East West North South

Not only is Hong Kong in the East, but also in the Northern hemisphere.

George is in the Western Cape in the Southern hemisphere, land of the penguins.

It's hard sometimes, to get to grips with the opposites.

Hong Kong has just had its first weekend of summer.   We all went sun crazy!   The swimming pool resembled a kindergarten, beaches were crowded.  At last we could use our second-most useless item: sunglasses (a wine stopper being the first).

We were filled with awe and trepidation, and felt very secure in the deep end (1.50m as I was mockingly reminded) of our pool.

At the same time, about 12 000 km away, friends, family and strangers were shivering in the first snowfalls of the season.

It is very difficult to be yanked away from a well-deserved summer in July into the snowy winter of George.

It is tough on the body clock to endure two winters in one year.

It's hard to be in wintery Hong Kong during Christmas when people are swimming in clear blue waters back home.

But Mandy keeps the home-fires burning, and soon we will be sipping pink port again.

I will pretend it's Akakies.

Opa!

A deserted fishing village in Hong Kong

Hong Kong Yachting:

Wine Tour Santorini

Wine Tour Santorini:

Taiwan remembered

We are about 3 weeks away from the

Dragon Boat Festival.

The weather is very unstable.

I remember Peggy, one of my first Chinese collegues in Taiwan, telling us,

"You can't put away your quilt until the Dragon Boat Festival".

So in theory, that would mean that on the 12th of June summer would be here in all its brute force.

Maybe I should stop complaining about the rain.   At least the weather is still "cool".

This was my first experience of Dragon Boat Races.

Changhua's expat team went for some training in Lukang to get tips from the local boys.

Not everybody was impressed.

The coach put our boys in the boat.

They didn't quite know how to get this boat going...

It took a lot of deliberation and discussion.   The coach made it look so easy!

A few more brave attempts at the oars...

And they're off, oars moving more or less in a Mexican wave sort of way!

But hey, we cheered and clapped and sent them off into the unknown.   They reached the end of the canal, exhausted, only to realize with a sinking feeling that they had to row back to the start.

Needless to say, they were not happy when they finally reached the pier again.

Our boys won the expat trophy!

They were elated and thanked us for our support, braving the scorching sun.   We pointed out that they were the only expat team...  

That night, at the New York, our favourite hangout, Vincent mysteriously ran out of hamburgers and we had to go home hungry.

hah! that was my first and last involvement with the Dragon Boat Races.