convention Centre close to Central Hong Kong. The stage was centered by one of the biggest single video screens I have ever seen, and it was displaying, with amazingly sharp detail, a giant still life picture of a whiskey bottle and shot glass in front of a vintage radio.

Around 8.30pm, the menacing opening chords of "In The Flesh" tore through the pavilion, as the screen is filled with The Wall's giant marching hammers, and dozens of shooting flames nearly reach the stage roof.

The Band:

Andy Fairweather-Low - Guitar (Check him out in his new look trying to do a Bob Spencer impersonation)
Snowy White - Guitar
Dave Kilminster - Guitar/Vocals
Jon Carin - Keyboards/Vocals
Harry Waters - Keyboards
Graham Broad - Drums
Ian Ritchie - Saxophone
Katie Kissoon - Vocals
PP Arnold - Vocals
Carol Kenyon - Vocals

The entire first set was virtually non-stop highlights, but the back-to-back performances of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and "Have a Cigar" were especially powerful. "Shine On" featured several great images of Syd Barrett, and essentially served as a touching tribute to the late great Pink Floyd co-founder. Ian Ritchie's saxophone solo was also spot on and sounded incredible.

Dave Kilminster was the only notable replacement from Waters' In The Flesh tour, replacing Doyle Bramhall II on lead guitar and vocals who is currently touring with Eric Clapton who came through Hong Kong last month on his way to Melbourne. Kilminster was good and his guitar playing was impressive and he reproduced Gilmour's solo quite well. Snowy White's guitar playing was not as faithful to the originals, and not nearly as flashy as Kilminster, but he was equally as impressive.

"Leaving Beirut" is a new song which Waters explains was based on what happened to him when he was a teenager traveling through Lebanon when his car died stranding him with no money and nowhere to go. Eventually an Arab family took him in, gave him food and shelter, and treated him like an honored guest. The song is also one of the most in-your-face anti-war songs that Waters has ever written - particularly anti-Bush and anti-Blair. It made for a scathing summation to the string of anti-war songs that began with "Southampton Dock" in the first set, and carried on with such songs as "Us and Them" and "Bring the Boys Back Home" during the rest of the show. Whether you agree with Waters politics or not, the crowd was certainly cheering the anti Bush and Blair themes and cheered again when Muslim themes were shown on the screen. Interesting for a mainly Buddhist crowd.

The first set ended gloriously with the Animals classic, "Sheep". During this killer performance, a giant inflatable pig was flown out over the crowd, making its way out across the audience. It was fun to read all of the graffiti that was spray painted on the pig, as it was hovering overhead. Some of the slogans included "Kafka Rules OK! "; "Don't be led to the slaughter, Vote Democratic Nov. 2 "; and "Impeach Bush Now" - written right across the pig's ass. Even though I don't particularly subscribe to any political philosophies, it was all pretty amusing.

After a 20-minute intermission the exhibition centre lights dimmed again and famous heartbeat sounds of "Speak To Me" filled the air. From start to finish, the performance of The Dark Side Of The Moon was simply amazing. The accompanying screen projections and 3D affects were incredible and added significantly to the overall experience. The quadraphonic sound system employed on this tour made for the ultimate listening experience as music and sound affects seemed to surround and envelope you.

"Breath" sounded phenomenal. Carol Kenyon's powerful, note-for-note rendition of "Great Gig In The Sky" was nothing short of stunning. What a voice that lady has. John Carin took the lead vocals on "Us and Them" and he sounded excellent.

The finale of "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse" was one of the absolute highlights of the entire show. The band all came together for a well deserved bow before leaving the stage.

After a few minutes offstage and following lots of cheering from the happy crowd, Waters and the band returned for an encore set that exclusively featured songs from The Wall. "Bring the Boys Back Home" was especially powerful this night, as it seemed like the entire crowd was singing along loudly. "Comfortably Numb" magnificently brought the show to a close, in the only way a Pink Floyd/Roger Waters concert could. The perfect ending to one of the best concerts I have ever seen.

Eric Clapton in Hong Kong

2007-02-16T02:16:00.000+08:00

Here is a recent concert review that I wrote for Eric Claptons recent Hong Kong concert. I hope you find it of interest.......

What a great night it was on Wednesday 17th January. Clapton live in Hong Kong at the Asia WorldExpo near Hong Kong airport.

Clapton opened the 16 song show with some Derek & The Dominos tunes which it seemed many of the Asian crowd were not familiar with. However, after a few chords early in the intro to Little Wing, the crowd went crazy. Brilliant playing by Clapton and well supported by the rest of the band. A lesson for the writer about dymanics and arrangements of parts during live performances.

The band then moved onto the sit down set in the middle of the show. Clapton played a Martin acoustic guitar alone in Driftin' Blues. Derek Trucks played a Dobro guitar in acoustic set and was just brilliant (check out his website for more info. This guy is seriously great). Clapton closed the sit down set with semi-acoustic version of Running On Faith.

The second electric set was the climax of the show. Clapton played the intro riff of Motherless Children and then moved to the slide part. Clapton, Derek & Doyle all played slide guitar together in this song. Little Queen of Spades was great too, it's blues background the perfect base to let almost everyone in the band do a solo. After a few notes from Wonderful Tonight, the crowd went crazy again. Clapton closed the second electric set with Layla, a really great rockin' tune. (which I have a great recording of on my video camera). That was the "official" end of the show.

The band then came back in encores. Clapton closed the show with Crossroads. Great solo from Clapton, Derek & Doyle again.

All in all it was a great show and any Clapton lovers in Melbourne would "do themselves a favour" in going to see him. For any guitar devotees, check out Derek Trucks on slide guitar, the guy is brilliant. Doyle Bramhall II was also good but not my cup of tea playing wise.

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 14 February 2007

2007-02-14T01:45:00.000+08:00

Meet a difficult situation with courage and joy. The more the water, the higher the boat.

- Hagakure code

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 14 February 2007

2007-02-14T01:43:00.000+08:00

There is no What if? There is only what happens, what is

- author unknown

Tales of Asia - Update - January 29 2007

2007-01-29T01:12:00.000+08:00

Hello everybody,

I have been back in Hong Kong for two weeks and settling in to a routine. I had a great time in Melbourne over Christmas seeing my children Alana and Dylan, attending to some business, playing music and seeing my friends. Having recently returned to Hong Kong I am keen to start an office here and establish a base in Asia.

Today I went over to Diamond Hill to watch a friend of mine who is an actor and singer recording a CD and DVD. My friend's name is Michael Wong and he is a well-known Hong Kong actor having done 50 feature films in the past. He is also a singer and does a cabaret show with his big band. I met Michael last year, became friends with him and gave him some guitar lessons along the way, not that I'm a guitar teacher by any stretch of the imagination, but I did try to pass on some of my knowledge.

Having watched Michael in this auditorium today made me think about many of the wonderful performances I have seen recently both here and in Australia.

In the past 18 months I have been privileged to have started attending the ballet, firstly in Melbourne and then in Hong Kong. In Melbourne I went to see La Boheme performed as a ballet and, soon after that, saw a Chinese ballet group perform Tales of the Silk Road as well.

After I came to Hong Kong I continued to experience the ballet and first attended the ballet Suzie Wong performed by the Hong Kong Ballet company. Later I was to attend a medley performed by the Hong Kong Ballet where they performed snippets and tasters of well-known ballets such as Swan Lake, Don Quixote and others. Just prior to my returning to Australia at Christmas I went to see another performance of Suzie Wong again. I must say the Hong Kong Ballet company is absolutely magnificent.

After returned to Melbourne, early in December 2006 I flew up to Sydney for the weekend and attended the Sydney Opera house to see a performance of Raymonda by the Australian Ballet company. Again absolutely magnificent and a pleasure to be able to attend such performances as these.

My " just an average guy" persona is under no threat however from my cultural dalliances. To balance out the artistic cultural education I have been receiving by attending the ballet, I have also attended rock concerts performed by Oasis and then Eric Clapton at the AsiaWorld Expo in Hong Kong, and also attended guitar master classes with guitar virtuoso John Petrucci and Joe Satriani's bass player Dave La Rue. If you don't know who John Petrucci or Joe Satriani is, then you are either too young or too old. I will leave it up to you to decide which one.

I am looking forward to continuing my love of attending concerts and ballets this year and may even become a member of the Hong Kong Ballet.

Until next time, stay sane.

Cheers,

Alan

Reflections of 2006

2007-01-07T22:15:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone,

I hope that you all had a wonderful 2006. Having spoken with a number of people, I know that many people had an interesting year, some good and others not so good.

For me, I probably had one of the most interesting years of my life. As many of you know, I lived in Hong Kong for the whole year. I originally went to Hong Kong not knowing how long I would stay there, but thinking that I might last two or three months before coming home. Little did I know that I was going to love the place and stay there.

Some of you might remember that I didn't fly for many years prior to 2006 due to a flying phobia. As I have written about in a previous blog, my fear of flying seems to have been relieved from me in the middle of 2005 and in November 2005 I went for my first flight for many years and spent a week in Singapore. Shortly after that, in December 2005, I went to Hong Kong and basically, I have been living there ever since.

I feel myself very fortunate to have two homes at the present time. One in Melbourne Australia, and the other a luxury apartment on the 15th floor of a residential tower that sits on new reclaimed land on a peninsula that juts out into Victoria Harbour in West Kowloon. It is just one station away from central Hong Kong under the Harbour.

Some people have asked me why I went to live in Hong Kong. There are many reasons and the main one that I am happy to mention is that I needed a rest after many years of having an interesting life which included a relationship that ended two years ago that affected my emotions at a deep level.

With reference to my travels since I have been able to leave Australia, I am delighted to say that I have been to Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Japan and mainland China in the past months. Some of these places I have been to many times including mainland China that I visited 18 times during 2006. I would have to say that the best time I spent in the whole of 2006 was when I had the opportunity to visit Japan and spend time there looking at temples, shrines and castles while gathering information for a book that I'm writing.

I have been privileged to have immersed myself in the cultures of other countries and learn a lot about people and their history. As many of you know it was always a dream of mine to visit Asia. Little did I know that I would have the great fortune to live there and experience the culture first hand and love the experience.

Whilst living in Hong Kong I have made many friends. Whilst some of these people are Caucasians from the West, most of my Hong Kong friends are either Chinese or Japanese and are absolutely wonderful people. Of course, I have been able to retain most of my friends here in Australia as well and I am fortunate to be in contact with them either by telephone, e-mail or face-to-face when I'm in Australia.

With reference to my business, I must thank Bob, Michael and Melissa as well as the inspectors for all their wonderful efforts during 2006 in keeping our business growing and making good progress. As a suggestion to any business owners out there that might read this, if you want your business to be a success, get great people like the ones that work with me. Michael left in the latter part of the year and we were pleased to welcome John on board shortly after and look forward to a bumper 2007. Whilst I was in Australia in December 2006, we were presented with an opportunity in Asia. We are currently in the process of setting up our Hong Kong office and look forward to a positive future there as well.

My children and Dylan and Alana both continue to develop as young adults. Dylan commenced his own business in 2006. He took an idea and developed this idea, learnt about business and then started his business. The name of his businesses Playstation Xtreme. His business supplies accessories for PlayStation's and similar consoles as well is doing repairs. Although in its fledgeling year, I am quite proud of him for having a go and becoming self-supporting. Alana also did well this year and passed her final exams and became qualified in event management. She is currently waiting on offers from universities to commence a degree and continue her studies. I am extremely pleased at the way that my children are growing up into responsible young adults.

While I was living in Hong Kong, I decided to do a lot of things that I wanted to do for many years. One of the things that I have always wanted to do is to write a novel and that's exactly what I did during 2006. My novel is called "The Survivalist" is in excess of 58,000 words long and tells the story of a 17 year old street kid and trouble that she gets into. It also tells the story of a counsellor named Jack who helps her and by helping her resolve some of his own problems. I am currently in the phase of doing the final editing and rewriting of some of my story and it should be finished by mid-January 2007. I already have another story under way called "Heavens Above" but,....... that's another story............

