The end of time...

... in HK is approaching (my visa runs out in the beginning of June). As is the zero date for the Hong Count -i.e. my friends will arrive here in around 4 days! A good moment to recap some of the thoughts... although I think I have been thinking far too much about life, in particular my life and what I want to do with it in the last weeks, which in the long run is not an overly healthy thing to do, especially since I do not seem to reach any conclusion but have the same thoughts circling around my head, threads of ideas and plans without ending!!!

Best to get rid of the lost feeling... that is what I have been trying to do the past week: drowning myself in exercising. Wednesday through Friday I went running 1h, playing tennis 1-2 hours and swimming 1h EVERY DAY! Saturday I was hiking in the morning (which was a pain since I my legs hurt like hell so I turned back after 1 hour and hiked back 2 hours) and in dragon boat practice in the evening (and in between I spent 3 hours in the bus to Stanley thanks to the all-so-normal traffic chaos in HK!).

Sunday was spent at a beach in Sai Kung. Today we (Martin, Claes, Jack, Erkki, me) woke up at 5 am and went to a self-organized visit to a steel factory (Shiu Wing Steel) in the west of HK. The factory is the only one left with operations in HK and we had all morning to talk to management and the head engineers. It was very interesting because of the exceptional corporate strategy (steel is bulk) with which this family owned business has managed to create a (sustainable???) competitive advantage in the local markets... (any case potential???)

Boats on Stanley Beach. Stanley, a little village shrouded in a Mediterranean air on the southern side of HK Island, is the place to spend the weekend for HK's rich (Caucasian, young trendy bankers and other expats) and be seen "promenading" on the beach boulevard...

Illegal activities in bus nr. 260 from Stanley to Central (it is a double decker with usually no passengers on the top in the evening)...

View (into the high rise jungle) from the bus in Wanchai. One can spend all day in HK traveling from point A to B... the traffic (and air pollution) is sometimes horrible! Last weekend it took us 3 hours to get from the university to Stanley - distance maybe 20km. Amazing.... and of course I had brought nothing to read for the trip (instead I slept in the bus).

We found a great Italian restaurant in Kowloon Tong (Festival walk) and spent Wednesday evening there: Jimmy (French, but living in Canada), Sergio (Mexico), Too (Vietnamese, but living in Hungary), Ashley (US). On the photographers side also Lauren (US/Mexico), Silje (Norway) and Alexandra (Sweden)... no pics though!