Recently I have received several requests from friends wanting to know what my day to day life is like in Hong Kong. Contrary to popular opinion, I am not always a professional traveller. There are times when I stay home, such as this week.
We all know what Troys week is like: work, travel, travel,work oh and travel again.
So if you care, here is an average week for me in Hong Kong.
Monday:Get up around 7am to go to the gym. Drag Troy off his computer and e-mail to go.
Run on treadmill while watching old ladies outside do Tai Chi. Come home, eat breakfast. Read the paper. Try to not throw up breakfast after reading that farmers in China are digging up buried diseased pigs to sell at wet markets. Shower, if time check e-mail.
Out the door to run errands: drop off/pick up Troys dry-cleaning, grocery shop, pay utility bills at bank, post office to ship whatever, get picture of hanging pig snout and ears for Ryun, get visa for passport to go to China with Troy following week. Catch bus home. Late lunch with Troy at local Thai restaurant. Work on organizing dinner for several members and their spouses from the AWA.
If Troy is lucky we'll go out to dinner, if he's not so lucky I'll cook!
Tuesday:Gym in the morning again. Read paper about jailed Chinese journalists. Meet group of German ladies at Starbucks so they can practice their English. .
Take over a group of couches and kick out two Chinese kids. Go to SPCA to walk dogs and play with puppies! Take MTR home. Come home and take second shower of the day. Read paper then take short nap on couch (if Troy doesn't catch me).
Get call from Jill for us to meet her and friends for drinks that evening. Eat small dinner at home then go to Lan Kwai Fong for drinks, trivia and nachos. Drink too much, embaress Troy, come home.
Wednesday:Gym again. Read paper about China villagers attacking government offices. Go to Animals Asia to volunteer in the office (this is a charity organization trying to free Moon Bears in China. The Chinese use their bile in traditional medicine. The bears are kept in cages no larger then their bodies. They can't stand, turn around, nothing. All they can do is reach out to get their food. Everyday they are either milked for their bile, or there is a cathater in their stomach that lets the bile drip out. Very sad. Animals Asia also has other animal programs such as Dr. Dog where volunteers take their dogs to visit patients in hospitals, like I did with Malachi. They also have Professor Paws where dogs are taken to public schools to teach the kids that dogs are not horrible animals that their parents have them believing).
Come home, do research for upcoming trips Troy and I want to take. Way too many choices: Bali, Palau, Beijing...what shall it be?
Dinner.
Afterwards sit out by the pool, check out Chinese men in skinny speedos, share a bottle of wine while reading. If Troy is traveling, just read and check out the Chinese men and their speedos.
Thursday:Gym again. Read in paper about activist sentenced to a year of hard labor without a trial. Meet group of chatty women from the American Womens Association to have coffee at the JW Marriott. Stay for lunch. Pick up visa for passport. People watch while waiting for bus home. Watch old woman push cart full of trash up the street while buses dodge her. Watch old man rummage through garbage, find can of beer still full, watch him finish it. Take bus home.
Find place to go to dinner Saturday night with friends.
If Troy is home, take Star Ferry to try Spanish tapas restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui. Avoid dozens of men trying to get us to buy purses, watches and suits.
Friday: Gym. Read in paper about Chinese women staging a hunger strike in front of government offices. Decide if I'll go to SPCA or Animals Asia again. Have to write article for AWA magazine on Halloween. Walk along neighborhoods to find where costumes are sold. Stumble across place that sells brand of shampoo from home.
On the way home, get call from Troy that he is in coffee shop. Meet him and hang out with him for awhile. Laugh at guy asleep on couch. Find side street on way to bus that sells old Chinese junk: clocks, pictures, Buddha beads, anything and everything having to do with Mao. Bus home. Order pizza in from Dial-a-Dinner for dinner and rent a movie from local rental store
Saturday:Breakfast at Starbucks. Depending on weather, either hike or check out outlying island we havne't been to yet. Walk, sweat, sweat some more, stop for lunch at local seafront restaurant. Home, shower, relax then leave to meet friends for dinner.
Go to their apartment for drinks then taxi to SoHo. Have dinner at Singaporean restaurant then gelato afterwards for dessert. Hang out in Lan Kwai Fong for more drinks and watch the young Filippino girls pick up on the Western men. Run into friends we know. Hang and talk to them for awhile.
Sunday:Get up late from being out late last night. Breakfast at Starbucks again. Bus to St. Stephens Beach in Stanley. Spend the day swimming, hanging out, reading, sleeping. Listen to high school boys flirt with girls. Check out Chinese men in speedos!
There it is folks. Nothing special but that is my average week!