Musically I continued to compose and write songs and put them on my web site for public comment and/or criticism. I was also able to do some musical performances in Hong Kong and they were extremely enjoyable. When in Australia during my three visits in 2006 I was able to play with the three bands that I perform in, Kool Change (formerly Audio Assassins), Loose Connections and the Screaming Teabags. The latter band ended during 2006 and some of the members including myself am now in a new type 3 piece band called Trick Question. In this band I not only play guitar, slide guitar and sing, but also play bass guitar in some of the songs. It was quite challenging learning the bass guitar and I have found it a lot of fun.

On a sad note, my little friend of 15 years, my constant companion, and sometimes the biggest pain in my butt, Stussy the Incredibly Amazing Wondercat died in the latter part of the year after being hit by a car out the front of my house in Melbourne. If you read the previous blog to this entry you will be able to read the story of this amazing little cat. Suffice to say here that there are not enough words in the English language for me to express my appreciation to my little friend for the joy she brought me.

Another low note that occurred during the year was some trouble brought upon me from a previous relationship. Unfortunately, I had to attend a court case in December in Melbourne. I had heard about the legal proceedings way back in February and the thought of the upcoming court case hung over my head like a great cloud during the whole of 2006. Although, to be honest, I didn't care less about the outcome of the court case, whether that be jail or a huge fine or whatever, because I thought it was all a farce and that I had nothing to answer for, all I wanted was for some equality and fairness to be exercised in the courtroom by the judge. The problem that I had was that I wasn't guilty of what I had been accused of doing, but I was guilty of doing one thing that I believed was the right thing to do. Essentially, I got myself into trouble by doing something morally right that was legally wrong. I'm delighted to report that when I went to the court case, I decided to represent myself as my own lawyer because I didn't want lawyers to stuff things up with all their legal mumbo-jumbo. The judge listened to the accusations, invited me to tell my side of the story, restored a balance to what I considered was a previously one-sided affair, made a comment that the whole thing was ridiculous and brought the case to a satisfactory conclusion while restoring my faith in the Australian legal system. To the judge, if you ever get the opportunity to read this, thank you for your sense of fairness and for seeing through all the bullshit that have been conjured up along the way. To the person who made the original complaint, I don't resent you, I wish you well, and I hope that you are able to eventually resolve the emotional issues that brought you to do this thing to me.

On a relationship front, yes, there has been some activity and I'm looking forward to a brilliant future in that area of my life. I am not going to write anything about that here because in the past I have been reasonably open about relationship issues and I have decided that I would much prefer that they remain private and between myself and the other person involved. I will say though that one of my goals in life is to be able to get married again and potentially be married for many years. Keep watching this space for an update............... you might be surprised what happens this year..................

So, this ends my "Reflections Of 2006". Although there were some things that I would have preferred didn't happen such as Stuss's death and the court case, 2006 was an absolutely brilliant year. I have been able to do many things I have wanted to for a long time. I have travelled, I have lived overseas, experienced different cultures and their people, made many friends, developed my business, I have written a novel, and composed and performed music. The future looks bright and promising and I'm looking forward to the future where before perhaps I might not have been.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog. I know that I haven't made too many entries to my blog site in the latter part of 2006 and I will try to win proves that in 2007. I hope that you all have a wonderful 2007 and, to all my good friends, I hope to catch up with you all again very soon.

Best wishes,

Alan

In Loving Memory of Stussy the Incredibly Amazing Wondercat

2006-11-01T15:59:00.000+08:00

"Alan, would you call me ASAP. Dennis".

It was the SMS message that I knew would come at some stage. The time was 6 p.m. on Tuesday the 31st of October 2006 and I made the call to Melbourne Australia. The gentleman who is housesitting my home had the melancholy duty of informing me that my little friend of 15 years, Stussy the Incredibly Amazing Wondercat had been found dead on the nature strip outside my house. From an examination it was evident that she had been hit by car while crossing the street. Fortunately, she must have died instantly.

"Stuss" as she was affectionately called started off in the Brown family in 1991 living in Rowville as a kitten purchased from a pet shop following the demise of her predecessor Jack who also got run over by a car. I remember a time that my daughter Alana asked her mum and myself to propose some names for the new kitten. Sue chose "Jill" because it was the female of the predecessor Jack, Alana chose "Rizzo" which I think was the name of a character from the MASH series on television at the time and I chose "Stussy" because that's what the kitten was crawling up and digging its claws into one I was asked to propose the name, my Stussy pants.

After my marriage with Sue ended, Stuss stayed with me and we eventually moved to Carlton and became known in Barkly Street as " the guy with the cat". Stuss had an effect on many of the people living in Barkly Street Carlton because there was often many bowls of milk left out for this little black-and-white cat, I remember counting 12 at one stage. The most entertaining thing for the residents of Barkly Street was at night-time when I would get off the tram in Nicholson Street, walk across the park and then around the corner at the bottom of the street, and make a whistle similar to what you would do if you are calling a dog. Stuss would appear from wherever she was visiting at the time, ears up, inquisitive look on her face and then spot near the bottom of the street and come charging down to walk with me up to our house. This practice continued for years, and people across the road from me in Coburg even commented that she must know when I was coming because they would often see her walk down and sit next to the gatepost and wait, and then one minute later my car would arrive. Perhaps you could hear the car coming down the street. No mean feat as I drive three cars.

Stuss is always had a liking for playing games, such as darting out from behind furniture and attacking my leg, trying to swot me with her paw was through the balustrades of the stairs at Carlton, or under the table in Coburg, all delighted in chasing me around the various houses that we lived in before I would turn the tables on her and chase her.

After Carlton, Stuss and I went on to live in Bulleen before eventually settling in Coburg. As I rented the houses in Carlton and Bulleen I would have to petition the owners to allow me to keep a pet in a rented premises. At that time I had my daughter Alana coming over every second weekend and spending time with me, and also had the cat living with new full-time. It's interesting how some landlords or real estate agents make suggestions to people such as to put their pet in a boarding kennels for the next two years or so, have the pet putdown, stop inviting your children over to stay at the rented premises etc.... the list goes on. Am very grateful to the landlords at both the Carlton and Bulleen properties for allowing both pets and children in those houses. As they will attest the houses were in excellent condition when they were vacated sometime later.

Stuss was a very intelligent and inquisitive cat. She could also be extremely funny at times. One of our favourite party tricks was when people came over to visit and Stuss would sit there looking at me as I was talking with the visitors. At some stage I would turn to her and say " so Stuss, what do you think of the situation in Southeast Asia?" to which Stuss would respond "Raaarrrrrrrr" and I would respond, " Yes, exactly, that's what I thought". When I was playing music in my music room she would often coming and sit on the floor and listen. I would often asked her to join in mid song and say " come on Stuss, join in" to which she would reply "Raaarrrrrrrr" again. At the end of the song I would ask her " so Stuss, what did you think of that song?" and she would reply "Raaarrrrrrrr". A woman of few words, a standard answer for everything.

It's amazing how such a small creature can bring so much love and joy into one family. Stuss certainly taught me a lot about unconditional love and affection, lessons that I had missed in my growing up. She will be sadly missed but at the same time I understand that death is part of life. We will all depart one-day.

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to Dennis who is staying at my house and also to my son Dylan for the love, care and attention they provided to this little creature after she died. To my son Dylan, thank you for looking after the "funeral arrangements". There is nobody else I would rather trust this sensitive job to. Thanks mate.

Until next time,

Alan signing off........................

Tales of Asia - Part 11, Lost in Guangzhou (again)

2006-09-20T23:14:00.000+08:00

On Saturday, 16th September, I went up to Guangzhou (GZ) again for the third time.

The trip started off a little unsteadily. Taxi's from my apartment in Tsim Sha Tsui to Hung Hom Staion were slow and so I only got to the station by the skin of my teeth only to find out that the train I was scheduled to go on was cancelled. I had to wait for another hour for the next one but that was no problem as I explored the large station complex in the meantime. The train finally left and I got to GZ mid-afternoon.

I booked into a hotel near the park that I explored the first time I was in GZ as I like that part of that city. The first time I stayed in GZ the hotel that I was staying at was on the other side of the city and it took a long time to get over to that park so I could see the historical sites and buildings. Anyway, this time I was in the right part of town. In the evening I wandered down the street, found a Chinese massage place that looked okay and went in and had a one-hour foot massage.

The next morning I went for a walk, had some breakfast and then took a taxi to a place called Shamian. This place is essentially an island that sits on the Pearl River. It is a place where envoys from the West made their home at the early part of the century when they tried to set up trade relationships with China. The architecture is really interesting to look at as there are buildings designed and constructed to resemble French, English, American, Indian, Japanese, and all other matter of architecture from the turn-of-the-century circa 1900. The streets are set out in a grid pattern and it is a really nice place in a park environment to spend a few hours. After I had wandered around there for while, I decided to come back later and take some video footage as somebody told me that it looked really nice there at night.

I then decided to catch the taxi back to the massage place near the hotel. I then had a two-hour body massage and a one-hour foot massage. I felt like a new guy after it was finished. A taxi back to Shamian to take some video footage and then a taxi back to near my hotel and had some dinner. All in all, a nice day.

Next morning, I just really got up and took the subway system to the Guangzhou East station where I caught the train back to Hong Kong.

A few people have asked me why I go to Guangzhou and Shenzhen in mainland China many times. They sometimes seem a little confused at my answer which is "because I can". What they don't realise is that, for many years, I never travelled outside Australia. Now that I am able to travel, I am just so happy to be in Asia where I always wanted to be. When I get the chance to go " to China" and it's so easy just to go and get on a train to get there, I just go to the train station and take the opportunity to go " to China" one more time.

Bye for now.

Best wishes to you all.

Alan

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted September 20th 2006

2006-09-20T23:13:00.000+08:00

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

-- Lao Tzu

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 11 September 2006

2006-09-12T01:52:00.000+08:00

Before you judge someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you judge them, you are a mile away and you have their shoes.

- Unknown -

Tales of Asia - Part 10 - Lost in Guangzhou, China

2006-09-09T18:02:00.000+08:00

Late in August and again early in September, I took the opportunity for a couple of quick trips up to the Gateway of Southern China, Guangzhou. (pronounced something like "Gwon Joe"). This city is close to Hong Kong and only takes two hours on the express train.

Guangzhou is the capital city of Guangdong, and the center of its political, economic, scientific, educational and cultural life. Sui (Ears of Rice) is short for Guangzhou and the City of Ram (Yang Cheng) is also an alias of Guangzhou. Guangzhou is located north of the Pearl River Delta. It lies close to the South China Sea, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Covering an area of 7434.4 square kilometers (2870 square miles), Guangzhou is home to more than 11 million people, including a 3.7 million transitory population. With the opening of China to the outside world, a large number of people from other regions of China swarmed into Guangzhou, one of the first “open” cities in China. This has accelerated its economic development.

Guangzhou is also a famous historical city. In ancient days, Guangzhou was the capital city for three Chinese dynasties: the Nan Yue (South Yue), the Nan Han (South Han) and the Nanming (South Ming). Thus it was put in the list of the 24 most famous historical cultural cities and became a tourist destination. You can not understand most Chinese cities deeply until you know their history. This is true of Guangzhou. Many historic sights: the Western Han Nanyue King's Tomb Museum, the Zhenhai Tower and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall tell us the 2,000-year history of Guangzhou.

Today, Guangzhou retains its ancient customs, but is also a large city full of vigor and current fashions. You can find something worth taking home in Shangxia Jiu Lu, Beijing Lu and Di Shi Fu Lu.

During my travels in Guanzhou I visited Zhen Hai Lou. This was built during the Ming Dynasty as a five-story tower located at the hilltop of Yue Xiu Park. This is one of the oldest edifices of Guangzhou which was originally used as a watch tower. Nowadays it has become a museum showcasing Han porcelains, artifacts and treasures.

I also visited the largest park of Guangzhou, home to the Statue of the Five Goats statue and Zhen Hai Lou. It's situated on the Yue Xiu Mountain as well as six other minor mountains. Besides the beautiful views the park offers, there are other famous edifices such as the Five Rams Statue, the River View Pagoda of Ming Dynasty, the Tomb of King Nanyue of Eastern Han, and the Cannons of Ching Dynasty.

