(Almost) Birthday Blog...

Well if you have been checking this blog with any type of regularity, you would have noticed that frequency of posts has dropped off quite remarkably over the last few months. If you ask Nik why that is, she would probably say it's my fault. Why, you might ask? That might, possibly, could, potentially be because I said that I wanted to do the next post. Apparently I was going to dedicate it to me turning 30. Instead however, I'm going to dedicate it to me justifying why it's taken me almost 4 months to post the entry. So here goes, the case for the defence....So back in August, when I probably should have knocked up the words for the blog, I was too busy enjoying turning 30 - it only happens once in your life, you know... except if you count turning 60 as actually turning 30 for the 2nd time but that's another story.Mind you, it wasn't completely selfish of me to not make an addition to our cyber journal in August. For what ever reason that's only known by a select group of mums, dads and god, there were about 1000 other expats celebrating birthdays in August here in Hong Kong. So I had to do my part for the community and help them all celebrate (see exhibit A, right: ex-pat's gather to celebrate multiple birthdays at Discovery Bay).

Between those gatherings and work, there was no time in August to work on the blog.

August defended.

Speaking of work, that brings on September. When I came to Hong Kong, I had no job, no house and was planning on being an international man of leisure for a while. That only lasted a couple weeks before I decided that would bore me senseless and I ended up scoring a job working as a Program Manager at Getronics. Whilst I found this experience in the global IT outsourcing industry extremely valuable, I can't say the company was in particularly great shape. My opinionated comparisons to the RMS Titantic were substantiated after a few months, when the head office in the Netherlands (isn't that weird) decided it couldn't make the greater China operation work and decided to sell a majority stake of the business to a mainland Chinese firm. No reflection on the management credentials of the new company but this organisational shift wasn't aligned with my personal strategic plan, so I started looking for a new job.

Looking for a job in Hong Kong the second time was a little more drawn out than the first time round. The second time round, I already had a job, was starting to understand the local market much better and could afford to be choosy. The last point proved to be quite an asset. When I contacted the recruiter to advise them that I was back on the market, they suggested I might be a good fit for Macquarie Bank. This looked like it was going to be a great opportunity to get my foot in the door of the Finance industry but there didn't seem to be any bites on the bait. Several weeks went past and just when I thought I would need to look for another opportunity, the recruiter came out of left field with an offer to join their team as a consultant!

This was a pretty hard decision to make. The recruitment firm seem to have some great people working for them and it appeared like it would be fun place to work (with a nice little expense account too mind you) but in the end I just wasn't quite ready to make such a major career change. I kindly turned down the offer and reconciled myself to starting again.

However, no sooner had I passed on the offer to sell human capital, then Macquarie said they wanted to interview me afterall. A couple of interviews and psycho-metric test later, I was offered employment at the Millionaires Factory (but only as a 2nd assistant orange peeler - so no requests to borrow money, ok?).Then it was time to give my 4 weeks notice and I thought, what better way to celebrate this milestone but to have a holiday? For a change, I used my powers of persuasion for good and somehow managed to convince my former employer to let me have a few days off. I put them to good use by jumping on DragonAir and meeting up with Nikki, who was in Beijing delivering a conference. The rest of that week you've already read about, as the sneaky post below reveals but I would like to second Nik's opinion: Beijing is definitely worth visiting and, if the government does manage to tidy the place up for the Olympics, then I'm sure it'll be absolutely spectacular to see. So September was otherwise occupied with more very pressing life matters.

September defended.

October was the next cab off the rank and it not only marked the last week at Getronics but it also marked the arrival of one of my best mates from high school, Will, and, and his fiancé, Bec. In 1993, Will and I weren’t that different. Almost all of our lives were spent at Farrer but since then our lives have taken remarkably different paths. He went off to Quebec on exchange for 12 months, came back speaking French, studied International Studies to head off to France, then came back to Sydney before settling earlier this year in Gunnedah, close to the Family farm. Where our lives are now, I’m not sure they could be further apart but there’s a part of me that is jealous and we still keep regular contact. I do have to point out that he is just a big kid at heart, hence why there's a picture of us at HK Disney Land. The rest of October also came and went without a blog post for good reason. Not only did I start my new job at Macquarie, hence trying to focus on making a good impression, but it was also when mum and dad arrived for a 10 day stay. Some might say those 2 events wouldn't necessarily be complimentary (but not those wanting caramel pie on Christmas day). However, somehow I managed to juggle both of these events reasonably successfully - at least mum and dad are still talking to me and MacBank haven't shown me the door!

The olds seemed to really enjoy their trip. I'm not sure what their biggest highlight was, although mum was kind of fond of the authentic Hong Kong Mexican nachos and fajitas we had at El Taco Loco, but for me it was probably Dad rolling out of bed on the second night. You'd think that sleeping in a bed that was bounded by walls on 3 sides, that you'd have a 75% less chance of rolling out of bed then you would have normally. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But somehow the numbers came up and Dad managed to do it. He can't win Lotto but he can occasionally beat the odds. The second highlight of their trip for me was listening to mum sternly ask Dad why he was laying in the bedroom doorway with the doona in the middle of the night...

I know it was a long way from Tamworth for them to come and, while I'm quite sure they'd never want to live here, I reckon they just might be willing to have a second crack at visiting the city of the fragrant harbour. Heck, I might even be able to convince them to venture across the border to the mainland next time.

October defended.

Now what excuse can I use for November... ah, that's right, that's when my sister came to visit. Hmm, I better choose my words carefully here... she came, she saw, she had a good time and jumped back on the plane to Australia. Well, there was a little more to it than that but Vanessa was on her way back from a whirl-wind business trip in Europe and I was trying to catch up from playing tour guide and starting my new job. Her week here was probably a little more sedate but that’s just what the doctored was ordering for us both.

November was also the month that I made my first (albeit brief) trip to Thailand. Nik was down there for a couple weeks with work and I decided to pop down for a weekend to have a look around Bangkok. Although I didn't get to see a lot, I did like what I saw. The place kinda reminded me of Vietnam, just maybe 5-10 years ahead. There seemed to be much urbanisation going on and a lot of major transport infrastructure being built... oh and it was hot like Vietnam too. Darn glad we weren't there during summer, especially while visiting the world famous Chatuchak market. If wasn't for the fact that Hong Kong temps have finally dropped to the low 20s, I think I might forget what it was like to head outside and not perspire like a human sprinkler. I’ll save the juicy details about Bangkok to Nik in another post.

November defended.

That brings us to December and I find myself all out of excuses not to post an entry in the blog. So, here it is, as promised - the (almost) birthday blog!

Finally, just before I go, I thought I'd let you both know that Nik and I are both heading back down-under over Christmas / New Years. The current plan is to fly in on Sat 22 and head up the New England to spend a few days with the Golden Guitar. Nik's then going to cut across Thunderbolt's Way to spend a couple of xmas days with her fam. Then we'll both be back in Sydney just before NYE, hoping to catch with whoever hasn't buggered off somewhere else. We'll both be working in Sydney from 7-11 January before jumping back on the flying Kangaroo to Honkers. If you're going be around Sydney during this period, make sure you let us know and we'll see what we can do about catching up.

Merry Christmas everybody!