Difficult Decision

Currently we’re in Hong Kong now, (sorry will update my blog with our Tokyo trip later. Thought that this was more exciting news to tell first) and have been here for a little over a month. We have reached the 7 month point in our trip, and the realization that we only have a few cities left to visit have triggered mixed emotions. On the one hand, we are now exhausted by the endless journeying and dying to return home to family, friends and our own bed. And plus, our fountain of wealth is drying up fast. On the other hand, we are aware of how lucky we are to be here at all, how much there is still to see, and how much we will miss being on the road when we are back behind a desk in an office. These two conflicting emotions had been pulling us in different directions.... "Now we are in Hong Kong, should we work and settle down in Hong Kong for another 6 months or should we head up to Taiwan to teach English for a year or should we head on home to our own comfy surroundings??

Well, on the second week of arrival in Hong Kong, we started to look for work. We madly sent in our CV’s and cover letters to job agencies and to the companies. Before we knew it, we were going to interviews back to back with the biggest investment companies that we have dreamed of working for, such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Merrill Lynch. Going to these interviews, we soon learnt what the HK work culture is like. At all interviews, they warned us of the long working hours. You are at least expected to work from 9am – 7pm, that is if it is a good day. On a bad day, the hours can be from 9am-9pm or worse till midnight. The next most common asked question at the interview is, “How do you expect to balance your work life and personal life?” I think to myself, “is there even time for a personal life with work hours such as this.” All you do is get up, go to work, go home, eat dinner and then go to sleep. There seems to be no time for personal or family life in HK. I still remember the time while I was waiting for Kenny to finish his interview with UBS at around 7:30pm, I saw a lot of couples meet up at the lobby holding only their wallets for dinner. After that, they would head back up to the office. It seems sad to me that work consumes so much of their life.

I guess having been exposed to the Western work culture, which definitely makes the Westerners seem like major slackers in comparison to HK people, it’s hard to work in HK, when you know its easier back home. In Canada, there are better hours, less demand of the workers, not expected to work through lunch or dinner and most of all, there is personal time after work. It makes it even harder for us to want to work in HK, when we know it’s only for a temporary time. We feel bad on our part if we leave the company within 6 months as when they interview you, they have the whole team question you because they only want to recruit people that can get along with the team. Since you will be working with them for at least 10-12 hours a day, they don’t want to recruit any person, they want to recruit a “family member”. So we felt it wasn’t fair to the company as well.

So, YES, HK does offer better work prospects and pay, but the question is, is it worth aging through the long slave hours for just the name of the company on your CV? To us, the answer is NO. We are not here long enough to gain much valued experience to make a difference when we go back to Canada. Nor do we think that the pay makes a huge difference since the living standards in HK is high, after our rent payments, we will have little to save. Further, if you work out the extra hours you put in, the wages in HK end up to be equally the same or less than in Canada. So after considering all of these factors, we knew that working in HK would not suit us.

Now come the decision of whether we want to pursue teaching English in Taiwan. This decision was not an easy one to make. First of all, getting the Alien Residency from the Taiwan government would be difficult, as it requires an actual diploma as proof of your degree. Since the Convocation at UT was uncooperative and unwilling to help us in this aspect, we knew it was going to be troublesome. Secondly, is the timing right? Are we just trying to prolong our trip so that we don’t have to go home to face reality. It’s so hard to go home after having been away for so long, but it’s even harder to continue traveling when your funds are running out. So after weighing out our future goals, we realized that it wasn’t in our best interest to continue to be away from home for another year. (As if we got a contract in Taiwan, it would be for 1 year). Time is one thing you cannot buy back and that is what we are running out of. We need time to go home to save up some funds so that we can start thinking of expanding our family and pick up where we left off in our careers.

So what does this all boil down to, yes you are correct, we have decided its time to go home. Our arrival date to TO will be May 2, 2006. But until then, we still have some traveling to do. We will be visiting Taiwan and several cities in China. Our trip adventure is coming to an end and it’s sad but happy to know that we’ll finally be back home with friends and family. See you all soon!!!!

Foot Massages and more…

No trip to Bangkok is the same without a good foot massaging experience. Luckily we bumped into Kenny’s friend, Chi Fong Luong and his girlfriend Tracy Ng. It was actually pretty weird, we were on the subway heading back to the hotel, when I heard Kenny scream out, “Chi, what are you doing here?” You would never think to bump into a friend halfway around the world. It was a pretty good feeling being able to see someone familiar in a foreign country. Well, it was Tracy that recommended us to go to the King and I Spa. They went the night before and told us that it was excellent. So we headed out there the next day, and signed up for a 45 minute foot reflexology massage. Let me tell you, it wasn’t the best experience at all.