There are many other places of interest in Guanzhou such as the Jade Market, rows and rows of merchants in buildings selling precious jade and other stones. if you go make sure you cut the merchants opening price in half to start with. The Chinese have a belief that foreigners have loads of money and therfore should pay a highre price than Chinese people. Don't take this as an insult, just acccept it for what it is and bargain for a "Chinese" price. You'll be amazed at the bargains. (for example an RMB135o pair of shoes in Shenzhen a week prior was bought at a final price of RMB50. Yes, its not a typing mistake, I said RMB1350 to RMB50 in less than 5 minutes)

Until next time, this is Tales of Asia signing off.

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 9 September 2006

2006-09-09T18:01:00.000+08:00

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

- Woody Allen

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 9 September 2006

2006-09-09T17:58:00.000+08:00

Never hate your enemies, it affects your judgement.

- Michael Corleone

Tales of Asia - Part 9 - Lost in Melbourne (again)

2006-09-01T18:27:00.000+08:00

Sunday the 30th of July 2006 found my wonderful daughter Alana arriving in Hong Kong to spend a week with me. Alana had previously come to Hong Kong with me last December but had returned home soon after because her grandfather was sick at that time. Alana returned to have a weeks holiday with me and do things that we missed out doing the time before.

During the week that Alana was here we were able to have a look around Hong Kong, go up to the China mainland to Shenzhen and have body and foot massages for three hours and then go shopping afterwards. We went to Macau on a high-speed ferry and then returned on the ferry during a Typhoon Signal 3 warning whilst many people were calling for Ralph in paper bags. We had a great time enjoying our time together as dad and daughter.

When the week was over, on the 6th of August, Alana and I both boarded a plane and flew off in the direction of Australia. We had been under the impression we were going to Melbourne so when the plane landed in Adelaide we were a little perplexed. Things were okay though and soon we were on the same plane again hopping over to Melbourne. We hadn't been made aware that the plane goes in a Hong Kong-Adelaide-Melbourne-Hong Kong circle. Alana's mum Sue came to meet her at the airport and graciously offered me a lift home which I gratefully accepted.

A word in passing on ex-partners. I know a lot of people who are either separated or divorced and hold resentment, anger or blame towards their ex-partner. Whenever these people talk about their ex-partner it seems that they talk about them with disdain and negativity. I have been privileged to be in a situation where Sue and I have been divorced for some years now and both wish each other well. I don't think that my divorced relationship with my ex-wife could be any better than that currently is. Thanks Sue.

Anyway, after Sue gave me a lift home and I had an emotional reunion with my cat Stussy the Incredibly Amazing Wondercat, I unpacked my bags, got squared away and got prepared for my two weeks in Melbourne. What a two-week period it was going to turn out to be!

During the next two weeks I was able to meet with members of my staff at my office in Melbourne. I must say that there is a deep sense of satisfaction when a person can come back to a business after being away for some time to find that the business is performing exactly as it should be performing. This consistency is directly attributable to the wonderful people who work in my business and who are so loyal and dedicated, hard-working and conscientious. Thanks everyone.

Musically, I played in the three bands that I perform with when I am living in Melbourne. The three bands are Loose Connections (a three-piece acoustic outfit), The Screaming Teabags (a blues/jazz/funk outfit) and Kool Change (formerly Audio Assassins who are a rock covers band). It was great to catch up with all of my friends again and to be able to play music with them. Although we are all amateurs in the sense that we have other jobs and do not rely on music for a livelihood, the sound and the attitudes are always professional. In particular, it was great to see the growth of the band Kool Change who I joined for their performance at a private function at the Point Cook Air Force Base on the middle Saturday night of my stay.

I was also able to attend a couple of other musical events, one being to go and see my mate Wayne Trethowan perform in his band Oz Rock Revolution at the Bayswater Hotel. The band was really great performing covers of classic Australian rock songs and the sticky carpet at "The Baysy" well..thats another story. Wayne is the general manager of a multinational company in the same area of endeavour that I am in and is affectionately nicknamed "Poosey Bear". Each year Wayne hosts an day long outdoor rock concert in Eltham called "Bearstock" (after "Poosey Bear" and Woodstock). Bands play throughout the day and there is a hippy theme where guests come dressed in 60's and 70's gear and look as hip as possible. Its a great day.

The other music event I attended was a Weekend Warrior concert held on Sunday afternoon at the Croxton Park Hotel. The Weekend Warrior organisation helps get mature aged musicians (regardless of skill level) back out in public and playing music in concerts. As the inaugral President for two years of the Weekend Warrior music association in Victoria it was my pleasure to go along and see more musicians being presented to the public for the first time in many years. Well done to everyone, organisers, musicians, supporters and families.

Socially, I was able to catch up with many of my friends but unfortunately I was not able to catch out with everyone that I would have liked to. I had purposely made this trip two weeks in duration so that I could do everything I wanted to do and catch up with everybody I wanted to see, but time just got away from me. Next time I might have to stay in Melbourne for longer. As it was, I didn't even get to spend one evening relaxing in my own house as I will always be out seeing people and getting home late in the night.

A couple of highlights for me personally this time was having lunch with my good friend Mark Navin (he's the guy I wrote about after my last trip to Melbourne). Mark is a great guy, one of those really decent and wholesome human beings that you come across from time to time and you just feel like it like to be friends with forever. Having dinner with Greg and his partner Halia at their house in Eltham the night before I went home was also another highlight. Greg is the percussionist/backing vocalist for Loose Connections and his house is set in a bushland setting in Eltham. I was accompanied on the night by my close friend Melissa Ding and drove out to Greg and Halia's house in Melissa's Porsche Boxster. It was raining so letterbox signs or house signs were difficult to see. In the end Melissa and I were driving up and down the road for about 30 minutes trying to find Greg and Halia's house until I had to ring them up on the phone to ask for their assistance. As it turns out we were parked directly opposite their house but would never have known.

A major highlight of my trip back to Melbourne this time was to check out my son Dylan's new business PSX Playstation Extreme. The business provides Playstation and Xbox repairs, upgrades, accessories and software. It was wonderful to see Dylan in his business which although in its early days of operation showed signs of being very successful. Dylan has had to qualify himself in game console repairs, learn how to run a business and then start a new business all from an idea he had a little while ago. I was very proud as his father to see him making his way in life and ensuring a way of being self-supporting through his own contributions. Well done mate.

All too soon my trip to Melbourne was over and on the 19th of August 2006 I boarded a plane again and came back to Hong Kong. It was interesting for me to note my own thoughts that, when leaving Hong Kong, I felt like I was leaving home to go somewhere. When I was in Australia and leaving to come back to Hong Kong and the feeling was leaving home to go home. So it's a bit weird.

While in Melbourne they also came to the realisation that I have a fantastic life in Melbourne while at the same time having a fantastic life in Hong Kong. The quality problem that I have from this realisation is I have a fantastic life overall. How lucky am I.

Until next time, this is the intrepid traveller signing off and wishing you all well.

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 20th July 2006

2006-07-20T11:22:00.000+08:00

The most important thing about having goals is having one.

- Geoffrey F Albert

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 20th July 2006

2006-07-20T11:20:00.000+08:00

No ego, no problem.

- Unknown

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 20th July 2006

2006-07-20T11:17:00.000+08:00

Well done is better than well said.

- Benjamin Franklin

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 26th June 2006

2006-06-26T00:50:00.000+08:00

Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.

-- Albert Einstein

Tales of Asia - Part 8 - Lost in Japan

2006-06-24T17:24:00.000+08:00

The 2nd of June 2006 and its off to Japan to check out some history. The aim of this trip is to visit temples, shrines and castles as well as experiencing Japanese culture and lifestyle.

Japan is the country where the past meets the future. Japanese culture stretches back millennia, yet has also adopted and created the latest modern fashions and trends. Cities in Japan are as modern and high tech as anywhere else, but tumbledown wooden shacks can still be spotted next to glass fronted designer condominiums. On an average subway ride, you will see childishly cute character toys and pornography magazines- sometimes enjoyed by the same passenger. Japan has beautiful temples and gardens that are often surrounded by garish signs and ugly buildings. In the middle of a modern skyscraper you might discover a sliding wooden door which leads to a traditional chamber with tatami mats, calligraphy, and a tea ceremony. These juxtapositions mean I was often surprised and rarely bored with my travels in Japan.

After the plane touched down at Kansai Airport it was a quick train ride into Osaka. Famous for its down-to-earth citizens and hearty cuisine, Osaka combines historical and cultural attractions with all the delights of a Japanese urban phenomenon. Often maligned by visitors as 'ugly' and still best viewed under the neon light of night, Osaka is currently undergoing a facelift to woo daytime visitors to its concrete and pachinko city grid. Waterfront developments are restoring Osaka's image as a port town and creating new attractions for tourists.

As I had left Hong Kong late that Thursday afternoon there was little to do once I arrived at the hotel except to find out where I could get a decent coffee and planned for the next day.

The next day it was off to Osaka Castle. Osaka's most popular attraction is this 1931 reconstruction of the original 1583 castle. Although it's a copy, it's a very good one, and both the castle and the heritage museum inside are very popular. The castle is surrounded by a beautiful park with many cherry blossom trees. The site is probably 5 times as big as the area of Melbourne's Myer music bowl, Shrine of remembrance, government house and botanical gardens. The castle includes outer and inner moats and is just breathtaking. It was part of the reason why I took over 1000 pictures with my camera on this trip.

That afternoon and I left by train for Kyoto about one hours train ride from Osaka. I was positioned in the front of the train and was witnessed to one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in my life. The train driver is separated from the other passengers by some windows. As we made our way along the train tracks to our destination, I watched this fellow is doing some real theatrics with his white gloved hands. Almost as a magician, or a TV game show hostess, this chap was waving his hands around, pointing with his finger down the track as if he was conducting an orchestra, and waving at the train schedule on the noticeboard in front of him. I was later to learn that all Japanese train drivers perform this behaviour, as it is part of their training to acknowledge the green signals in front of them down the track, and also so that they keep on schedule and are aware of where they are on the train track. I observed this theatre a few times during my travels as I made a point of sitting at the front of the train, and it never ceased to amaze me how animated the Japanese train drivers are.

Kyoto, with its hundreds of temples and gardens, was the imperial capital between 794 and 1868, and remains the cultural centre of Japan. Its raked pebble gardens, sensuously contoured temple roofs and mysterious Shintō shrines fulfill the Japanese fantasy of every Western cliché hunter. With an astonishing 1600 Buddhist temples, 400 Shintō shrines, a trio of palaces, and dozens of gardens and museums, Kyoto is Japan's cultural treasure house. Seventeen of Kyoto's ancient structures and gardens have been declared UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Kyoto's station building is a striking steel and glass structure - a futuristic cathedral for the transportation age. Unveiled in September 1997, the building met with some decidedly mixed reviews. Some critics assailed it as out of keeping with the traditional architecture of Kyoto; others loved its wide-open spaces and dramatic lines. Whatever the critics' views, you'll be impressed by the huge atrium that soars over the main concourse. Take some time to explore the many levels of the station, all the way up to the 15th-floor observation level. If you don't suffer from fear of heights, try riding the escalator from the 7th floor on the eastern side of the building up to the 11th-floor aerial skywalk high over the main concourse.

The next morning it was off by train to Nara. Japan's first permanent capital was established in the year 710 at Heijo, the city now known as Nara. As the influence and political ambitions of the city's powerful Buddhist monasteries grew to become a serious threat to the government, the capital was moved to Nagaoka in 784. Nara is located in the Kinai plain, less than one hour from Kyoto and Osaka . Due to its past as the first permanent capital, it remains full of historic treasures, including some of Japan's oldest Buddhist temples.

Nara Park (Nara Koen) is a large, pleasant park in central Nara, established in 1880. It is the location of many of Nara's main attractions including Todaiji, Kasuga Taisha, Kofukuji and the Nara National Museum, a museum specialzed in Buddhist art. The park is home to hundreds of freely roaming deer. Considered messengers of the gods in Shinto, Nara's deer have become a symbol of the city and have even been designated a National Treasure.

