Well readers!!

Adventures adventures!

Had a lovely trek out to Hong Kong on Thursday; flew into Beijing (slept most of the flight & managed to avoid the majority of an awkward conversation between a very polite friendly older Chinese man also on his way to Hong Kong. His broken English made me an awkward conversationalist as he seemed to understand anything & everything I said but I troubled to answer his questions).
Beijing was a little awkward, I've only been t the airport once before and it had to be about a decade or more ago, so that wasn't much help. Didn't have my arrivals/departures form filled out because I had been told a few times I didn't need it, so of course I did. All in all everything was sorted out in the end so it didn't matter -- even the fact that I didnt' know where I was meeting my brother was fine, as some young all-American boys helped me out upon landing in Hong Kong. They had plans to stay in Taiwan for a year; 20 minutes in their midst made me feel like I was a minor character happening upon the beginning of their Hollywood story .. For real. They just seem the type of boys who are going to get up to something story-worthy ... Maybe I'll find out what happens to them after a year goes by and write about it ;)

Thursday morphed to Friday after a mixture of sleep/up/sleep/up and I found my brother and maneuvered to his home. One short nap later, and I witnessed a handful of intense roller hockey games at the 10th annual Inline Skate Hong Kong tournament, which was wonderful to watch and photograph - have to say, Brazil was feisty! After that was some much needed clubbing & got that out of my system quickly as a mellow night turned into a short evening of free-poured multi-coloured drinks, no ID-ing anywhere in sight, dodging people who's tables/bottles/glasses we broke, avoiding brawls in short, and at the end of the evening, avoiding bouncers at the most pretentious club this side of the South China Sea.
Saturday was a relaxed day, a little shopping here and there, and a bar-b-que with some family friends. Peppy Indian voices kept me enthusiastic and alert to conversation for most of the evening but I couldn't keep from crashing by the time we made it home. What could have been a crazy Saturday night turned into much needed rest for me; well-used I'd say for the amount of walking we did on Sunday. Explored Lan Kwai Fong by daylight & Soho which is now my favourite area (will probably be going back to explore some more today) and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening out in Stanley looking around and taking photos. Popped by one of my favourite pubs (in the world) called Smugglers; it's simple, I just love the decor, atmosphere, and juke box machine. There are currencies from all over the world pasted on the walls by people who have visited with messages Sharpie'd on them and the delicious North American style pub food is nice after smelling bean curd in town all day. Not to mention all the expats who flock there, you'd be hard-pressed to figure out where you were if you tried to guess by the people and surroundings inside the pub.
Though it's Sunday back home (hence the post) it's Monday out here, and my brother is now at work ... Time for me to hit google-map & make sure I don't get lost for the day! I'm off to explore!

HongKong

Hello my lovely chance readers,

I'll be off to the lovely land of fragrant harbors tonight, so for the next 10 days I'd like to newly christen this blog: my temporary travel blog.

As usual, posts will be up for wednesdays & sundays, can't wait to tell you about the mischief I get up to with my fellow brother mischief-maker.

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute - and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.
~Albert Einstein

I'd prefer to have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.  
~Frank Nicholson

The rest is just sand

A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, rocks about 2" in diameter.
He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks.
He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He then asked once more if the jar was full. This time the students were sure and they responded with a unanimous "YES!"
The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and proceeded to pour their entire contents into the jar -- effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things - your family, your partner, your health, your children. Things that, if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car.
The sand is everything else. The small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued "there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.
"Take care of the rocks first -- the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.
The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers."

i crawl back week after week to her,
that sexy seductress Saturday -
so elusive, she waits til the end of the week;
I can never say no, I can't,
and she'll grab me and pull me into her grasp
by the end of the day. We'll call it an evening,
and somehow, every time she sneaks away in the night
and I wake up next to an unrecognizable face, her sister.
Twin vixens, Saturday and Sunday, a devil and a saint -
but you know, at the crack of dawn, even Sunday
can be a bitch.

if you wrote everything into a puddle of water with your fingertips,
could you let out everything you're thinking of into the water and out of your mind?

Newsflash:

the US declaration of independence was written on hemp paper. FACT.

a hectare of hemp produces more paper than a hectare of trees. FACT.

What the hell, world?! Let's hemp it up again, what happened?!

You will turn over many a futile new leaf 'til
you learn we must all write on scratched-out pages. 
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960