Brian Lo
On Aug 6 11:10 a.m. Margaret gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Brian (方澔). He weights 2.835kg, average size. Both Margaret and Brian are still at the hospital but will most likely be able to come home on Friday. Recalling when Megn was borned four years ago, the house will be filled with joy (and very tired people) very soon when Margaret and Brain come home.
Megan is also very pleased that she has a little brother as you can see from the pictures, but I am sure she will boss him around as a BIG sister ... She had already picked up a present for Brian and is anxious to have them back in the house, especially her mom whom she is missing so much.
It is time to dig out my camera, dust it off and go crazy on the shutter button. I hope to continue posting pictures of them all. Stay tuned.
Baby No.2
Gosh, it is July and it has been over 6 months since I last updated my blog with a new piece. Well, life has been very busy ever since I've returned to HK. Being able to spent time with my family every night is definitley one thing I enjoy the most comparing to the time in Taipei. Family life will become more interesting in a couple months time when Baby No. 2 arrives in mid August. Megan is also very excited about the coming of a baby, but having 2 kids in the house will definitely be interesting.
Hua Hin, Thailand
Margaret and I visited Hua Hin, Thailand in early November. We stayed in this villa with our own private pool and spent 3 very relaxing days. I wanted a relaxing holiday so I picked this place where there wasn't much for you to do which was perfect for a 3-day holiday. We could begin our day with a swim in the pool then shower under the blue sky. The weather on those 3 days was just perfect. The temperature was not too hot, yet we still got plenty of sunshine everyday. I also had my first spa experience with a 2-hour spa in our room to loosen up my really tensed musules on my back. After leaving Hua Hin, we spent another day in Bangkok as a buffer between the villa lifestyle to the hustle and bustle HK. The first time we were in Bangkok was over 10 years ago. It didn't give me a good impression at the time, but this time I was really impressed with the improvements. I was also surprised with the prices on most merchandise as they are not that much different to the prices in HK, other than food in local resturants. You can catch some of the photos we took through either the Flickr or Yahoo photo link on the right pane.
Ju Ming Museum
Last weekend, I visited the Ju Ming Museum in Taiwan. I have been planning to see it for the past year but never managed to make the trip. Finally, having a 2-day weekend (I usually fly home on a 2-day weekend), I made it up there. Ju Ming is a famous Chinese artist with a focus on sculpture. The Museum includes an outdoor area featuring his famous Taichi Series along with the Military Series and Humanity Series. Most of the outdoor sculptures and displays are in a very big scale. I especially enjoyed the Taichi series as they have so much life in them even though they were all objects that do not move. The Military Series are pretty good too but they gave me a sadden mood when I was viewing this series. The Humanity Series included many interesting people in various acts and forms and was the most colourful series of them all. You probably have read or seen something related to his works since some of his works can be seen elsewhere around the World. I suggest to anyone who come to Taipei to spare some time if possible to visit the Museum. You would not be disappointed.
On that same day, I also went to Ye Liu, a famous nature park featuring many interesting geographical landscape and rock forms that must have took many years to form. It is here where you would find the Queen’s Head features in many Taiwan tourism information. You can see some of the photos I took on that day through the Flickr photo link on the right.
Moving On!
It has been awhile since I last updated you all. My time in Taiwan has come to an end (at least for now)! I have found a new job at home with the MTR Corporation. Three years ago, I have never imagined that I would work in Taipei for such an extended period of time away from home. Although I flew home quite often, I have missed a big part of Megan's early years. I think this has come far enough that I shall return home and spend more time with my family. However, having said that, I enjoyed a great deal of my life in Taiwan. It was a wonderful opportunity to have worked on such a high profile and complex project. The one thing that I will certainly miss the most is all the great people that I have met in Taiwan. During my stay in Taiwan, I have made some great friends whom have taken me to a new place in life. They have shown me what I am capable of and helped me to grow both professionally and outside of work. I can see that I am very different to the “me” three years ago. For this, I want to give them all a big bow from the bottom of my heart!
