Grand Mom Social Club

The benefit living on the island is that most of the government service or public facilities are empty. No queue in the post office, the lady behind the counter is so bored that she is happy to speak to anyone. The hospital is constantly empty, walk-in to see a GP is very possible. The tennis court is always empty, so are the squash court, and basketball court. The island has roughly 20K population, you can walk around the island within 1 hour. Many are not interested in sports, I guess after working 9 to 5 daily, the only thing they want to do is to rest and watch TV. It is a shame not to take advantage of the government gym facility given that it is only 10 mins walk away and the cost is unbelievably cheap (20 HKD per 1 hour session). The only catch is that you have to either sit in the 3 hour seminar to understand how to use the machines or pay for a 10 session class to get the certificate. We opt for the class option. At the first class, we found out only 5 out of 20 classmates are new students. Most of them are senior, they came to the class, do the warm up with the instructor, and go about to do their own exercise. They will hang out in the bicycle area, chatting non stop while paddling without too much effort. Or just enjoy the great air conditioning and watch TV on the wall. When time's up, they do the cool down and say good bye to each other. The class is conducted in only Cantonese, it is completely different from the testosterone filled, muscle jumping and sweat spreading, weights hitting/clicking member's only gym. It has only the grand mom and grand dads from our neighborhood (and some younger kids), very child and relaxing. (I will get a picture shortly)

Feeding everything

My daily routine is to cook eggs for Jon, use the hot water to sterlize the tea towel, clean the kitchen counters, feed the birds, feed the black soldier fly larvae, water the plants and go out for a run to feed the dogs. My life is moving around feeding other living beings.

Monsoon is coming in town

The picture was taken after the monsoon wind left. Wind season starts finally. The first strong and clear north eastly wind arrived on Saturday afternoon. We were out before the monsoon arrived, my sail was obviously too big for the strong guts. The whitecaps were everywhere in the bay. Whitecaps means the wind speed is roughly 35 km/hr or above. The waves were less than 1 meter and great strong wind was perfect for windsurfing. We had great 2 days of surfing, exhausted!

Trip to Taipei Every Month

I have reduced the time I work up to the end of April, and finally stop working. Spending more time traveling back and forth to Taiwan to look after my mom, and worked on the task to bring Dad's ash back to his hometown. Dad is finally properly buried in his family tomb (a number of trips to Meizhou in east Guangtong province to sort out the Fengshui Master and Tomb building, also dealt with the relatives that I have never met all my life - that needs to be recoreded in some other time). Now the remaining task is to help my mom to sort out the denture and get her shoulders fixed. Her both shoulders' rotator cup tendons were either torn or damaged. She has no strength in both arms, she needs assistance for changing clothes and taking showers. Over this year and last, I traveled back and forth almost monthly to renovate her flat and sort out doctors' visits. Although my brother lives 5 mins walk away, my mother seems happier to ask for my help.

Islanders

Living on the island you see the familiar faces all the time. The coffee shop girl works in the supermarket cashier as well. Or the street sweepers are also the neighbors. Islanders normally have 2 or 3 jobs. They are more advanced than the slashies. A lady makes amazingly tasty cakes, it is light and airy, with very delicate and fine cream. The only way to order a cake is to meet her at the clothes shop next to the 7-11, where she works.

Modern China, ShenZhen

Although I am going to talk about ShenZhen, picture is from Shantou.

In recent months, we traveled to ShenZhen quite frequently for some medical examination. The health/hospital authority in Hong Kong is too busy, some check-up requires 6 months or longer wait. ShenZhen provides the cheap and timing alternative, going through the boarder is pretty simple, almost like going through the subway turnstile. Because we live on the island, it takes roughly 2 hours to get to the boarder. After going through the boarder, you can feel the whole different vibe. ShenZhen is less clinical , more young people around, more varieties of food choices, and everthing relies on your mobile phone. You almost feel the whole city is built around mobile phone, payment is the most obvious thing for visitors. Restaurant people only needs to focus on delivering the food and clean the table, ordering and payment are handled by the phone application. Similary, in the hospital, registration and payment are also done via mobile phone. After seeing the doctor or any examination, the diagonsis and report are sent straight to your phone. There is no paper involved, there are people around to ask questions if you get stuck. The hospital runs smoothly and efficiently - people are like cattles being herded by the mobile phone's instruction, the hospital administration workflow is controlled by the system, humand intervention is reduced to the mininum. I guess that's how the system can cope with large volume of outpatients. Similar experience in opening a bank account, you fill in the form online through your phone, a machine is available to validate the ID and link the ID to your bank account. The bank card was issued at the same time. The whole process took less than 30 minutes. Only 3 people in the counter, helping 4 customers to open the bank accounts including me around the same time. The phone number is your ID, your bank, your credit and your validation of being part of the system.

The magic dumpster

My next project material.

We picked up another piece of funiture this weekend before the typhoon hit us. The dumpster near us is magical. Things turn up when we need them. For example, we were thinking where to borrow some chairs for our party next weekend, there were a few folding chairs turning up the next day. When we first moved in, we need some curtains -after some temporarily measures, 2 sets of bamboon blinds were thrown to the dumpster. We picked up a number of chairs, side table, lamps, even 2 fridges for brewing beer. I also pick up quite some dying plants and try to resucitate them. It is always fun to have a new plant adding to my collection.

Update on August 14th, my garden dust pan is broken, I was thinking to get a new one. But an used dust pan was left at the dumpster the next day.