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The hike

So Muse and I went on a hike today with some folks from my office. They had chartered a bus for us which was nice and we only got lost once on the way to the starting point. The hike was in an area of Hong Kong called Clearwater Bay on a trail called the High Junk Peak Country Trail which I have to admit didn’t have much junk on it at all. Supposedly the hike is only rated a 2 out of 5 for difficulty and a distance of 6.6km and should have taken around 2.5 hours, so says the brochure. I have since renamed this route “The (new) Trail of Tears” and it took us a bit over 3 hours. Mostly because the rest of the group kept waiting for me to catch up.

The first half the trip was rather pleasant with mild hills and no death easily visible.  That was nice.  However the second half of the journey, once we passed High Junk Peak (which I now rename “Devil’s Horn”), should have been rated at about a level 4 or so in my opinion.  The rest of the trip had beautiful vistas overlooking sandy beaches and clean clear water (which I had no idea existed in Hong Kong).  It also had constant tromping up and down the sides of mountains.

Now luckily for us, some poor bastard(s) must have had the unfortunate job of hauling large stones up and down the sides of these peaks and cementing those rocks into place to make stone-age steps.  I assume they must have made convicts do this, because I can’t believe anyone would have signed up for this voluntarily.  If they did then maybe they were from the asylum.

After a while my legs can only take so much and it’s the exceedingly steep downhill portions that really tore me up.  Add to this the fact that in most places we are on a one to two foot wide path with death off the edge of the sheer cliff that makes up the border of said path.  And that’s on the straight bits.  One mis-step on the downhill portions and my broken corpse would have made good time in catching up to the rest of the group.  I actually considered that route at one point.

Eventually the torture ended though and we stopped in a very tiny village and had a seafood lunch on the water.  I’ve had a lot better food in Hong Kong, but it was sure nice to sit down for a while.  On the way back on that same chartered bus, Muse and I compared sunburns and dozed for the rest of the trip.  Then we got ice cream.  We’d earned it.

Sick day today

I’m back from Kuala Lumpur but I had to take a sick day today.  It seems I ate or drank something that has turned my intestines into a juice factory.  I had water at one or two restaurants and by the time I was supposed to be leaving for the airport, I was still worrying about where the next bathroom would be on the way out.  I wasn’t late for my flight, but I was a little worried about half way to the airport that I might have to ask the taxi driver to stop at the next brightly colored mosque so I could pay tribute, so to speak.

Before dinner, I started playing Overlord on the XBox 360.  I hadn’t intended to get it but the Broadway electronics store had a bunch of 360 games on sale for only $159 HKD (about $20 USD) which is dirt cheap.  I haven’t gotten very far in it yet, but I think I’ll like it.  I’m not sure it’s going to be as good as the classic Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2, but for current games that allow you to play as the bad guy, this is about all the choice you get.

In Mid Valley, Kuala Lumpur

I’m in Mid Valley, Kuala Lumpur today. The hotel I’m in sits directly on top of a huge shopping mall. So that’s where I was all night last night till everything closed. Got to go to a meeting. More later.

Edit:

Still in the office.  Almost done really.  Not enough to do and the General Manager isn’t in to talk to about projects.  *sigh*
I didn’t sleep well at all last night.  The room I’m in is really nice (they upgraded me to a huge suite) but  that didn’t help me sleep.  I woke up once or twice because it was thundering so loud and raining so hard.  It hasn’t rained much (or at all) in Hong Kong over the past five or six months, so I certainly wasn’t used to hearing what sounded like the apocalypse moving in next door.

The bed is a typically Asian concrete slab for a mattress and the comforter could have been nuclear powered for as hot as it kept me.  Oh well, at least it’s only for one more night.

Today I fly East

Well, I’m heading to the airport soon for my flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Because of the odd flight schedules and the almost 4 hour flight time, I have to fly there today and spend the night if I want to spend a whole day in the office tomorrow. Which I do.

