Bueller

As was first cited back in 1986, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. "

That said it's been a relatively uneventful month or so on many levels, there's been the usual lot of beach and bar based drinking, dragon boat training and sports plus a few notable visits, most recently from young Dominic (of past HK residency fame) and just last night John and Phil (from a whole life ago back at ATE).

But probably the biggest news is that yesterday I did a work presentation up in Beijing. It was my first trip to the nations capital but the fact I was only there a matter of 24 hours and saw very little isn't really of note (though did find time to visit Tian-anmen Square - its a very big square - and explore some dirty back street food markets). The reason its not significant is two fold.

1) I'll be back there on route to Tibet in a two weeks time so will see what there is to see then
2) I made this trip on my last ever day working for Ultra!

Yes, I'm escaping. Having resigned on June 1st and turned down all begged offers to try to keep me I was a little concerned they were planning to kidnap me as it seemed rather odd to have me present to a new client, up in Beijing, on my last day! That said as their only gweilo I guess I'm a rare resource that they wanted to take full advantage of me. I'm certainly not complaining, at the least I got a brand new 6 month china visa out of them for it!

Other than that as I said not a lots happened. The new job starts on July 9th when I'll become the regional marketing manager for a publishing company so hopefully there's a chance to travel my region a bit (Japan, Taiwan, Korea and HK).

Before then its the dragon boat race day on Tuesday, then I'll head to Cambodia to visit Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat followed by the slow train to Tibet with Sean on his last scrap of freedom the first week of July! Before all that - in a few short hours assuming there's not delays - Hannah will be landing back in HK to partake in another whistle stop tour or SE Asia so all go for the next few weeks!


More exciting news next time...


JP

Setting the pace

Well its been a busy month or so of action both out and about in HK and at the flat. The weekly squash matches have restarted after the winter break, along with a few mates I've vowed to hit the trails around the island (so far we've conquered the Dragons Back and Blacks Link), I've fitted the flat out with blinds, plants and a water feature (it was a fish bowl but they died) in preparation for my new flatmate, there have been junk trips with the prerequisite back flips off the top deck, golf matches using beer in place of handicaps and most "Hong Kong" of all (no not drinking thought there has been a little of that as well) Dragon Boat racing!

Being the sporty, athletic type that I am I was actually invited onto two teams for this years action but settled on joining the Hudson’s Recruitment Dragon Boat team, mainly as they asked first. The other reason is that the other team was RMJM and I know I can get on their junk and drink their beer without racing for them! (The main reason to race as far as I can see is the end of season meet where lots of companies take out a boat and fill it with food and drink for the racers and other staff).

I'm proud to say that after two training session I've been picked out by the coach to be one of the two lead paddlers (something about superior timing, technique and stamina .....). Though I'm obviously pleased to be noticed it is just a tad embarrassing, of the 18 people on the boat I'm the only one not to working for Hudson’s.

On the domestic front as I said I briefly had two fish in the flat, the woman at the goldfish markets told me they were "man eating killer double brick hard bad ass" types (approximate translation form Cantonese there). Ever original I called them 'Ish' and 'F' but unfortunately after about a week F died of what I assume was the 'ick' (fish plague), it was pretty traumatic flushing the little fella but at least it hardened me for when Ish followed a few days later.

In addition to F and Ish its been a month for new and old faces coming to my flat. My new flatmate (Sam) moved in last weekend and has been given the nod by all that have met him so far. I've employed a new cleaner - Rebecca - who unlike the old lady actually cleans the flat. On the down side totally rearranges the place each week so I can never find anything but guess you can't always have it all. And finally, Hannah came to stay for a few days at the end of a trip around northern Vietnam. Needless to say it was great catching up and we spent about four days gossiping and reliving the good old days back in Manchester and London while doing the infamous JP HK wonder tour.

And finally The Liver (on the advice of Dawn K I've made my liver a proper noun so now refer to it as The Liver or My Liver - it's a deity after all) should be getting a break for the rest of this month as I appear to have consumed all my beer tokens already. That said it might just mean I have to do some "corporate entertaining" and expense my habit, I'm now about a month into my new role looking after our corporate clients so feel it's probably about time!

And that, as I tend to say, is about me...

Laters

JP