Month: September 2008

Today is the last day of equestrian competition, this morning and this evening. The current plan is that the post party is at the hotel bar. It will kinda depend of they all get there early enough to convince the bar to stay open later. Tomorrow might be a tiring day.

Last night Curli, Mark and I went to the evening individual freestyle. We ended up glumming together with some of the grooms and riders we knew to get into the family and team seating. The view was very good. There were two medal presentations at the end. Since we were with the family and grooms I might have been on TV when the South African was presented with a gold medal. It was pretty fun. Something different at the paras vs. olympics is that everyone cheers for everyone else. Very cool people here.

That is all from Honk Honk for now.

Today is the last day of equestrian competition, this morning and this evening. The current plan is that the post party is at the hotel bar. It will kinda depend of they all get there early enough to convince the bar to stay open later. Tomorrow might be a tiring day.

Last night Curli, Mark and I went to the evening individual freestyle. We ended up glumming together with some of the grooms and riders we knew to get into the family and team seating. The view was very good. There were two medal presentations at the end. Since we were with the family and grooms I might have been on TV when the South African was presented with a gold medal. It was pretty fun. Something different at the paras vs. olympics is that everyone cheers for everyone else. Very cool people here.

That is all from Honk Honk for now.

Last night was the Paralympics opening ceremonies. This time around we did not make the cut to attend which was probably good. The teams in Hong Kong all had to get dressed up in formalish atire and watch the opening ceremonies from the Hong Kong Jockey club. What we heard it was very boring.

Mark from the Australian office arrived on site yesterday. He was originally due early the previous day but his 8 hour flight from Melbourne was delayed 8 hours. Since we were not invited to the party we ended up acquiring a couch for the office while everyone else was getting all formaled up.

The morning funny occurred while waiting at the breakfast bar egg cook station. Behind me is some guy from the Indiana side of Louisvile here on business not related to the Olympics or Paralympics. Then behind him is a Canadian, his wife is a rider, who is from Langley. About 20 miles from Abbotsford twords Vancover.

No big plans now that competition is starting.

Last night was the Paralympics opening ceremonies. This time around we did not make the cut to attend which was probably good. The teams in Hong Kong all had to get dressed up in formalish atire and watch the opening ceremonies from the Hong Kong Jockey club. What we heard it was very boring.

Mark from the Australian office arrived on site yesterday. He was originally due early the previous day but his 8 hour flight from Melbourne was delayed 8 hours. Since we were not invited to the party we ended up acquiring a couch for the office while everyone else was getting all formaled up.

The morning funny occurred while waiting at the breakfast bar egg cook station. Behind me is some guy from the Indiana side of Louisvile here on business not related to the Olympics or Paralympics. Then behind him is a Canadian, his wife is a rider, who is from Langley. About 20 miles from Abbotsford twords Vancover.

No big plans now that competition is starting.

Past couple days have been slow. One evening Curli and I went into Hong Kong Island to do some geek shopping. Wanted a Switch and some network cables for the office. The hardware didn’t end up doing what I wanted but it did give us the experience of Hong Kong rush hour on the train. It was kinda funny at times, everyone running to smash into the train cars with Curli, 6’3″ and myself being taller than everyone.

I spent some time yesterday evening walking around and shopping near the hotel. Picked up an umbrella and some snacks for the room. Also got some Ramon noodle dinner bowls, the room has a tea pot. It turns out that Ramon is the same across the world. On the hotel TV they had some paralympic palimanaries. The amazing one was the pistol shooting which looked like there was a blind shooter, he was blindfolded.

Yesterday evening was the first equine competition so things may start picking up around here. Tonight is the offical opening ceremonies, we are trying to find someplace to watch on TV.

Going to run, time to pick, pack and deliver some feed and bedding.

Past couple days have been slow. One evening Curli and I went into Hong Kong Island to do some geek shopping. Wanted a Switch and some network cables for the office. The hardware didn’t end up doing what I wanted but it did give us the experience of Hong Kong rush hour on the train. It was kinda funny at times, everyone running to smash into the train cars with Curli, 6’3″ and myself being taller than everyone.

I spent some time yesterday evening walking around and shopping near the hotel. Picked up an umbrella and some snacks for the room. Also got some Ramon noodle dinner bowls, the room has a tea pot. It turns out that Ramon is the same across the world. On the hotel TV they had some paralympic palimanaries. The amazing one was the pistol shooting which looked like there was a blind shooter, he was blindfolded.

Yesterday evening was the first equine competition so things may start picking up around here. Tonight is the offical opening ceremonies, we are trying to find someplace to watch on TV.

Going to run, time to pick, pack and deliver some feed and bedding.

The rain has arrived. Yesterday morning I was commenting that everyone warned me about Hong Kong rain and Typhones but in 5 days it had not rained which must have called the rain clouds. Starting around 11:30 AM it started pouring for 30-60 minutes then lightly drizzled for the rest of the afternoon.

This time around we have a delivery truck driver Sam and Paco who runs the pallet jack. Both are great to have around they have good joking humors and love to take us around to show us the seights when needing off venu runs. We usually do the deliveries in a group with a couple of KER folks walking out, Sam and Paco take the truck around to the back of the barn. Paco loves doing the heavy lifting when we make deliveries so much so that when we had an over sized pallet stacked 8 feet high he dropped the pallet to block the stable door with himself inside and the rest of us outside unable to unload. Paco then unloaded the whole pallet by himself.

Eventually the rain dropped off and Curli, Elizabeth, Sarah and I went into Kawloon to meet Brooke and her mom for dinner at a pub on the harbor and some night viewing of the Hong Kong skyline. Brooke and her mom took a bus tour to see the Big Budha, which sounds like a great trip.