Our Kuala Lumpur office will probably be the next one to be fully integrated into our corporate global network. So that means I have to go and check out the new offices and see what they do and don’t have. What needs to be purchased and what might be able to be reused. Probably not a whole lot of reusing going on I’m betting. But we shall see.

I probably won’t get to really see anything while I’m there. But if I do run across something, I will have my camera. Which doesn’t mean a whole lot since 99% of the pictures I take just sit on my camera or on my computer and no one ever gets to see them. Meh, whatever.

EDIT: South!  Not East.  South, and just a bit West.  Not East at all.  I’m surprised no one corrected me on that one….

Heading to Malaysia

It looks like I’ll be in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the end of February.  Only for two nights though.  I have about one days worth of work in our office there and that’s it.  I have to go do a site check of what they currently have and what they will need this year to join the corporate network.  Right now they operate remotely and it’s quite inconvenient for them and us.

Hopefully I’ll get lucky though and some of the people in the office will be willing to take me to have some nice Malaysian food.  We shall see.  I won’t have much time for sight-seeing, but I’ll take a few shots to at least prove I was there.

The TSA is your friend. Obey your friend.

I, along with others, think that the idea of the TSA starting up their own blog is something along the lines of idiotic and insane instead of helpful. Especially if they aren’t going to reply to comments or setup some kind of FAQ or forum or something.

I’ve been reading the posts and comments and the only thing I’ve learned so far is that there are far more people pissed at the idiotic TSA rules and inconsistencies than there are people applauding. And considering they are using the Blogger back-end for their blog, it makes me wonder how serious they are about this. Blogger is the worst interface and management system for blogging that I’ve seen. There may be worse, but I wouldn’t know it.

I’m assuming that this is more of a public relations scheme of some sort than it is a place to be helpful and distribute information. But it’s still new and hopefully evolving. I hope it comes together.

Welcome back to Hong Kong

Today the universe walked up to me and said “Welcome back to Hong Kong!  Oh and I hope you don’t mind but this is going to be a shitty day for you.”

It actually all started when I got to Los Angeles (where Chili’s is much more expensive) and walked over to the International Terminal.  The Tom Bradley International Terminal really needs to be bulldozed.  I’m pretty sure the airport we went through in Mexico was newer and nicer than this place.  But I digress.  So I wade through the throng of people trying to get checked in (thank the gods I got all my boarding passes in STL) and located the departures board.  Flight CX883 to Hong Kong: Delayed.  And yet it showed the correct departure time.  Huh?

I meandered through security and found my gate.  No mention of any delays there and again listing the proper time.  Maybe it was just a screwup considering I can see the plane sitting outside.  Nope.  Eventually a guy came to the desk and announced that due to heavy head winds, we would be forced to stop in Taipei, Taiwan to refuel and that we wouldn’t be arriving until almost three hours late in Hong Kong.  That didn’t really add up since the plane was already there hours early.  Even so, the boarding started over an hour late for some unknown reason.  If we would have boarded at the right time, we would only have been an hour and 20 minutes late.  But no.

So now I’ve been to Taiwan.  We weren’t allowed to leave the plane so I’m not sure that counts but….  and they weren’t kidding about that wind.  I thought it was high when the display showed 80 mph headwinds.  Later near South Korea though that shot up to almost 200 mph winds fighting against us.

Basically this all means  that I wouldn’t make the appointment to pick up the dogs from the sitter.  Luckily though the people are really nice and made a second delivery trip to Central just for me.  And oh were the dogs happy to see me!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  I took the bus from the airport to where we live and lugged my two 50 pound suitcases to our local route bus.  I get in our building and check the mail just thinking about how desperately I need a shower after all that time on the plane.  And then I see the notice saying that all water supplies to the buildings in the area are shut down today for work.  I get up to the apartment to verify and only air comes through the kitchen faucet.  Shit.  No shower, no brushing my teeth, no flushing toilets.  Wonderful.