Being in total awe of the size and lay out from all of this wonderful history, it was little wonder that I was still out walking around taking pictures after it got dark before taking the train back to Kyoto and staying there for the night.

A word here on the Japanese accommodation. Every place that I stayed in Japan had an electronic toilet. These little beauties are made of ABS plastic and have a little control panel at the side of the seat. Not only can you program in the temperature of the seat to keep your backside warm whilst you are doing your business, but there are other controls to shoot various jets of water at various parts of your undercarriage whilst you are sitting on the toilet seat after you are finished. Enough said.

On the Sunday I took a walk around Kyoto and went to visit a place that I had planned to visit for a long time before going to Japan, the Imperial Palace. Upon my arrival I found out that the Imperial Palace is shut on Sundays, the day when most people have a day off so, I found that quite interesting. Undeterred I took a walking tour around the Imperial Palace before heading off a short distance to Nijo Castle. Nijo Castle was the home of the Shogun of that era and also includes a smaller castle at the rear of the main one that the shogun built for his daughter. Lucky daughter.

That afternoon it was back to the hotel to collect my bags and head off to Arashiyama, about 10 km from the centre of Kyoto in the Japanese countryside to stay at an authentic Japanese "ryokan". A typical ryokan is an old-fashioned Japanese-style inn. Like a Western-style inn, maintaining the special, traditional atmosphere and appearance is more important than providing the latest modern convenience for the guests. A ryokan is for travelers who wish to experience traditional Japanese culture and enjoy the comforts of old-fashion Japanese hospitality and service.

With the Hozu-gawa River flowing by right outside, I found the ryokan that I was booked in to. The ryokan was named the Hanaikada. This elegant ryokan has a dynamite riverside location in scenic Arashiyama and serves delicious kaiseki(Japanese haute cuisine). It is one of the closest ryokan to the Hozu-gawa River, which is the heart of Arashiyama. It's no surprise that this place is loved by many travellers.

You'll have to search pretty hard to find a nicer spot in Kyoto. Directly across the river a mountain rises that bursts with cherry blossoms during the springtime. The food is excellent, and the rooms are all you'd expect from a top-of-the-range hotel. Each is elegant, tastefully appointed and relaxing. Best of all, the staff are friendly , non speak English so that gave me some great practice for my Japanese language skills, making this a great spot to be based for a thorough exploration of western Kyoto. That night I was treated to an authentic Japanese meal in my room while wearing a traditional Yakuta robe.

The next morning I headed off to explore the surrounding countryside and stumbled across a number of temples and shrines that got my complete interest for the remainder of the day. It was hard to tear myself away later and get my bag for the train trip back into Kyoto and then from Kyoto to Kansai airport for the plane flight back to Hong Kong.

On the train trip from Kyoto to Kansai, I was treated to the ticket inspector on the train who walked into the carriage while the train was in transit, strode up to the front of the carriage, turned around very formerly and announced that he was Mr Miyagi (or something like that) and that he was here to inspect the tickets. He then made his way down the carriage and dutifully inspected everybody's tickets. When he was done he strode back to the front of the carriage, stood up as straight as a rod at attention, announced that he was still Mr Miyagi and that he had finished inspecting the tickets before making his way to the next carriage to start the procedure all over again.

Japan is a wonderful place, different to any other place I have ever visited. The countryside is wonderful, the people are wonderful, it's just the best. I used to think that Australia was number one, but Japan would have to come a close second.

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 24th June 2006

2006-06-24T13:46:00.000+08:00

“You are what you love – not who loves you.”

Donald Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) -- Adaptation

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 20th June 2006

2006-06-20T23:56:00.000+08:00

When you reach the top, that's when the climb begins.

- Michael Caine -

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 18th June 2006

2006-06-18T21:07:00.000+08:00

With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.

- Clarke Gable -

Alans Music Website

2006-06-16T17:59:00.000+08:00

For examples of musical compositions done by myself and put on the internet for public scrutiny and constructive feedback please check out www.myspace.com/thesushinoodleguy

New Blogsite for Alans Writing

2006-06-16T17:56:00.000+08:00

For examples of selected short stories, excerpts from longer stories, and examples of writing techniques by myself and put on the internet for public scrutiny and constructive feedback please take a look at www.talesofalan.blogspot.com

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - 16th June 2006

2006-06-16T00:34:00.000+08:00

You can't see the world through a mirror.

-- "Too Much To Ask", Avril Lavigne

Tales of Asia - Part 7 - Lost in Vietnam

2006-06-08T21:03:00.000+08:00

Saturday the 27th of May 2006 and it's Destination Vietnam.

Business associates here in Hong Kong had told me about some business opportunities in Vietnam so I went there to check them out. At the same time I decided to enjoy some of the sights and that's what this Tales of Asia story is about.

Vietnam has spectacular sights thanks to a rich civilization that has left its temples and traditions throughout the land as well as a lucky hand that nature has dealt Vietnam resulting in breathtaking mountains, a killer coastline and sublime scenery. A place of placid beauty, Vietnam is blanketed from top to toe with a patchwork of emerald green rice paddies, tirelessly tended by farmers in conical hats. A long history of war continues to weigh heavily on the consciousness of those who can remember and from a Vietnamese perspective there is a history of old and poignant sites throughout the country. While being fiercely protective of their independence and sovereignty, the Vietnamese are graciously welcoming to those who come in peace. In short, Vietnam is defiantly different, hardly surprising as it has had to defy so many obstacles to get where it is today.

My itinerary initially took me to Ho Chi Minh City in the South. In the plane on the way over, I was seated next to a Vietnamese gentleman who had been in Hong Kong for training in computer IT services. We shared a conversation and some candy and he even asked me to take a photograph of him so he could show his friends and family his trip on the plane. I couldn't help but think that 30 years ago we wouldn't be trying to share candy and take pictures on a plane but we would be trying to shoot each other in some rice paddy somewhere. The futility of war.

After the plane landed, it was a short trip to the Equatorial Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. At first sight Ho Chi Minh City may seem to be populated with a million bandanna bedecked women bandits on the verge of a giant traffic accident. In fact, the women wear the bandanna's to protect from the sun and the pollution and the pattern in the streets reflects the generalized, organised chaos in a city that attracts people from all over the country hoping to better their fortunes. A young office worker maneuvers her Honda through rush-hour traffic, long hair flowing, high heels working the brake pedal. The sweating Chinese businessman chats on his cellular phone, cursing his neck tie in the tropical heat. A desperate beggar suddenly grabs your arm, a rude reminder that this is still a developing city despite the trimmings.

Unofficially, the city is still called Saigon. Officially, Saigon refers only to District 1. Southern Vietnamese certainly prefer the name Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City. The city fumes, bubbles and churns, yet within this teeming 300-year-old metropolis there is a timeless tradition and the beauty of an ancient culture. In the pagodas monks pray and incense burns. Artists create masterpieces on canvas or in carved wood. Puppeteers entertain children in the parks while, in the back alleys, acupuncturists treat patients and students learn to play the violin. A seamstress carefully creates a graceful Vietnamese national costume that might elicit the envy of Parisian fashion designers.

That evening in my free time I decided to go and get lost in the city, the best way I know to find out about a new place, hence my reasons for titling most of my stories "Lost in ......(insert the name of a place)".

The first thing I needed to deal with was being able to cross the road. I remember a Vietnamese saying to me that there were 4 million people in Saigon and 2 million motorbikes. Probably an exaggeration but somehow seemed close to reality. There are so many scooters and motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City that it is difficult to get from one side of a main road to the other. I watched how the locals achieved this feat, and so after taking a deep breath and slapping my hand over my eyes so that I couldn't see a thing, I bravely stepped off the kerb and walked blindly into the oncoming traffic. I learnt that my part of the bargain is to keep walking slowly from one side of the road to the other. For the motor bike rider's part, they see you in the distance and do their best to avoid you. Somehow it all seems to work out okay, but a word of warning, don't stop in the middle of the road or you will surely be hit.

That night after dinner at Vietnam House in Dong Khoi Street I was warned by one of the caring Vietnamese locals not to carry my backpack slung over one shoulder but to wear it properly on my back. As I learned later, Ho Chi Minh City is the most theft-ridden city in Vietnam. I learnt that it is wise to be especially careful in the Dhong Khoi Street area and along the Saigon riverfront where motor bike " cowboys" operate. As my Vietnamese friend pointed out "There are many lobbers. Be velly careful. They will lob you". Advice graciously received even if it did take a moment to understand what he was saying.

The following day in my spare time I was able to go on a walking tour of places such as the War Remnants Museum. The museum is an interesting place, quite gruesome. It has US armored vehicles, artillery pieces, bombs and infantry weapons on display outside. The museum also documents war atrocities conducted by the West and seen from the Vietnamese perspective. There is also a guillotine used by the French on Viet Minh "troublemakers". It is a horrible device and I could imagine being carried into that cell terrified and being dumped in a coffin sized cage next to the bench before being brought out and strapped in place for the final few minutes of a person's life. There is also a model of the notorious tiger cages used by the South Vietnamese military to house Viet Cong prisoners on Con Son island. If anyone wants to see the sheer inhumanity of what happens in a war, then go and take a look at this place. Enough said. Being actually glad to leave this place it was then a walk to see other sites including Notre Dame Cathedral built around 1883, some temples, shrines and markets.

The following day it was off to Hanoi in North Vietnam. Interestingly enough, I was to learn later that it takes longer to fly from Ho Chi Minh City in the South Vietnam to Hanoi in North Vietnam than it does to fly from Hanoi to Hong Kong, the country is so long. While on this flight, my flying phobia and got a nudge in the ribs when there was a large ripping sound that seemed like part of the fuselage had been torn away from the plane. When the sound occurred, a number of passengers looked up in fright and a flight attendant standing right in front of me looked very concerned at the ceiling of the plane. She then did her best to force a smile, albeit a very nervous one, before turning and scurrying off in the direction of the cockpit. Suffice to say that I never did find out whether a piece of the plane went missing and landed in some farmers rice paddy as the plane landed safely in Hanoi.

Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam is a city of timeless grace, a grand old dame of Asia who is ageing better than most of her contemporaries. Hanoi laid in a deep slumber after Vietnam was partitioned in 1954 until the effects of economic reforms began to kick in four decades later. The city and its inhabitants survived American bombs and Russian planners to emerge relatively unscathed in the early 1990s as a superb example of a French colonial city.

Hanoi's centre today is a blend of Parisian grace and Asian pace, an architectural museum piece evolving in harmony with its history, rather than bulldozing through it like many of the region's capitals. The bustling Old Quarter has been a cauldron of commerce for 800 years and is still the best place to check the pulse of this resurgent city. Elsewhere, towering mansions line grand, tree-lined boulevards, and lakes and parks dotting the city provide the local people with the perfect place for a spot of dawn exercise. There are still fleeting moments of Paris, as the smell of warm banquettes permeate street corners, the beret is as common as a baseball cap, and a "bonjour" is as likely as a "hello".

Going on another walking tour I soon learnt that all places that I wanted to see were quite spread out and that it would take a long time on foot, time that I did not have. Following negotiations with a friendly cyclo-driver, it was off on a pleasant rickshaw style cycle tour around all of the city including the Old Quarter, St Joseph's Cathedral, West Lake, Hoan Kiem Lake, the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex where Ho Chi Minh's body is on display, the Ho Chi Minh presidential palace and museum. Also included in this tour were a number of temples including Van Mieu - Quoc Tu Giam temple, an ancient home of sages and scholars of Confucianism. After my cyclo-tour I was to learn that it is important to be very clear on the basis of the price prior to starting the journey. Often what is quoted as the hourly rate at the start of the journey is not what is requested as payment at the end of that same journey. Although it had had a good tour with a pleasant cyclo-driver who work hard for their money and I wasn't about to agonize too much about giving him a few extra hundred dong (the Vietnamese currency), it did leave a slightly sour taste in my mouth. A good lesson though for future travels.