First off, the masseuse starts by getting you comfortable in your chair. She then soaks your feet in warm, soapy water while gently getting all the nasty bits out between your toes (doing this with a smile on her face). After that your feet are dried with a fluffy towel and then the brutality begins. Menthol smelling lotions are rubbed into your feet while she works all your pressure points. It seems the moment she senses that you are nearly lulled into a deep sleep she pulls out a funny looking stick to get you back to your senses. The stick is made of wood that is ridged and ribbed at the end. Trust me, you are definitely jolted straight back into your chair instead of laying back in relaxation.She uses this handy little tool to rub all over the soles, the sides and even on top of your feet. The rather sharp point is used to press into the "head" of each toe – this is pure agony as she continuously presses into each toe and I am thinking I have 9 more to go. When the masseuse is done with your feet, she gets you to sit on a smaller chair in an upright position and starts pressing into your shoulders and neck to relieve any tension - dare I say tension caused by the foot massage. Yes, there are definite moments during the treatment where you think never again, but needless to say the benefits of having a thai foot massage are endless so I guess gritting your teeth every now and then is worth it. (we hope).

Kenny's Masseuse

Well Bangkok is not just a city of foot massages, it is also the transvestite capitol of the world where those with confused gender identities can live as they feel comfortable with little risk of open persecution or ridicule. It can definitely be confusing at times, I never know if I am looking at a man or a woman. And the funny thing is that some of them are probably the most beautiful ones you will ever see. We went to see the famous cabaret show – The Calypso Show at our hotel, the Asia hotel. As you enter the stage room area, you are seated at a little table with a complimentary drink. The show promises that all dancers are pure transvestites. And they sure were. Some of them actually looked like real women and some were just plain nasty looking. But throughout the show you are constantly reminded that they are men through their movements on stage. No matter how hard they tried to look and act feminine, they cannot hide the fact that they dance and move like men. As they dance, you can hear the hard feet movements on stage…. At the end of the show, you get to take pictures with the dancers. They pose in a straight line and ask you in for pictures. In the bright light, you can sure tell that they are men. Up close, they look like female giants. They are double Kenny’s height and some are actually scary to look at because of how hard they try to look like a female, but still look like a male.

Bangkok’s Khao San Road is backpacker’s haven. This is where most of the backpackers are situated when they arrive in Bangkok. This is also the only place where you can see the most foreigners hanging out in one place. It is never a dull moment here on Khao San Road. This is the place where you can actually get butter and toast for breakfast rather than noodles. But of course, because Kenny and I rather experience the true local culture of Bangkok, we chose not to stay at Khao San Road and rather happy that we didn’t. The area reminded us too much of America.

Only foreigners in Kao San Road area

We also went to visit the infamous Damonen Saduak Floating Market. Damonen Saduak is actually the name of a canal dug about 90 kilometers south of Bangkok. The market was definitely a spectacle. You pile into a rented boat and direct the pilot to paddle around, stopping to haggle at the various boats as you like. Most of the goods on offer are produce or other foodstuffs, with a few knickknacks thrown in. We were constantly held down by the sellers trying to sell us their hats and other souvenir items. I remembered this couple on our boat that bought fried bananas from a woman and they turned around and told us that it absolutely had no banana in it, but just fried dough. We bought fresh sliced mangos from another lady and as we bit into it, it was already the seed part. So, no mango meat but just three big seeds. Haa haa, that is what you get at such a touristy place.

At the Grand Palace

They say rubbing the heads of the elephant will bring you good luck

Some of the carvings found on some of the walls of the Grand Palace

(Left) Posing in between two deities at the Grand Palace

The giant reclining Buddha

Wat Arun (The Temple of Dawn)

Elephant Show

Ancient Ruins of the Ancient Capital City of Thailand - Ayutthaya
Old Reclining Buddha found in the Ancient city of Ayutthaya;

A Giant Buddha head was found in this tree in Ayutthaya

Congested China Town Area

Saw lots of the locals washing squid, not sure if its for cooking or drying? But it sure is nasty!

Lots and lots of yummy fishball and meatball on a stick



At the Suan-Lum Night Bazaar, lots of shopping and food

Rama VIII Bridge on the Chao Phraya River

Amazing Race in Asia??

If anyone knows me well, they would know how much I love the Amazing Race TV reality show. They would also know that I actually planned two version of my own amazing races in Toronto. Well, last night my dream of joining the Amazing Race show almost came true.

I was watching the Season 2 premiere of Lost on AXN last night and a commercial came on which caught my attention. It started off like "Now you can race too in the Amazing Race in Asia" When I heard that, I froze in full concentration watching the full commercial, listening and taking in every small detail. Once the commercial was over, I leapt onto my feet, calling to Kenny to let him know of what I just heard. At that moment, I was full of emotions-estatic, happy, hopeful, excited, and scared.

I immediately logged onto the internet to find out more about this Amazing Race in Asia....It was like a calling to me, my only chance of ever joining the actual Amazing Race show. However, as I read the eligibility requirements, I was soon disappointed. Kenny and I met all of the requirements but one...."living/working in asia legally". We are still in the process of getting our Hong Kong ID status. The immigration office has advised us that we should be getting it in 6-8 weeks, but that is way past the deadline for applying to the Amazing Race Show. We don't have a work permit either...so we are screwed either way. What does this mean? It means my chances of being on the show are ruined once again. The first time we couldn't join was because we didnt have US Passports, and now we can't join because we are not citizens of Asia......why why why????

I was so excited too...I was already thinking of what we could do for our 3 minute application video. Well anyways just to let you see what the Amazing Race in Asia is all about: I am so sad =(