Tip to harmonize work relationships

A visit to my ex-colleagues.......ofcourse dragged my little dragon along, as only she knows how to play the crowd....

And yupperdeyups....it was a piece of cake for Laetitia to steal the hearts of my former colleagues.......no sweat.

Luckily it was a Friday afternoon, everybody taking it rather easy at work, 'cos the workrate markedly dropped lower during our visit.....not that anybody would have noticed though (except the boss, but he wasn't around anyway). Before long, there were candies and sweets on the table, accompanied by some cakes that I brought along and one of the ladies even found time to construct a puzzle together with Laetitia......what in a name....a puzzle...

How to steal your colleagues hearts? Bring along your child......if you don't have a kiddo yet, go borrow one....it sure helps to smoothen up work relationships!!

Waterfront

It's a known fact that living quarters in Hong Kong are synonimous with pigeon holes.....and ofcourse it goes without saying that our little flat here falls under the latter....

Luckily for everybody, Hong Kong government leisure department has created ample parks for the people to roam,....a haven to escape their cramped housing space....

Part of our R&R holiday is sleep alot, eat a lot and exercise a lot in a safe, healthy environment....hence our frequent outings to the park this time 'round.

Waterfront Park, encompassing prime 22ha of reclaimed land, with lots of recreational amenities like jogging & cycling tracks, amphiteatre, playgrounds for the kiddo's, benches and sheds for the elderly and even an insect house, providing an educational platform about the local fauna.....

The three of us savoured all these 'free' activities .... but oh Lord,....

As for myself, playing football at a frequent rate, I was coping rather well....but as for the ladies of the house, neither both of them having had much of physical exercise past few years....there was bound to be some repercussion....

Indeed, didn't take that long to hear them 'complain' about sore and tender muscles......poor girls....

The continuous rainshowers past few days have provided them some respite though, bringing them back onto a 'normal' schedule of sleeping, eating and shopping again......Old habits never die.......

All in all, mighty glad we have discovered this physical activity and we've only just uncovered the tip of the proverbial 'iceberg'.....there is much more to come on our next visits to Hong Kong.

Shrewd way of doing business

We remain amazed of Hong Kong locals' inventiveness on how to cope with the global recession and its immediate effect of their daily livelihood (= less spending power).

Take this for example, a textile shop proprietor and his wife which saw their sales figures dramatically plummet past year have created another business on their premises in order to draw the flow of money.....

Money exchanger to be more exact...exchanging Hong Kong dollars into Chinese Yuan/Renminbi...and vice versa...

It's a splendid idea as China is just one train stop away from their shop as locals and tourists frequent this area a lot..........but there is a catch.

The textile shopowners/cum new money exchangers don't have a clue what the daily exchange rates are........so how do they cope with that?

Check the newspapers? Switch to teletext on the television? Use online exchange sites for reference?........Nopers, none of that....

The business entrepreneurs simply go to an existing, money exchanger next doors, to get an idea of what the day rate is.........and they simply undercut their competitor's rate by a few cents.......

That's the way to do business, .....bravo....!!

Globalization differences........in your wallet

Can somebody please explain to us why this piece of garment, initially intended for export to Europe bearing a price tag of 39 euro's (HKD 422), winds up in a discount HK store for a mere sum of only 1.40 euro's (HKD 15) only ?!?

Euro currency is worth zilch or are Euro-zone consumers blatantly ignorant of the true cost of this piece of garment?

Let's contemplate this.....manufacturer gets less than 1 euro per piece (I bet it's only a mere double digit eurocents), chain of distributors hog all the profit....sounds eerily familiar to me.....and in the end it's the consumers who cough up.....and even if after 50% discount, the distributors still reap in a healthy profit.

And the list goes on and on......

Boycot the whole thing? Afraid it doesn't work that way, ...simple economics...create a 'demand'....results in..... cater for the 'demand'....

Boy oh boy....we count our blessings that we have found this store dumping garments on the cheap.....peeps who buy it at full price, you are toast muchacho !!

Steeped in tradition

Tradition...

Who would have guessed it.......despite the urbanesque, hurried lifestyle typical of nowadays Hong Kong, we were more than surprised to encounter a traditional festival.

Smack in the middle of the city, amidst the towering blocks of flats housing thousands of humans, was an event taking place, bringing everybody back to an era long gone.

The event in question was the birthday celebration of an emperor turned deity....especially revered by the Teow Chew community. I'm afraid I don't know the name of this deity, my apologies for my ignorance.

The wholly bamboo erected hall (with a canvas on top) was huge....seating hundreds of mostly elderly people transfixed on a Chinese Opera play, depicting the life of the Deity.....

Okay, it's the first time for all of us to see this spectacle in progress......not that it was picture perfect, but the sense that this play is part of our cultural heritage made us proud, regardless of whether we understood it or not.

Our girl was totally transfixed by something she only have seen on television before....and what made us more happy was that she told us she liked the play very much.

Thank God she has not turned into a tv-munching doll yet, there is a life after High School Musical !!