Megan is ready to move on!
Megan is ready to move on! Yesterday was the last day of her nursery year. In September, she will begin her K1 year. Can you spot her in this graduation photo? She is the thrid one from the left in the front row. It was just like yesterday when she first started nursery and cried every morning in the first month when we dropped her off. Eventually, she found the enjoyment out of that few hours in the class with other children. Now she is all into it with improvements so significant that she was given an outstanding award in her class that about 1 out of 3 students received. This award probably meant more to us than to her! Thank you, Megan!
Osaka, Nara & Kyoto
We had a wonderful time in Japan. The weather was perfect, vacation weather, not too hot and no rain. Margaret and I met up at the Kansai International Airport without any problem despite her less fortunate "all wet" luggage due to the heavy rain in Hong Kong. The HKIA ground crew must have left the bags out in the rain!!!
The hotel was much better than expected (most average price hotel rooms in Japan are like shoe boxes), it was quite spacious. Since it was kind of a business hotel, it had a Japanese style sitting area and even a small yet functional kitchen. However, like most hotel rooms, the bathroom was a little bit small. Nonetheless, it was still a great deal. The late dinner that night was at a nearby Japanese "dine/wine" restaurant recommended by a friend of mine. It was so good that we went back there on our very last night of the trip.
We were going to spend two days in Osaka, but it turned out to be just like any other big boring Japanese city after one day. We found Nara in the travel book we had, Nara being one of the old cities must be better than Osaka! Nara didn't let us down, it has many old historical sites (mostly temples) situated in the huge Nara Park. In addition to the historical site, the park is also famous for the deers that you can find everywhere strolling freely.
Nara was good, Kyoto was even better! Many of the historical sites have already been enlisted as World Heritage and Cultural Sites. Two days were just enough for us to visit the more famous places. We even had our highlight of the trip while we were at the "Old Streets" of Kyoto. While Margaret and I were busy at what we were interesting in (separately!), we kind of got separated! With so many small side streets, shops and things to side track you, I spent a good half an hour trying to look for her without any success. Luckily we have already talked about our next destination and knowing her I knew she would go there to meet me as well. When I got to the next site, she had only arrived there 5 minutes earlier because she couldn't find the place. It was "interesting" to have lost your wife in a foreign land which made this a "foreign" affair, but luckily this international incident was settled satisfactorily to both parties …
On the very last night in Osaka while looking for some stufff for my freiend, we found this huuuuuuuuge electronic shop with 7 floors near our hotel. It has so many "toys" all laid out with electrical power for you to play around. Too bad we only had one hour left before the closing time else we could have easily spent several hours in that place trying out all the different gadgets. To round up our vacation, for our last dinner of the trip, we went back to the same restaurant that we ate on the very first night to try some other dishes that we didn't have a big enough stomach for at the time.
The next day was an early bird as she had a 10am flight to HK and an 11am flight to Taipei myself. She went home to Megan and I dived back to work in the afternoon. It was our first experience of traveling to and out of our holiday destination separately which was quite interesting. This holiday certainly has to be put onto our "Good Holiday" list.
P.S. You can catch some of the photos we took through the "My Photo Album" link on the right or the flickr link.
Megan is Three!
Megan is three! Her nursery gave her a birthday party in May. Normally, they would throw a birthday party every month for the kids who's birthday is in that month, but she was the only kid in the class who had a birthday in May. So it became "her" birthday party!
Really looking forward to next week!
Thanks my mom for being able to look after Megan alone for several days, Margaret and I are taking a holiday next weekend to Osaka and Kyoto, Japan. We are both very excited about this trip but at the same time, it means I won't be able to see Megan for a whole month since I have to skip a HK trip because of this holiday!
With much guessing (well, there was some asking too ...), I managed to book the hotels through some Japanese websites. It turned out you can find a lot decent offers through the Japanese web pages. Hope everything will go well with the bookings ... fingers crossed.
I will let you all know how it goes and post the photos too.
