Busy Novembers

Last year I had an excellent time traveling to Japan, Hong Kong, and China for 3 weeks, of which I gained 13 pounds which I have yet to lose...

This year I'll have constant visitors for 6 weeks, which started on October 14th and I'm afraid to see how many pounds I'm going to gain this time around... x-(
I am, however, very excited to host 3 people from Korea and Taiwan on the weekend of November 21st through 23rd for the Hong Kong Lindy Exchange!!! (http://www.hongkongswings.com/hklx.html)

In light of the visitors, I've been making it a point to order some veggies every time I sit down to eat (mum and dad would be proud) =P

Schedule is as follows:
October 14th to 24th - Danny from LA
October 24th to 13th - Cousin Augustine from Kudat
November 6th to 18th - Gail from LA
November 12th to 16th - Canaan from Taiwan (Frank's friend) and Frank from SF
November 21st to 23rd - Hong Kong Lindy Exchange, 2 people from Korea, 1 from Taiwan
November 27th to 30th - Alex from London (Cousin Yvonne's friend I met in Singapore)

It'll be a very busy month, although I'm excited, this'll mean I won't really have much time for myself... oh well, I'll just have to roll with it and make sure I stay healthy!!

I wonder if all my Novembers are going to be this way from now on...?

The natural beauty of HK

'It's a bunch of people, buildings and pollution' - that's what most people think of HK when they first hear the name of this country. However, HK is actually only less than 25% developed, which leaves the remaining 75% for parks, mountains and beaches!!!
I never thought to look up this kind of information before this weekend, as I started my search today, it was interesting to find the CIA's world FACTBOOK site, here's the one for HK:
CIA's HK FACTBOOK

The last 3 months had been miserable due to the hot heat and humidity, but the weather seems to get slightly cooler as autumn (starting on August 15th on the Chinese calendar, aka Mooncake festival) approaches!! Which is why I've finally had the chance to discover the beautiful side of HK, although pollution is still an issue, I think I'm starting to like this city more now.

An eventful day in HK

Everything started when I received a call yesterday at around 11am from my cousin in Singapore. Her words were "hey Willis, it's May, your cousin from Singapore, can I ask you for a favor?"
Apparently my aunt and uncle were stuck at the HK airport, only thing I found out was there was something wrong with their Visa and now they're stuck. I quickly rushed off to the MTR to get to the airport to see what I can do for them.

After locating them, it turns out that they're en-route from Malaysia to Canada (to attend a wedding), but with a layover in HK. When they went to the check in counter for Cathay to board the flight to Canada, that's when they found out their VISAs are missing, then later to find out that the entire page (that the VISA is stuck onto) is missing.

With an entire page missing from their passport, they're now unable to travel at all because it's considered as being tampered. We then rushed off to the Consulate General of Malaysia (which turns out to be one block away from my flat), we spent about 2 hours there trying to explain to them what had happened, and the end result is that the Consulate is unable to give them another passport, rather will provide them with a temporary passport which they can only use for returning to Malaysia. Their excuse is that they don't make the passports here in HK, they'd have to send it back to Malaysia for investigation, of which I don't really believe...

Their temporary passport will be valid for travel for a month, so instead of going home today, they've decided to stay here until my cousin comes to HK (which they were originally going to anyhow). So now they're officially my first visitors, they're staying with me for about 9 days, until August 8th. Luckily my shipment from the US arrived, or I'd be sleeping on the floor as I've given them my bed.

I feel sad for my aunt and uncle because they're unable to attend the wedding in Canada, but I also feel happy that I'm able to help out my family, because I think I'm the only one that's here in HK. I told my aunt/uncle they can considered themselves unlucky and lucky at the same time. Unlucky that their VISAs got stolen, but lucky enough that I'm here and able to help.

Hooray for visitors! =) But too bad I can't really show them around these days because of work, nor would I know where to go? Perhaps we'll go do some sightseeing this weekend ;)

I'm very disappointed by bad people that would do such horrible things to ruin other people's vacations. x-(

My Calendar

Haahaa!!! Finally figured out how to add a calendar to my blog, I'm going to use this to track folks that'll be visiting me, so if you're interested in coming, let me know and I'll pencil you in. =) This will also serve as a notification to friends on my whereabouts. Hopefully I'll have visitors or be traveling somewhere... if not, then it'll look pretty pathetic... =/