While in Hanoi I stayed at the Sofitel Metropole hotel. Some friends in Hong Kong had recommended the Metropole hotel to me and I was really glad that I stayed there. It is an old grand building and is one of Asia's great luxury hotels. It is part of the same elite as Raffles in Singapore and looks very similar. The place has a French motive that just won't quit - close the curtains and you'll think you're in Paris. A beautiful place.

The following day I was picked up by a staff driver in what was described as a limousine taxi for a trip to Ha Long Bay on the northern coast of Vietnam. The limousine taxi actually turned out to be a 20-year-old Mazda Starwagon that looked like it had been used for carting dead pigs. Undeterred, I piled in the back for what I thought would be a reasonably short 200-kilometre journey. Little did I know that Nhat Nhat, my driver would do nearly all of the journey at around 60 km's per hour, even on country stretches where there weren't any farmers, peasants or villages. He seemed to see things on the road that I missed as he would speed up to 80 km per hour and then suddenly whack his brakes on and slow down to 30 km an hour before cruising up to our nominal average speed of 60 km's per hour. I'm not quite sure if his name was actually Nhat Nhat or just Nhat, but when I asked him what his name was he seemed to say "Nhat...........Nhat", so perhaps he was just repeating himself, but to me he affectionately became Nhat Nhat.

Three and a half-hours later we arrived at the Ha Long Bay Heritage hotel. I had come to Ha Long Bay to see what had been described as the natural wonder of Vietnam. Picture 3000 or more incredible islands rising from the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin and you have a vision of greatness. In 1994 it was designated Vietnam's second world heritage site. The tiny islands are dotted with beaches and grottoes created by wind and waves and have sparsely forested slopes.

Besides the breathtaking vistas, visitors to Ha Long Bay come to explore the caves, some of which are beautifully illuminated for the benefit of tourists, or to hike in the national park. Unfortunately as I arrived late in the day, I was not able to book a tour on a tourist boat and the fog had settled in which cut off a lot of the view that I came to enjoy. The weather was humid and drizzly which, when added to the fog, made visibility low.

Halong translates as " where the Dragon descends into the sea". Legend has it that the islands of Ha Long Bay were created by great dragon that lived in the mountains. As it ran towards the coast, it's flailing tail gouged out valleys and crevices. As it plunged into the sea, the areas dug up by the tail became filled with water leaving only the high land visible.

As I tend to do, I had my trusty camera with me and I was taking many pictures for my future memories. As I walked out on the jetty from the main tourist beach I encountered an Asian gentleman who insisted that I take his picture. As there were some official photographers there as well I tried to suggest to this gentleman that I wasn't actually an official photographer, but just a tourist. The guys seemed to know that but still insisted that I take his picture, so I obliged. He struck some magnificent poses. A little while later when I was on the end of the jetty, I saw this same gentleman coming up to me with three of his mates. I wondered if I was going to be in a little bit of trouble but I was soon to find out that this gentleman wanted me to take a group photograph of him and his mates. When I suggested to him that I had no way of printing out the photograph and giving it to him, he gestured that he didn't care about that, he just wanted me to take their photograph. Being an obliging type of person, I took a stack of photographs of him and his mates and showed them all on the LCD screen on the back of the camera and they walked away backslapping and laughing and very happy. I still have their photographs if anyone's interested, just let me know.

That night I had dinner on the foreshore on the tourist beach at Ha Long Bay. Restaurants on the foreshore are a little bit more basic than what you might find in the big city, no walls, plastic outdoor chairs, smell. When I was given the menu, I was asked for my choice of drink as apparently they had the usual offerings of beers, mineral water and fruit juices including coconut milk. I haven't had coconut milk for a long time so I gestured that I would like one of those drinks. My waitress gobbed off something to the bartender and he promptly appeared around my side of the bar wielding a machete and heading in my general direction. I wondered what on earth I had done to insult the waitress and whether he was about to give me long sleeves or short sleeves as far as my arms were concerned or whether I was about to lose my head. The guy however just walked straight past me to a pile of coconuts stacked on the sand behind me. Picking out a coconut he tossed it up and down in his palm to check whether he was satisfied with his choice. Then he sprung into action, and a few slashes of the machete combined with a couple of "aaaahheeeee's" from his mouth, and I had a big coconut on my table with a straw stuck in the top for me to drink from. Nothing like non-processed food for good taste.

The next morning, Wednesday the 31st May 2006, I had time to go for another walking tour with my camera before my friend Nhat Nhat summoned me to the Mazda Starwagon pig carrying limousine taxi for the trip to Hanoi airport This journey took around four hours and all I can say is that I'm now glad it's a memory and not something I'm looking forward to in the future. That being said, Nhat Nhat is a wonderful guy and he is very proud about the service he provides and the obvious care and attentiveness that he pays to those people placed in his charge.

There was an interesting event at Hanoi airport as I was going through customs. A Chinese guy a couple of places in front of me in the queue going through customs was caught trafficking drugs. He made a song and dance about being caught and denied that the contraband was his, however the two policemen who were there at the time that he was caught in neither liked his song nor his dance and manhandled him to some place out of sight. I thought to myself at the time that I sure wouldn't like to be that guy.

Saying goodbye to Vietnam as the plane spirited me back to Hong Kong, I could but smile at the fact that for 21 years up until late last year I never set foot outside Australia. I had a chuckle when I thought that, if someone had suggested to me even one year ago that I would be living overseas for a period of time, and that within a 6 month period from starting I would have visited 7 different countries or administration zones of countries (Hong Kong and Macao being part of China etc) I would have thought that person must be mad, but here I was with that track record stamped in my passport.

Arriving home in Hong Kong late at night, it was a quick turnaround to get re-organised as it was off to Japan the following afternoon for 4 days there..............but that's another story.............."Lost in Japan". I'll post it soon.

Cheers all,

Alan

Tales of Asia - Comment - Posted 6th June 2006

2006-06-07T11:00:00.000+08:00

A big thank you to Hugh and Ralph who both left comments under my 12th May 2006 posting. Nice to hear from you both. Hugh, you are too kind.

If anyone would like to leave comments on any of my postings, just click on the "comments" button at the end of that particular posting.

Cheers,

Alan

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 6th June 2006

2006-06-07T10:44:00.000+08:00

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.

-- Carl Bard

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 18th May 2006

2006-05-18T01:34:00.000+08:00

"Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun,to have lived light in the spring,to have loved,to have thought, to have done???"

Victorian English Poet Matthew Arnold

Tales of Asia - Music Update - Posted May 17th 2006

2006-05-18T01:24:00.000+08:00

Check out http://www.myspace.com/thesushinoodleguy for my two new songs "Groove Sisters in Hong Kong" and "Rescue Me".

Please feel free to leave a comment there as to what you think of them.

Cheers

Alan

Tales of Asia - Part 6 - Posted 12th May 2006

2006-05-12T22:24:00.000+08:00

Greetings truth seekers,

I hope this message find you all happy and well. Here is my latest blog posting for those of you who like to keep up with what I have been doing lately. It's a long one so you might want to get a cup of tea and put on your slippers before you settle back for a read. I hope you enjoy "Tales of Asia - Part 6 - Lost in Melbourne, Australia"

Recently, I made a quick trip back home to Melbourne, Australia to visit my family, my business and my friends for one week. The motivating factor in my quick trip was a car accident that my daughter recently had and also because my son was having a birthday. I decided not to tell anyone that I was coming down to Australia for the quick visit as I wanted to see the looks on their faces when I turned up unannounced.

Leaving Hong Kong International Airport on the evening of Friday the 28th of April 2006, the plane made a quick stopover via Singapore's Changi airport on the way to Australia arriving on Saturday morning the 29th of April.

It would not be fair of me, having been through Singapore's airport five times in the last six months, not to say something about this beautiful island country. The Republic of Singapore is an island city-state and the smallest country in Southeast Asia. It is located on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula south of the Malaysian state of Johor, and north of the Indonesian Riau Islands. The site of several ancient port cities and a possession of several empires in its history, Singapore was a Malay fishing village when it was colonised by the United Kingdom in the 19th century. It was further occupied by the Japanese Empire in World War II, and was later part of the merger which formed the Federation of Malaysia. More than 90% of Singapore's Chinese, Indian and Malay population lives in housing estates constructed by the Housing Development Board and nearly half uses public transport . Singapore is a clean, safe place to visit, its amenities are second to none and its public places are smoke-free and hygienic. Much of the country's fascination springs from its multicultural Chinese, Indian and Malay population. The entire state is compact enough to be explored exhaustively in just a few days. Forming the core of downtown Singapore is the Colonial District , around whose public buildings and lofty cathedral the island's British residents used to promenade. Each surrounding enclave has its own distinct flavour, from the aromatic spice stores of Little India to the tumbledown backstreets of Chinatown where it's still possible to find calligraphers and fortune tellers, or the Arab Quarter whose cluttered stores sell fine cloths and silks. Singapore is just 136km north of the equator, which means that you should be prepared for a hot and sticky time whenever you go there.

After arriving at Melbourne Airport on the Saturday, I spend the rest of that day relaxing at my home in Coburg and trying to get my cat, Stussy the Incredibly Amazing Wondercat to remember who I was. I had thought when I arrived home that there would have been one of those " slow motion, slightly out of focus, people running towards each other on the beach, arms open" moments, but Stuss merely glanced in my general direction before turning and walking away. Stuss is 15 years old now and has been a constant companion of mind all of her life. Being in her elder years I guess it is little wonder that memory sometimes slips away. Before I came to Hong Kong last December, I had to make sure that somebody could move into my house and live there so that the cat could continue to live in a manner that it had become accustomed to, like a queen. I think the old saying " dogs have owners, cats have servants" has some validity to it, don't you?

On the Sunday I went over to visit my daughter Alana in the afternoon. I had previously told Alana that a guy would be coming over to her house that afternoon to look at her damaged car. Can you imagine the surprise on my daughter's face when she opened the door and he was her dad standing right there in front of her. My ex-wife Susan was also there, so soon we were all sitting around the kitchen table having a nice chat and catching up on recent events. My daughter had mentioned that she missed me and I know that I missed her as much as I did my son and it was very important for me to go back to Australia to see both of them.

Later that evening, I pulled a similar stunt on my son when I rang him from the driveway of his house using my Hong Kong cellphone. My son Dylan thought I was calling from Hong Kong and so I engaged him in conversation while, at the same time, I knocked on the front door of his house. His girlfriend Carla opened the door and let me in without my son knowing. Can you imagine his surprise when I asked him via my cell phone as to who was visiting him at that time of the night and he turned around and I was standing there right in front of him.

A similar situation occurred on the Monday when I dropped into my office unannounced. I didn't tell them that I was coming, not because I wanted to see what they were up to when I wasn't there as I trust my staff implicitly, but I did want to see the looks on their faces when I just walked in. I must admit that I was extremely pleased about the reactions of I got from my staff members and it was an absolute delight to see them all again. I am very fortunate to have the type of staff members that I do. They are all completely trustworthy and professional in every way. They run our company as if that was their own and take ownership and pride in everything that they do. I know that when I am in Asia that the business in Australia is in very capable and safe hands.

On the Tuesday I was pleased to accept a lunch invitation from my friend Mark Navin. Mark is a chiropractor and I first met him a few years ago when he started doing adjustments on my spine, hips and neck following some physical damage that I had caused to myself. As with anyone that I would see every fortnight for 13 years, the nature of my association with Mark has turned from a professional service to a great friendship. Mark is one of those really decent and nice guys who lives a fulfilling and wholesome life and who it is a pleasure to know.

On Wednesday, I was thrilled that some of my musical friends accepted an invitation for a rehearsal at my sound stage in Brunswick. The band was made up from a number of people from various bands including the Screaming Teabags, Don't Fret, Time Warp and Loose Connections. Players included accountant and businessman Mark Bailey on lead guitar and backing vocals, lawyer extraordinaire Joe Forlano on bass, IT specialist Greg Hayward on percussion and backing vocals, trainer Dennis Syrett on drums, and myself on the rhythm guitar, slide guitar and vocals. Songs done on the night included Stevie Ray Vaughan's version of Mary Had a Little Lamb, a funked up version of John Fogarty's Fortunate Son, our favourite Paul McCartney song No Other Baby, Stephen Stills Love the One You're With, Drive by the Cars, and finishing off with a very loud and piercing Choirboys tune Never Gonna Die. As the main vocalist in most of these numbers it was little wonder that I can hardly talk on Thursday which was probably a blessing in disguise for some people.

