Timeless

I wish days would be timeless, leaving you full of non-stop energy to do what you want forever...in my mind there are stories for one Blog a day but come nightfall, I didn't manage to find the time to write them down....

First of all an ecstatic HURRAY for today - the skies are finally clearing up and we actually get to see the sun again. The pollution, trapped by light winds and hot sun was killing us for five consecutive days and we were living under a cloud of disgusting fingerthick fog - to me, that's the one real downside of Hong Kong. Finally, gone are the 30s and somebody once said that one of the nice things approaching fall is your hair won't be glued to the back of your neck with sweat after five minutes on the street anymore - how true!





Last week, China celebrated its National Holiday and most Mainlanders were on vacation during their "Golden Week", many of them crowding HK as usual. The tourism-related sectors are booming with consumers traveling to HK's "Shopping-Paradise" which always seems to give a huge boost to the economy. People can buy world brand products for much lower prices as compared to the ones in the mainland cities because HK is a tax free heaven and the Yuan (Renmimbi), the currency of the Mainland, is currently stronger than the HKD. The newspapers reported that people even shopped in the real estate and the stock markets. "The rapid growth of economic development of the Chinese mainland and the strengthening individual purchasing power have already made HK residents look at them with new eyes. Eying the huge potential of the holiday economy after opening of "individual visits" to more mainland residents, HK had coordinated their efforts in preparing for mainland visitors well in advance, to ensure that the visitors spend a good time in HK - to summarize it: The Golden Week is a "ready-made-cake" for HK tourism development." To maintain this status is more important than ever, with exploding Macau around the corner.

(Source for some statements in the text: "People's Daily")

On october 1st we got to admire another magnificent firework over Victoria Harbour with tons of heart shaped rockets, red displays of the #8 (lucky number) and lots of Smiley Faces amongst the choreography. This time we even managed to get closer to the action (remember my july disaster?) having secured a balcony space in a restaurant at the eastern part of the harbour on HK Island - hey, one day we'll have worked ourselves through to the complete prime harbour overview but so far there is still room for improvement.
Over 'n out.