Look at the size of this snail! Pretty quiet day today, lots of walking, and coffee. We spent the entire day in Discovery Bay, taking naps, and relaxing... and I'm still tired!

Yesterday, we went to Stanley. Just like the rest of Hong Kong it used to be a fishing village. Now the most remarkable thing about Stanley is the market. Kathy bought an awsome jacket, and we bought some Chinese scrolls to hang on the wall. Sorry Greg, I was looking for stuff with you in mind, but nothing jumped out at me. However, I did get the Old Man's email and he can make copies of things and send them to you...

Hello Anthony,

I spoke to you last week regarding my problems having the dish installed.

You agreed to send the dish via Purolator so that I could have it installed at
my cost and you would credit my account the cost of the dish installation.

You said the dish would arrive friday.

If you recall, I left town on thursday, but that my house guests (my parents)
would be available to recieve the dish.

It is now past tuesday, and they still have recieved no dish!

Here is a quote from an email I recieved from my mother regarding the dish...

<>

We had heard nothing by noon, so Dad decided to phone Bell and see what they
had to say. Well it seems that they have done nothing. He got someone after
waiting for a little more than an hour. Then he got a person to talk to and
they wanted him to hang up and they would call back. He said he had been
waiting so long that the phone was now attached to his ear. To make a long
story short, your dish had been cancelled at 2:20 yesterday - Mon. We can
only assume that it was the installer that cancelled it. To say nothing about
the fact that it should have been here Friday. Well, he is going to sort it
all out and will phone us back tomorrow. Dad did hold his temper, and also
asked who had cancelled the order, but he said he did not have this info. He
also asked who was going to deliver this dish. He will try again to find that
out tomorrow.

We haven't done much yet as we have been waiting for the dish to come. If we
can get some kind of answer then we will know when we can be away.

If we hear from him tomorrow, I will email you as soon as he phones. You can
keep an eye on your mail tomorrow and hopefully something will have happened.
Just a thought, but why do they even have to send in a dish. Can they not
have the fellow downtown take one out of his stock and install it and then
Bell pay him?

<>

From where I sit, Bell has let me down again.

As it stands, myself and my family have wasted a considerable ammount of time
waiting for Bell to do what they have promised.

I waited for the entire afternoon, the day of the initial appointment. Spent
over three hours on the phone waiting to talk to someone regarding my
installation. And was told "F*** YOU!" by YOUR INSTALLER. Then spent more
time on the phone talking to you.

NOW, my parents have been inconvencenced THREE DAYS waiting for you to deliver
a dish, as promised by yourself. So that I could pay for the installation out
of my own pocket because your installer was unable to meet the original
installation appointment.

Currently I am on holidays in Hong Kong and I am having to deal with problems
like this!!!

I have given you every opportunity to make good on your promises, and have
recived.... a promise of two months free subscription?? I won't believe
anything until I see it.




FIX THIS PROBLEM..




Brent Evjen
(250) 847-2619
Box 5129
Smithers BC

We went to a Thai restaraunt in Tung Chung (The town in the background of the airplane picture I have on pinned on the bulletin board near my desk at work.) Andrews parents, Andrew and Cara, and Kathy and I ate the dinner for six. It was just under $100 Canadian, and we all were stuffed to the gills. The best part was the pork neck, it is in the picture, on the very right hand side near the bottom, and is cut off. Brilliant!

The latest aviation weather report at the Hong Kong International Airport issued by the Hong Kong Observatory at 17:03 HKT on 24 Aug 04

METAR VHHH 0900 10005KT 4400 -SHRA FEW016 SCT030 31/26 Q1001 TEMPO 4000 SHRA=

If you need help decoding this go to http://www.hko.gov.hk/aviat/decode_metar_e.htm

4400 meters vis translates to 2.7SM...

You should see all the pollution in the air!

Andrew, Cara and Kathy enjoying the water. I'll bet this isn't what you expected to see in Hong Kong!

This morning we went for a little hike so we could go swiming in the rock pools. Here is a pool just a bit downstream of where we swam. It was 34 degrees outside, it felt sooo good to be in the water.

Us (obviously) at the little water fall. I took a panorama shot of the whole pool, but you'll have to wait to see it until I can stich it together at home.

Here is sunrise today, the haze is caused by polution. If the winds are out of the north, all the polution drifts down from China. If the winds are from the south, the air is crisp and beautiful, from the South China Sea.

Here you can see Kathy riding the escalator. How cool is that, a monster ourdoor escalator that goes for blocks and blocks!

Yesterday, we spent the day in Central in the Midlevels and SoHo, there were tons of cool markets and neat things to see. It was VERY hot, we stopped at a Starbucks for ice tea, and air conditioning. It was a great place to visit, you can ride the escalator up, and walk down.

So after a harried trip thru the Vancouverr airport.. we arrived at the gate about 15 minutes before departure, and were given the happy seats in the front of the aircraft! Here is a picture of Kathy having some Champagne before departure. :)

Here is a view from Cara and Andrews newest flat. In the most foreground you can see a relatively new development here in Discovery Bay. The little bit jutting out from the hill in the middle of the picture is the land reclaimation in progress for the new Disney place. In the background, thru the haze, you can see Hong Kong island.

We arrived in Hong Kong at 1710, right on schedule, and after we each had a trip to the washroom to clean up, we were thru customs with ease. It was so nice to walk past all the people waiting for their luggage, while we just had carry on!

We caught the 16:30 bus direct to Discovery Bay, and had no problems finding the stop, Cara was there to meet us!

After we both had a shower and relaxed for a few minutes, we headed to the plaza for Korean BBQ. MMMMmmm. It was better than I remembered it. ( We did make a stop to get some anti-histamines, for my dog allergies )

We took money out from the bank machine, $4000 Hong Kong Dollars (our account shows a debit of 683.56 CAD). How easy was that.

I bought supper for our wonderful hosts last night, on the agreement that from now on we always go dutch, and that we get all the "I'll buy" this one arguments out of the way. Supper was $460 HK.. A little less than $80 Canadian. A great deal for such an excellent meal!

We went home and collapsed on the bed. I was awake a couple of times thru the night, all that water I drank on the plane finally came out! And had a great sleep!

It is 8:45 AM Sunday morning.

We'll see what the day has in store for us!

No, I wasn't lost. I was looking for Kisegulca Lake and I didn't see the sign. We spent over an hour last night driving around on old logging roads looking for a lake. When we did find it, it was beautiful, but too dark to take any pictures.