The guys that I played music with are part of an organisation called Weekend Warriors. Weekend Warriors seeks to nurture mature age musicians back into playing music live with other like-minded musicians. A couple of years ago an association was formed and was named Warriors Victoria and I was pleased to be the inaugural president for the first couple of years. Although I step down some months ago as the President, I am happy you continue my involvement by being the Webmaster and maintaining the website. I am also pleased to say that this year Warriors Victoria held another Good Friday appeal concert for the Royal Children's Hospital and was able to raise $1120.00. For more details of Weekend Warriors and Warriors Victoria please refer to the website at www.warriorsvictoria.com

Thursday was a fairly laid-back day and in the evening, following a spinal adjustment by my friend Mark at the Hartwell Chiropractic Clinic, I was able to catch up with some friends in Burwood and spend the evening there. Those of you who understand the saying "I'm a friend of Bill Wilson's" will know my type of friends.

Friday was similar to Thursday, just catching up on most things before having dinner with my Chinese friends Sam and Lucy Han in Victoria Street Richmond. I have known Sam for about nine years from the time he originally started supplying computer equipment to my then fledgeling business in Brunswick. Over the years Sam's business, SPC Consulting located opposite Barkly Square in Brunswick, has continued to supply my business with computer equipment and we have formed a lasting friendship. In recent years same married Lucy who is also a delightful lady. I am happy to report that at the time of writing this blog entry that Lucy is around five months pregnant and everybody is looking forward to the arrival of a healthy baby sometime in August.

Saturday came around far too quickly for my liking. I had not caught up with as many friends as I had wished to, but I had really enjoyed the time that I had spent at home in Australia. I really do feel fortunate to have friends and people in my life like Melissa Ding who has taught me so much in the last 12 months and been such a great friend, Dennis Syrett who is looking after my house, friends like Nick Dwyer, Peter Jones, Alexandria and Spiros my Greek housekeepers, all my friends in Melbourne, my new friends in Hong Kong, a great team in my office in Melbourne and, well, and just everyone.

On Saturday night I was able to catch a quick dinner with my friend Peter Jones who had visited me in Hong Kong recently before heading out to the airport and getting on the plane to come back to Hong Kong again via Singapore.

Arriving back in Hong Kong at midday on Sunday and having had very little sleep on the plane, I was glad to have a couple of hours sleep in the afternoon before heading back out to the airport to meet my friend Hugh Kilpatrick who had come to stay with me for a few days. Hugh had been in Singapore for a conference and had a couple of days to spare and thought it might be nice to come and visit me. Hugh is also from Melbourne and I met him when I trained him to be a crisis counsellor at Crisis Line\CareRing back in 1998. Hugh and I became good friends after that training session and it was a delight to have been here in Hong Kong. He was more interested, like myself, of being immersed in the culture rather than going around doing tourist type activities. I was pleased to be able to take Hugh into Central, Tsim Sha Tsui, Jordan and Olympic. His couple of days were over far too quickly and by the time that I accompanied him out to the airport on Wednesday morning for his trip back to Australia.

After Hugh left I needed to catch up on the music course that I had been doing. Some of you may remember me mentioning in an earlier blog posting that I had been doing another online music course from America. While I had been away in Australia and while Hugh had been visiting me, I had not been able to undertake my music course so this week on Thursday I knuckled down and did two weeks of course study and eight musical assignments in one day. The assignments involved me having to play guitar and record myself, and then send those assignments off to America for assessment. You might imagine how relieved I was at the end of the day when it was all over. Phew.........., long day.

And so this brings me up to the present, of Friday 12th of May 2006. I am currently exploring travel arrangements for Japan and Vietnam and hope to go there in the next few weeks. Hopefully there will be a Tales of Asia about those adventures in coming weeks.

In closing, I wonder how many of you know that for many years I had a chronic fear of flying. Admittedly, I had always been a little bit anxious about flying but, following an incident on an airplane coming out of Sydney back in September 1995 on my way back to Melbourne, that really cemented my phobia and I thought that I would never fly again. It's really amazing how after a long time and lots of effort, some neurolinguistic programming, some hard work on my part, the support of good friends and a firm belief that one day things would again be fine, I am again able to fly. On my last trip to and from Australia and I couldn't wait for the plane to take off and get up in the air. Most of my former fears have gone and I only experienced the normal anxiety that any person might feel being in a strange and unfamiliar situation from time to time. Many of you may think this is nothing, but to me this is an absolutely amazing experience, to be able to travel and not be trapped in one country. My message to anybody out there who suffers from any type of anxieties or phobias about anything is that if you just keep chipping away at your phobia and couple that with a belief that one day things will be okay and, well .....one day things will be okay. That has been my experience anyway, so I hope that's helpful to some of you readers out there.

Bye for now. Take good care.

Alan

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 9 May 2006

2006-05-09T12:18:00.000+08:00

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.

-- General Colin Powell

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 26th April 2006

2006-04-26T13:36:00.000+08:00

(Alan's comment - I have found this to be so true.)

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

-- Henry David Threau

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - 24th April 2006

2006-04-24T19:49:00.000+08:00

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

-- Dalai Lama

Tales of Asia - Part 5 - Posted 23rd April 2006

2006-04-24T17:37:00.001+08:00

Hello truth seekers,

I hope everything is good for you and that your world is going around in the right direction for you this week, naturally left to right.

Welcome to another Tales of Asia story, this time there has not been so much of a break from my last Tales of Asia entry, so subsequently it is a little shorter than some of the previous ones.
Life here in Hong Kong continues to be a living dream. Along with my business activities I have been blessed with the opportunity of living in another country for a period of time and getting to immerse myself in that culture. I never ever thought that I would have this opportunity and I'm so pleased to be living this experience.

Recently I went back over to Lamma Island. Lamma Island is one of China's best kept secrets and sits just off the coast of Hong Kong Island. The island is reached by ferry and is a 20 or 30 minute trip depending upon the type of ferry. Lamma's western coast has a harbour and the small village of Yung Shue Wan. There are lots of bars and eating choices along the village's endearingly ramshackle main street. The people are a collection of villagers, resident expats and fellow visitors wandering all over the place by the hundreds. 20 minutes walk from Yung Shue Wan is the well-kept beach at Hung Shing Ye. Many local Hong Kongers come to this beach when the weather is nice. It is possible to swim here as there is a shark net strong across the small way a distance offshore. Many people also take a 5 km walk to the other end of the island to the village of Sok Kwu Wan. This village has wall-to-wall seafood restaurants along the harbour front. The seafood tanks are a site in themselves with some monster sized fish and crustaceans.

Back at Kowloon where I live at The Waterfront on the peninsula just across Victoria Harbour from Central, the main business centre of Hong Kong, life goes on as usual. I am often a visitor in the nearby suburb of Jordan and in particular, the Temple Street night market. Beneath the bleaching glare of a thousand naked light bulbs, tourists and locals alike pick their way amongst the stalls crowding the narrow lanes of Yau Ma Tei's and Jordan's Temple Street. The overwhelming array of cheap goods includes clothes, shoes, accessories, a designer fakes, copy CDs, bric-a-brac and a generous helping of junk. Prices here may be a bit higher than in Shenzhen, just over the Chinese border, or in some of Hong Kong's less well-known markets, but Temple Street is unbeatable for atmosphere.

Recently, some of you may remember that I facilitated some sessions at a seminar at Stanley on Hong Kong Island. Originally a sleepy fishing haven, Stanley was the largest settlement on Hong Kong Island before the British moved in. The modern town, hugging the southern coast, still makes a peaceful, pleasant escape from the bustle of the city. Traffic is minimal, and the pace of life relaxed, with plenty of excellent places to eat, good beaches and a large market to search for clothes, silks and souvenirs. Stanley is also the place to glimpse colonial Hong Kong and an older Chinese tradition seen at the Tin Hau Temple.

One this past Saturday, the 22nd of April 2006, I was pleased to go and see the Hong Kong Ballet company. Hong Kong Ballet is one of the foremost professional classical ballet companies in Asia. Under the artistic direction of Stephen Jefferies, it has also built an international reputation with successful tours to Mainland China, North America, Europe, and other parts of Asia. Hong Kong Ballet presents a broad-based repertoire that includes classical ballets as well as original Chinese-themed productions, such as The Last Emperor, The White Snake, Mu Lan and Legend of the Great Archer. The Company's 40 dancers come from diverse backgrounds, although the majority are from Hong Kong, Mainland China and other Asian countries. With its visionary artistic direction and top quality dancers, Hong Kong Ballet exemplifies Hong Kong's vibrancy and ingenuity.

Saturday's performance was titled Classics & Beyond and played to full house when first seen in 2005 and won tremendous acclaims. It was re-staged in January at Ngau Chi Wan Civic Centre and on the past Saturday it returned by popular demand for three performances at Sai Wan Ho Civic Centre. It was a rhythmic whirlwind, from Swan Lake’s romantic White Adagio, The Sleeping Beauty’s glorious Grand Pas de deux and Don Quixote’s light-hearted sparkling duet to creative short works choreographed by dancers from the Company, experimenting with different movement styles including Beautiful That Way (by Selina Chau) - which drew on the choreographer's own experience in: the love for beauty, the horror of the unknown, memories of a cherished icon, and the joy of sheer happiness. Falling (by Eve Chan) - Captured memories engraved in a young lady's mind, expressing recognisable emotions that can touch everybody's heart. KAGÈ (by Yuh Egami) - Explored how we sometimes internalise despair and close ourselves to the outside world. With a mix of classical, folk and electro music, it shows how dance can bring raw emotions to the stage. Swing It! (by Beh Chang-ching) - Took its cue from big band music to bring a touch of jazz and razzamatazz to the programme: throbbing, cheeky and catchy. Take it Easy (by Li Yi-ran) - If life is always taken too seriously it can be unnecessarily difficult. One should learn to accept situations in a more relaxed manner thus problems can often solve themselves. The programme ended with my favourite: There's a Fly in this Soup (by Carlo Pacis) - Light-hearted musical interpretation of the classics, performed to classical music with a percussive beat.

I am currently doing another music course while I am here in Hong Kong. Some people may remember that over the past two years I did music theory and then a blues guitar course with a college based in Boston in America. For some reason this online method of teaching by these teachers seems to be taught in a way that is easily understood by someone like myself and I find myself making good progress. The current course that I am doing is advanced scale theory and practice. Over the past three weeks I have submitted 12 musical assignments where I have two record myself playing over backing tracks and then submit those to my teachers in America for assessment. I have been pleased so far to have received favourable feedback. I have also learnt that these guys don't just give favourable feedback because people pay for the course, because I have seen some of the feedback that they have given the people who have been a little bit lax in their musical submissions. It is best to keep the quality up.

Whilst living in Hong Kong I have been endeavouring to learn some of the Chinese language. I am happy that I am now able to make my way around Hong Kong with little difficulty as I am able to give directions to taxi drivers, advise them of some destination names in Cantonese, negotiate my way around the Chinese menu when it is written in Chinese and I need to order in Cantonese, and other similar things. For example, when I get in a taxi and I want to go home I have learnt to say "Kay tin boon doh gai lai. Yuen yat kui". I am happy to report that only a few taxidrivers still screw up their face in frustration of what I am saying it actually understand what I have just communicated to them.

Being the type of person to make friends reasonably well, I was really pleased recently to make a friendship with a ponytailed Dutchman entertainer named David Chasse'. David is a singer and trumpet player and one hell of a nice guy. I was pleased to bump into him and spend some time with him over a few days the couple of weeks ago whilst he was here negotiating some entertainment contracts. If you would like to see David's web site and/or if you would like to hear some of his songs that you can download, please take a look at www.davidchasse.nl. David's song "Mokum" (meaning Amsterdam) is one of those little tunes they get stuck in your head and you find yourself humming and singing as you walk down the street a few days after you've heard it.