Today Elizabeth flys back to Australia, it will be Curli, Sarah and myself until Mark from Australia returns sometime next week.

The rain has arrived. Yesterday morning I was commenting that everyone warned me about Hong Kong rain and Typhones but in 5 days it had not rained which must have called the rain clouds. Starting around 11:30 AM it started pouring for 30-60 minutes then lightly drizzled for the rest of the afternoon.

This time around we have a delivery truck driver Sam and Paco who runs the pallet jack. Both are great to have around they have good joking humors and love to take us around to show us the seights when needing off venu runs. We usually do the deliveries in a group with a couple of KER folks walking out, Sam and Paco take the truck around to the back of the barn. Paco loves doing the heavy lifting when we make deliveries so much so that when we had an over sized pallet stacked 8 feet high he dropped the pallet to block the stable door with himself inside and the rest of us outside unable to unload. Paco then unloaded the whole pallet by himself.

Eventually the rain dropped off and Curli, Elizabeth, Sarah and I went into Kawloon to meet Brooke and her mom for dinner at a pub on the harbor and some night viewing of the Hong Kong skyline. Brooke and her mom took a bus tour to see the Big Budha, which sounds like a great trip.

Today Elizabeth flys back to Australia, it will be Curli, Sarah and myself until Mark from Australia returns sometime next week.

We finished the afternoon deliveries around 2pm and headed to Thai Wai one of the cities usually used to switch train lines. Once there we just wandered around a bit in normal Hong Kong suburb. I was still lots of high rises but not as high or as western as where we are staying. The 4 of us were the only westerners and were kinda getting gawked at by locals. At one point we wandered through a fresh market, mostly vegtables, fruit and fresh meats. At one point on a shelf was cat that wasn’t moving. The propietor then started pushing the cat’s leg, eventually the cat started moving it was just sleeping but they wanted us to know it was alive and not part of the meat department. It was pretty funny because all the shop keepers were watching us and the interaction, everyone started laughing once the cat moved.

We ended up going through an indoor mall and found a sweets shop. I picked up some gummy penguins I’m hoping to bring home. Also had lunch at a Japanese resturant with a manager that spoke excelent english and was a gracious host giving some good suggestions. Ended eating some tempora and seafood noodle soup which were good. Also had my first Sing Tao in Aisa. Sing Tao is an Asian, maybe Hong Kong, beer I have had at some US Asian resturants.

You will have to look at the photos of Thai Wai it was an intresting place.

For supper we headed down the block from the hotel and had Chinese at a very locals kida place. At first we were going to order from the photo menu but they had someone that spoke pretty good english and brought over a couple english menus. I let the others look over the menus first but while they were looking Elizabeth said “Spicy Frogs“. When I looked over the menus the Spicy Frogs was the most intresting looking item. When I ordered Curli, Elizabeth, Sarah and the waitress seemed to think I was crazy. It ended up bring this rather large bowl of frog, noodles, sprouts, very hot peppers and in a very spicy broth. It was excelent. They all said that it smelled good but the frogs turned them off. The frog was a whole frog skinned and gutted then diced length wise bone and all. It was kinda hard to get the meat off the bones but very tasty. One of the best dishes I have had so far. The Australians all joked that we should take the American grooms out to eat for Spicy Frog.

After the frog we had some, well lots of some, drinks at the hotel bar and ended running into an alternate for the British wheelchair ping pong team. She had also been to Athens and loved riding up to the Parthanon in the crain bucket.

All for now hopefully I’ll get some of the Thai Wai and Spicy Frog photos uploades.

We finished the afternoon deliveries around 2pm and headed to Thai Wai one of the cities usually used to switch train lines. Once there we just wandered around a bit in normal Hong Kong suburb. I was still lots of high rises but not as high or as western as where we are staying. The 4 of us were the only westerners and were kinda getting gawked at by locals. At one point we wandered through a fresh market, mostly vegtables, fruit and fresh meats. At one point on a shelf was cat that wasn’t moving. The propietor then started pushing the cat’s leg, eventually the cat started moving it was just sleeping but they wanted us to know it was alive and not part of the meat department. It was pretty funny because all the shop keepers were watching us and the interaction, everyone started laughing once the cat moved.

We ended up going through an indoor mall and found a sweets shop. I picked up some gummy penguins I’m hoping to bring home. Also had lunch at a Japanese resturant with a manager that spoke excelent english and was a gracious host giving some good suggestions. Ended eating some tempora and seafood noodle soup which were good. Also had my first Sing Tao in Aisa. Sing Tao is an Asian, maybe Hong Kong, beer I have had at some US Asian resturants.

You will have to look at the photos of Thai Wai it was an intresting place.

For supper we headed down the block from the hotel and had Chinese at a very locals kida place. At first we were going to order from the photo menu but they had someone that spoke pretty good english and brought over a couple english menus. I let the others look over the menus first but while they were looking Elizabeth said “Spicy Frogs“. When I looked over the menus the Spicy Frogs was the most intresting looking item. When I ordered Curli, Elizabeth, Sarah and the waitress seemed to think I was crazy. It ended up bring this rather large bowl of frog, noodles, sprouts, very hot peppers and in a very spicy broth. It was excelent. They all said that it smelled good but the frogs turned them off. The frog was a whole frog skinned and gutted then diced length wise bone and all. It was kinda hard to get the meat off the bones but very tasty. One of the best dishes I have had so far. The Australians all joked that we should take the American grooms out to eat for Spicy Frog.

After the frog we had some, well lots of some, drinks at the hotel bar and ended running into an alternate for the British wheelchair ping pong team. She had also been to Athens and loved riding up to the Parthanon in the crain bucket.

All for now hopefully I’ll get some of the Thai Wai and Spicy Frog photos uploades.