So then I power up the modem and router to call Muse.  Of course since the phone was unplugged for two weeks, the battery was completely dead.  So I had to call with my HK mobile.  And as I was figuring this out, I powered on my computer.  It immediately started making odd clicking noises like a cable had been too close to a fan blade.  The cats were still all over me at this point trying to get my attention.  That is until an insanely loud snapping noise came from inside my PC and the fumes of burnt components wafted my way.  This wasn’t just a simple transistor pop that sent the kitties running and me falling backwards, but the sound you would hear if you snapped a healthy four inch thick tree in two.  I’ve had a lot of things blow up or melt in a PC before but I have never heard that kind of noise.

And oddly enough, even though something exploded, it still works.  I have no idea.

I powered on Muse’s PC and found that her monitor won’t power on.  I think it might be a bad plug on the power strip but I haven’t taken the time to verify.  I hope that’s all it is.

I called Muse to tell her I was home safe and to bitch about all these things.  She is appropriately sympathetic and offers “Well at least you don’t have to go to work today.”  To which I responded “The way today is going, it’s just a matter of time till they call me.”

I took what could loosely be described as a 45 minute “nap” before going to get the dogs from Central.  As I was getting poop bags and muzzle collars together, my mobile rings.  It’s work.  The Internet circuit in Hong Kong is down.  I let the guy know that I’m not officially working yet and that my PC is less than reliable at the moment.  Plus I’m on my way out the door to get the dogs which frankly is more important.  I head out and hit the ATM to get some cash to pay the dog sitters.  My ATM card is not working.  I try again. Same result.  WTF? I don’t have enough time to go in and request a new card at this point since I need to grab something to eat and run to the ferry.

So I got something quick at McDonalds and went to the pier.  And my ferry card doesn’t work either.  They confiscate my card and give me a few temporary cards and tell me to pick up a replacement tomorrow.  *SIGH*

Luckily the dogs arrive intact and I get them on and off the ferry with few issues.  We had to walk back to the apartment from the pier since dogs aren’t allowed on the buses so I had plenty of time to cool down.  Luckily the water was back on by the time I got back inside.  It took about fifteen minutes of running the water to get it to stop sputtering and powering out brown liquid.  Ugghhh….

And so here I am, typing on what I can only assume is a PC on it’s last legs with an orange cat rammed in my face and trying to help me type.  The dogs are crashed.  I still need to brush my teeth, but I am clean now.

I need a drink….

A few days left

Only a few days left here in St. Louis, MO before I board a plane once more bound for Hong Kong.  Only a few more days to see family and friends and shop for shoes.  Because shoes are expensive in Hong Kong.  Good ones at least.  And we bought some more DVDs today while we were out.  It can’t be helped.  It really can’t.

We went to the dentist today for our checkup and then to the gynecologist.  The latter was more for Muse than myself obviously.  Tomorrow is separate lunches with different friends.  Saturday is going to be spent visiting more friends.  Sunday I don’t know yet.  Monday I leave in the afternoon so the whole day is pretty much shot.  That’s the way it goes.

Still in the States

We just got back from “the country” visiting Muse’s family where Internet access is still pretty much an unknown service.  No contact with the rest of the world for five days.  Talk about feeling isolated.  I like the woods but no Internet access is a horrible thing.

However, you can shoot things in the woods, so I did some target practice with Muse’s Dad’s .45 six shooter and his 9mm at some boxes that used to have Christmas gifts in them.  I hit the targets more often than not.  You have to keep up your zombie survival skills, you know.

We have eaten more since we’ve been back in  the states than we can possibly process within normal human limits.  Especially since our bodies are used to Hong Kong foods and meals now.

Well its almost bed time so that’s all the updates for now.  Muse is feeling a little sick so she needs some rest.

And we’re

leeeaaavin’ on a jet plane
we do know when we’ll be back again

OK never mind.  But check out my wife’s angelic voice over on her site with her Christmas caroling. The crappy microphone I have just doesn’t do her talent justice.  Your loss.  Sorry.

We are packed and we are less than an hour till ‘go time’.

Happy Holidays in case I don’t make it to a PC before Christmas.