Recently I created a website or I can put all of my Tales of Asia stories. For those of you who are interested, all of my Tales of Asia - Lost in Hong Kong stories can now be viewed at www.talesofasia.blogspot.com

That's all for this instalment of Tales of Asia - Lost in Hong Kong. I hope you stay well until next time.

Cheers,

Alan

Tales of Asia - Quote of the Day - Posted 22nd April 2006

2006-04-23T02:08:00.000+08:00

All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible.

-- Dr. Frank Richards

Tales of Asia - Part 4 - Posted April 06

2006-04-14T00:14:00.000+08:00

Hello to all my good freinds (and even the not so good ones!),

Firstly, just a quick message of apology to all those people who have sent me emails over the last few weeks and to whom I have not responded yet. I hope that I will be able to get around to responding to you personally over the next few days.

In the meantime, please find below "Tales from Asia - Part 4 - Lost in Hong Kong". I hope that you find it interesting.

Note; Keeping in mind that some people are very busy, please feel free to use the "Delete" button on your computer if you do not have time to read it. I will not be offended. Also, some of you may be wondering why I sent you a message. I just thought that you might like to know what I've been doing for the past 4 months, but if you do not wish to receive messages please just drop me a line and let me know and I will take you off the circulation list. I will not feel offended. Similarly, if you do like receiving my Tales of Asia stories, it would be nice to know that too.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been up to Shenzhen in mainland China a couple of times. I think that the last time was my seventh visit there at that time as I have had freinds from Australia visiting with me and we went there. Many Hong Kong people go there to shop as it is very cheap and there is many a bargain to be had if you have good negotiation skills.

Some of you may not know that on a recent trip to Shenzhen, trip number four I think, the day proceeded very well up on till the time that I went to my favourite " beauty parlour" where both men and women can have back and foot massages, manicures and pedicures, eyebrow tinting (hopefully only for the women!) etc etc. As I always like a foot massage from this place I sat down and soon the young guy who was the masseur commenced his work. I learnt later that he decided that he needed to use extra effort on the Gwai Loh (white ghost) as we are typically bigger than our Asian counterparts. Anyway, he made a one quite violent manoeuvre and, although I didn't feel it very much at the time, I learnt later that I had some substantial damage in my foot. The next day and it was quite painful to walk, and the next day almost impossible. I went to the doctor to find out that I had a broken foot and had shredded some tendons where the foot bones join the toe bones. Luckily for me, I did not need to wear an enclosed boot and use crutches but was unable to simply strap up my foot and hobble around for a while. Things needed to improve in my walking abilities quickly after that as I had two sets of visitors coming from Australia and I needed to be an active tour guide. Fortunately for me my recovery has been reasonably quick even though getting around has taken a little bit longer than usual for a while.

Some of you will know my friend, Peter, ("Peter the Drummer") came to visit me for a week early in March. We had a great week. I had to laugh though when Peter arrived and showed me the contents of his suitcase. I had suggested to him before he left Australia that it would be a good idea to travel light as the shopping here in Hong Kong is extremely good. When Peter arrived the contents of his suitcase included three T-shirts, one pair of shoes and well...........thats all! We later found that he had also forgotten to bring his underpants and we had to whip out and buy some, so it appears that he took my advice literally. When he left, he had so much stuff that he had to kneel on top of his suitcase to get closed enough to lock it. It was such a big effort. A person can buy more than their yearly wardrobe here in Hong Kong for next to nothing in cost.

While Peter was here, I was pleased to be able to take him to Shenzhen and Dongmun on the Chinese mainland, to many parts of Hong Kong, to the members rooms at the Shatin horse races (no, we are not race goers, just an experience), and also to the Hong Kong Ballet to see their version of Suzie Wong, an old Asian tale about the love story between an Asian prostitute and a Western man. The performance was extremely good and I will be going back to see the Hong Kong Ballet in other performances over the next few weeks. I did have to smile though as we had experienced both ends of the cultural spectrum on the same day, that being the horse races and then the Ballet.

A note for any of you who like to go to the movies to see first releases. China and Hong Kong are the copy capitals of the world. Even before the plane had landed with your copies of Brokeback Mountain and other first release movies for your cinemas, I had watched most of them at home on a DVD. Similarly, movies like Firewall, Walk the Line, Flightplan, Underworld Evolution, North Country, Matchstick Men, The Myth, Syriana, The New World and other new movies are being sold in the night markets of Hong Kong while before they are released around the world in some cinemas. It appears that somebody is able to get copies of DVDs that are sent for award evaluation for Oscar nominations and sells them in the black market a long time before they get released for general viewing.

After Peter had left I had three days by myself before my friends Ward and Mandy arrived to spend another week with me. We also had a lovely time and we went to many places in Hong Kong as well as to Shenzhen and Macau. Macau is a one hour high-speed ferry ride and seats just off the coast of mainland China. Macau used to be under the control of the Portuguese but was handed back to Chinese rule a few years ago. Macau is also a wonderful place and has old and new sections. The older section has some wonderful architecture and often is a mix of olden Chinese, period Portuguese, and current day designs. The newer section of Macau is built on reclaimed land from fill that comes from mainland China. Many casinos are built or are being built on this new land as many Chinese like to come and have a gamble. The pace of life in Macau seems to be quite a bit slower than the pace of life in Hong Kong but it is equally appealing. On the day that we went there, we hired the services of a tour guide named Jimmy. Jimmy was absolutely fantastic, very attentive, extremely knowledgeable about Macau and took us to many places of interest including a very old Buddhist temple (see attached pictures), an old Portuguese fort which is now the Macau Museum, antique shops, Christian churches and other places of interest.

It has been a week now since Mandy and Ward went home and I have been busy catching up with other things. On the weekend that they went home to Australia, I had a job here in Hong Kong facilitating some sessions at a seminar on over at Stanley, a village on the other side of Hong Kong Island from the central business district. The sessions I facilitated were similar to sessions that I used to facilitate as a volunteer counsellor trainer in Melbourne and I was pleased to get the help of my Melbourne training partner and good freind Shyama Fuad who was gracious enough to send me some information to help me in the sessions.

Yesterday, I went to Lamma Island. Lamma Island sits just off the coast of Hong Kong Island and is a 30 minute ferry ride from Central Pier. Lamma Island is an incredible place and probably one of Hong Kong's and China's best kept secrets. The whole feel of the place is a mix between a tropical paradise and living somewhere in a exclusive village resort on the coast on the south of France (not that I have been there, but that is what I have been told). Some of the locals on the island have made up the website and for any of you who are interested, here is the link so you can see just what I'm talking about. http://www.lamma.com.hk/ Having been there yesterday, I can understand why some people choose to live on Lamma Island and commute to central Hong Kong each day for work.

Some people have asked me why I like living in Hong Kong. A friend of mine sent me a link to a short video about Hong Kong and it probably shows you much better than I can explain just why I love being here. Here is the link. www.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?SID=4758653 (if it doesnt't work with just clicking on the link, then cut and paste it into your web browser. Its worth it)

I am still in constant contact with my office in Melbourne constantly and things there are going very well there. I have a wonderful bunch of people who have taken the responsibility of looking after the business whilst I take the opportunity to do some business development and work in Hong Kong as well as to have some " Long service leave". It's just great.

Recently I met a lady here who walked up to me on the subway train and asked me if I was an English teacher. I learned that she runs a business teaching English to Chinese people and was looking for additional teachers. When I explained to her that I was not an English teacher but what I was doing here in China, she asked me for some help in her business. For the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of being a business mentor for this lady so that she can not only expand her business, but to also share more quality time with her husband and family, which is a thing that many people here in Hong Kong have in short supply.......... adequate time.

At the end of this month I will be going to Guangzhou. It is a two hour train ride from here and apparently is a great place and also has some health resorts at a reasonable price. I'm also thinking of starting to travel to other Asian places such as Japan, Vietnam and the like.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this instalment of Tales of Asia. To those people who have sent me messages recently and to whom I have not replied, my apologies. I will try to reply to you soon. To those people who think that my Tales of Asia is a bit long, please feel free to hit the "delete" button as I really won't be offended as I know your time is valuable too.

Best wishes to you all, I miss you all heaps.

Alan

Tales of Asia - Part 3 - Posted February 06

2006-04-14T00:10:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all happy and well

At the urging of some of my friends, here is another of my broadcast emails sent to you and many of my other friends to let you know what I have been doing lately. Of course, if you would prefer not to receive this email could you please either just hit your 'delete' button or alternatively drop me a note to let me know and I can take you off the circulation list.

So, here goes......

Two weeks ago I moved into my own apartment. I am living here by myself. The apartment has three bedrooms one of which I use as an office. Another is for sleeping and the other is for all the rubbish I have collected since I have been in Hong Kong! Where do I get this stuff from…………….

My apartment is about three years old and is similar to those that could be found at the Docklands. The building I am in is one of a group of buildings on this site. Underneath this group of buildings is the new Kowloon Station MTR (Mass transit rail) and also another train line, the Airport Express with only one station between here and the new airport at Lantau island on a very fast train.

Kowloon Station is one station from Hong Kong station, the main station, along with Central Station in the central business district of Hong Kong. I am about 1 km from the centre of Hong Kong.

The location that I am living at is where the old Hong Kong airport used to be. I understand that they moved the airport from this location after pilots complained about flying so close to the buildings that they used to fly down people's hallways, through their front door, and out the back window on their landing approaches.

I have included a picture taken through my WebCam that I use to talk with my office. The picture is of the golf range across the road from me and is taken from my 15th floor apartment. As you can see, the golf range is in the foreground and many apartment buildings and commercial buildings are in the distance in a suburb called Jordan. Jordan is a great place, full of shops, street restaurants and also a night market where many of the westerners go at nighttime.

The Chinese refer to westerners as Gwai Loh's that means " White ghost". Sometimes it is said with affection but usually with disdain. Fortunately for me, I have made quite a few friends amongst the local community and they just refer to me as Alan. There is also a lady in one of the restaurants here that I affectionately refer to as "the tummy rubber" because every time I go there for dinner she always comes up to me afterwards and pats me on my tummy and nods her head up and down approvingly. She doesn't speak any English, but I get the general idea of what she is communicating to me.

I am actually typing this message to day because I have stayed home with an upset stomach from some food that I ate last night at her restaurant. I think I have been very fortunate as I have been eating from the local street stalls and markets for the past two months and last night is the first time anything I have eaten has said any ill effect on me. I think the food that she served me was okay, however one of the side dishes was a bit oily and I think that was the culprit.

Last week I went up to Shenzhen, China. It is really simple to get to China from here. It is nearly a choice of catching a taxi (so cheap here!) or walking over to the KCR station (Kowloon China railway) and hopping on a really comfortable train and looking out the window for the next 40 minutes. At the end of the journey it is a fairly straightforward process of going through Hong Kong customs to leave this country and then going through China customs to enter that country and then, well............you are in China............. it's a bit like taking the train from Melbourne to Ferntree Gully and having it difficult ticket inspector at the end of the journey. Really simple (except for the ticket inspector).

Unfortunately my passport photo is six years old. That means it has a picture of me with a different hairstyle and a big bushy moustache. I look like either a detective inspector from the Victoria police, or an army major. You can guess for yourselves the number of times that customs officials stare at my picture, then stare at me, then stare at my picture, then stare at me, then ask another customs official to check me out, then stare at my picture, then stare at me, then stamp my passport and throw it back in my general direction......

Anyway, last week when I went to China I decided not to do what I had done the two previous times I had been there, which was to spend all day in a huge shopping mall. I decided this time to get out into the " suburbs" and see what was going on. So, I jumped on a bus without taking notice of where it was going, paid my money and sat back until the bus driver told me to get off as my money had expired.

I ended up in a place called Dong Men which is actually quite a nice place if you keep your hand on your wallet so that the local pickpockets can't get it. I wandered down some streets in Dong Men and was absolutely taken back by the sheer number of people out in the streets during the Chinese New Year holiday. At one point I was standing at a four-way intersection and I looked around myself and all I could see was tens of thousands of people. I had to wonder to myself " where do they get the food to feed all of these people?" and " where do all of these people live?" I was just so taken aback by the numbers of people there. It's a bit like being at the entry gates of the Telstra dome just before a major event, just that in China, this is normal all day every day.

I did however see some sites that disturbed me. In China, as there is no social welfare system, people have to fend for themselves. This means that there are many beggars. Being a Gwai Loh means that I am an instant target for every beggar within 500 m to target me like a magnet to steel. Sometimes it is a simple case of giving them some money, or, if I feel that they are bogus, politely refusing. There were a couple of cases though that did disturb me. One was of two adults who were obviously blind, begging on an overpass footbridge. The woman was obviously blind, but the guy looked to have been previously blind in one eye but had looked to have plucked out his other good eye so that he was fully blind and therefore a legitimate beggar. Very sad. In the other situation that disturbed me, I was walking in the middle of a crowd in though twilight at night across the footbridge. I came across the dark outline of a young woman sitting on the ground cross-legged with a small baby in her lap eating her dinner out of an upturned rubbish bin. Everybody just walked past her as if she was not there. Very disturbing. She was not begging, merely trying to get something to eat. There are many such sights like this in China.

Whilst I was in Dong Men, I decided to have a haircut. I thought I would walk in to the hairdressers, sit down, have my hair cut and then leave, a process I thought might take about 30 minutes. Little did I realise that I was going to have my hair shampooed, be given a 30 minute back, shoulder and head massage, have my hair cut, and then have my hair shampooed again, then blow dried, all from a very happy staff who proceeded to charge me the equivalent of just less than eight dollars in Australian money. I thought this was simply amazing until I walked off down the road and found out that you could actually get the same thing cheaper!

As I walked off down the road, and as it was dinnertime I started looking at local restaurants to see what I might partake of. One restaurant that I passed by was serving up dog, cat, mouse and I even saw live snakes in the cage out the front of the restaurant for your selection. You merely needed to tell them which animal, fish or reptile you desired and how you would like it cooked and then they happily took that creature and brought it back for you on a plate. I made a comment about the types of food that the Chinese like. I was told " we will eat anything!" While I don't judge anybody on what they eat, I'm happy to say that I kept walking down the road until I found the seafood restaurant.

I must say that whilst I have been up here in the Northern Hemisphere, my sense of direction has been a little bit out. Sometimes I have found myself walking off in a direction that I think is correct only to find out that the place I want to go is in exactly the other direction from where I'm going. I put this down to my internal sense of direction that I know where the equator is. Being up here, the equator is in the other direction that I am used to, so I find myself heading in the wrong direction. These days I am aware of this and just do a little bit of checking before I head off. There was one funny incident that happened a few weeks ago when I came out of the MTR in a suburb called Mongkok. I wasn't sure which direction was which so I asked a local guy " which direction is Hong Kong?" (meaning " where is Hong Kong Island, or where is Central?" as this whole place/State is Hong Kong). Anyway this guy just looked at me as if I was stupid, pointed straight down at the ground and said " here". Of course he was completely right and I walked away with my head hung in shame, shaking my head from side to side and thinking to myself " Alan, you're an idiot!" whilst quietly having a chuckle to myself.

I have made quite a few friends here already, both Asian and Western. A few nights ago one of these friends took me to a floating restaurant at Aberdeen on the other side of Hong Kong Island. Essentially, to get to this restaurant you must take a junk out into the harbour and to the restaurant that is floating but fixed in place. I have included a picture taken from the phone in my camera as I was leaving this restaurant and going back to the jetty after dinner. The sites here are truly amazing.

Recently, I watched the Bruce Lee Story on cable television. More recently, I saw Jackie Chan in a new movie called "The Myth". Whilst watching both of these movies there were many background shots of Hong Kong. Had I watched these movies back in Australia, I would have thought to myself " what a magical and mystical place that Asia is". Having been here for nearly 2 months and then watching these movies, I simply think to myself " Oh, there's the exhibition centre at Wan Chai", or " there's such and such a building, or place" etc.

Musically, I have been playing guitar here most days. Recently, I was asked by a local DVD video magazine to perform two acoustic songs and to do a video interview for their next magazine. I understand that that will happen soon and be on the next DVD magazine that is sold here in Hong Kong. The DVD video magazine is called MomentEye and you can see their web site at www.momenteye.com

I have also been asked to perform two sets of acoustic music at a convention to be held at Stanley at the end of March. So, I am looking forward to these opportunities.

I have also taken an interest in the music of a guy who has had recent chart hits in America, Europe and Australia. His name is Richard Hawley and he writes some really nice songs as well as performing them. Anyway, I was trying to find some of his music and was having no luck. I decided to do an Internet search and I found a web site for this artist. The web site had a forum for people to leave comments or ask questions, so I wrote a few words and made a request for the progressions and arrangements for a particular song. I was completely taken by surprise when Richard Hawley replied to my message and gave me all of the information that I needed. I still remain blown away by the friendly attitudes of most professional musicians but I have come across including Richard Hawley, Bob Spencer (ex Angels, Skyhooks and choirboys), Paul Norton (singer/performer), Wendy Stapleton (singer/performer), Peter Jones (Kate Cerebrano, Renee Geyer, Stovetop), Richard Clapton (singer/songwriter/performer) and Vince Jones (singer/performer). (Apologies to anybody that I left out, or whose credentials I got incorrect). If you would like to see the dialogue from the forum please log on to http://richardhawleyforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=69840#69840 If you would like to hear some really good songs, as Molly Meldrum would say " Do yourselves a favour" and have a listen to some of Richard's music.

I have also kept my involvement in the music association that I was involved in for the past two years, Warriors Victoria. Having spent two years on the committee and one year as the President, I am now helping by maintaining the web site from here in Hong Kong. If you want to see the latest news please log on to www.warriorsvictoria.piczo.com

I also had a birthday in February and, as a treat, Melissa took me to the Oasis concert at the Asia-World Expo near the airport. Great show. Oasis were never really my favourite band and they still aren't but I'm really glad to have gone to see them.

I miss Australia, and I miss my home. I miss my son, my daughter, my cat, my beautiful home, my great friends and my lifestyle. That said, I have decided to stay here and to enjoy this life experience.

Recently, my housesitter Cait was offered a job at a university in America. That means that she will have to leave and I wish her all the best as she is a really nice person and has been really helpful since I left. My good friend Dennis is moving into my house to take over from Cait in a week or so. So, if anyone is going past my house you will now see Dennis there. May I say thank you to both Cait and Dennis.

The people from my office continue to run things there and we are in regular communication which allows me to stay here and enjoy my time in Asia. So, thanks to Bob, Mike, Melissa and Gerald for doing all the things there so that I can stay here.

So, this ends a rather lengthy e-mail but one that I hope you enjoy reading it anyway.

As always, I would love to hear from any of you so please drop me a line if you can. I would appreciate it.

I'll send another instalment in a couple of weeks, hopefully not as long as this one.

Bye for now,

Best wishes,

Alan

Tales of Asia -Part 2 - Posted January 06

2006-04-14T00:05:00.000+08:00

Hello,

Happy New Year. I hope that this year brings you everything that you wish for.

Apologies for not being in contact sooner, however I have had some Internet related issues from the apartment that I am staying in and these have only just been sorted out.

How have you been? How was your new year? What did you do for Christmas? How was your holiday? Please let me know.

I am staying in an apartment in Kowloon. The apartment is similar to those down the docklands in Melbourne it is a three-bedroom department with two bathrooms and even a maid's room. I am very lucky that this apartment also has a large balcony so I can sit outside and look across Victoria Harbour either to Hong Kong Island or out to the South China Sea. It is on the reclaimed land on the Kowloon peninsula that joins mainland China and used to be where the old airport was located. The area that I am living in is pronounced (romanised) Kay Tin Boon Doh. Kowloon Station is part of the development that I live in so I do not even have to go outside to get there. I just walk through the corridors and the con courses and it takes about four minutes. Then it is just one station to Hong Kong, too easy.

My address is:
Apartment (deleted for privacy)
Sorrento
1 Austin Road West
Tsim Sha Tsui
Kowloon, Hong Kong.

I also have a Hong Kong telephone number which is 852 (deleted for privacy)

A week ago I took a trip by train to Shenzhen in China. I didn't realise how easy it was to go there, so it was a bit of an anti-climax to have my " big" China trip that I had planned for years reduced to something like catching the train from Melbourne to Mount Waverley. It was not a disappointment though as I was really pleased to be able to go there. Shenzhen is an interesting place and it is just like stepping back 40 years into the middle of the 1960s with the way that people dress in shops, some of the attitudes and the style of the architecture and the fittings. I was warned about the many pickpockets that frequent Shezhen and I saw evidence of this whilst I was there.

What has surprised me both in China and in Hong Kong is that people are still allowed to smoke in restaurants and public places. There are even ashtrays in toilets. Amazing.

Both Shenzhen and Hong Kong are a shoppers paradise and there are many bargains to be had here, so much so that a person could fill many suitcases to bring back to Australia.

Transport here is mainly by the subway system called the MTR (mass transit rail). The system is fantastic and moves thousands of people around Hong Kong hour after hour with little fuss. In peak hour a train comes every one minute to move the people in peak hour. I now know how I can of sardines feel as I had this experience myself when hopping on a train with some of the Hong Kongese. Very cosy.

I am planning a trip to Macau in the next couple of weeks. I am not into new casinos or gambling but I do know that there is a wealth of history and architecture to be seen, so that will be my focus.

I am so pleased to be living here in Hong Kong for a short while. It has been a dream of mine for many years to visit Asia and to live here and experience the lifestyle. Although the arrangements were done fairly quickly over the past three or four months I am glad I made the decision to come here and have this life experience. I know that things will be fine at the office as the staff are really great and we are in contact when they need to know some information all guidance. I am so lucky.

Anyway, that's enough of my waffling. I hope you are happy and well and I hope that I can hear from you soon.

Best wishes for now

Alan

Tales of Asia - Part 1 - Posted December 05

2006-04-13T23:23:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone,

Thanks to your e-mails. Apologies for this "global" message but my email system has been down until now and I have not had the chance to write most of you a personal reply.

Also, if anyone receives this email but doesn’t want to be kept informed etc, please just let me know and I'll delete you from the circulation list.

Just to give you an update, here's the latest.

We went to Singapore on Saturday night, stayed there Sunday and Monday and then flew on to Hong Kong on Monday night. It was great to stopover in Singapore and it was good to do a bit of sightseeing and shopping. The weather was quite humid and warm, quite different to Hong Kong which is cooler and heading into winter.

My daughter Alana really enjoyed the Christmas lights at Orchard Road and the local cuisine. Alana and I have been doing some sightseeing and shopping here in Hong Kong for the past few days. Hong Kong is an interesting place, heaps of people, heaps busier than Melbourne, and always has a hustle and bustle. It has an underground subway system and it is quick to get around.

We have been in the thick of things during the past few days as well with the WTO conference being held just down the road in Wan Chai. We have had farmers demonstrating in the streets and other similar protests that will later get aggressive outside the conference facility and occasionally locally. Naturally, we'll stay away from that area.

We are staying at the Regal Hotel in Causeway Bay. Very nice. Alana is on the 28th floor, I am on the 17th floor. Great views of Victoria Harbour.

Next month I will be moving to more permanent accommodation in an apartment on the Kowloon side of the harbour. Still only 2 stations from Central (the central business district) and a trip on the subway under the harbour, so I hope the tunnel doesn't leak……

My daughter Alana is planning to come back to Australia at the end of next week if I can arrange her ticket as he grandfather is quite ill, so I will miss her when she goes.

One of my favourite bands, Dream Theater will be playing in Hong Kong next month so I plan to go and see them.

Next week I have organised a trip to Shenzen and Guangzhou so I am looking forward to that. This weekend I plan to go to some small villages of Stanley and Aberdeen on the other side of Hong Kong to do more sightseeing.

Cheers

Alan