When I was leaving our friend's house, Anto walked me to the door and gave me something. He told me not to open it until I got home, which was only around the corner, but still I couldn't wait. As soon as he shut the door, I peaked, and it was a ticket to the sold-out Humber Grad Gala for his graduating year! After all we had been through in this crazy college romance, he still wanted me to be his date! That was 8 years ago. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, and I still do :)
Just sat down to enjoy a little bowl of evening cereal and noticed the internet was behaving, so I thought this might be a perfect time for an update! **EDIT: By the time I initially finished writing this blog (7 days ago) the internet changed it's mind, decided not to work, and wouldn't let me post. Argh. For days and days I have tried and failed. Imagine my excitement tonight to find it's finally working for me again! Okay...here we go! So much good stuff has been happening! Firstly...My Dad and Annie were visiting with us the first week of November! It was so great to explore more of Hong Kong with them and make such sweet memories. Having my Dad around to shoot some hoops with was a highlight for sure. It's the little things you miss the most when you don't have your people around. We got up to all kinds of adventuring though, checking out 10,000 Buddhas Monastery, taking the tram to The Peak (the highest look out point in HK), cable car over Lantau Island and a visit to the Big Buddha, trips to the Jade Market, Avenue of Stars, a ride on the Star Ferry and all kinds of other goodness in between! It was one heck of a gift having them here for my birthday too. It was definitely one to remember. My amazing and thoughtful family had sent lots of love over with them and it made me smile huge to hear from everyone, and receive some new pictures of my niece who is the cutest almost 1 year old in the whole wide World. Collectively we took over 600 pictures that week! Here are just a few of my personal favourites :) I do miss everyone! My dear Mom is at home planning two major celebrations to happen on the SAME day – My Grandpa's 100th birthday AND my niece Nina's 1st birthday! It's kind of amazing. My brother John and his lady are flying in from Calgary which will be so nice for everyone to visit with them too! I wish I could be there to lend a helping hand and share those moments with everyone but I know my love is strong enough to be felt at home. Plus I will be making a very special call in to say hello and happy day, all the way from... Thailand! Anto and I spent the days following my parent's departure here finalizing plans for our epic December holiday. We are officially going to Thailand for 3 weeks in December. We knew it would be a tough month for us being away from home at the holidays and all, so this is our gift to ourselves. Not too shabby eh? So excited. We will fly into Bangkok and spend a few days there, then head North up to Chiang Mai. After feeding elephants and petting baby lions, we will be passing back through Bangkok again on our way to our next stop. Anto will even get to do a show there too! Kind of perfect how it all worked out actually (isn't it always?) The other night he says, "I kinda want to do a show in Bangkok." The next day, "Oh hey, I'm Ron Josel, that other awesome Asian comedian you met 7 years ago at a show I headlined in Canada. Want to open for me in Bangkok, Thailand? On the exact date you happen to be passing through?" Oh Universe, you work in mysteriously wonderful ways. Can't wait for that. I always love hanging out with other Canadians. Especially funny ones. And especially when we're making sweet memories on the the other side of the World. After that, we still have a few days left so we'll head slightly east of Bangkok to Pattaya. There we will enjoy the final leg of the journey by getting some RNR by the beach or in the pool or anywhere haha it's going to be lovely after all the travelling and over night train rides. We will have wifi in some places along the way so we'll try to pop on for updates and pictures whenever we can! Another cool thing as of late is that I'm working for my boss at home, all the way from the other side of the World! As it turns out, you can be a book keeper from anywhere as long as you have a computer. Every time I think about it, it blows my mind – I can be sitting on my couch in Hong Kong doing the books for a company all the way in Toronto, Canada. I love it! Plus I love the nerdy work of book keeping and reconciliation, it's so rewarding seeing that $0.00 at the end. Ahhh. Balance achieved :) My volunteering gig has me doing some similar tasks to that of my job at home as an Office/Operations Manager. Granted it's not a Medical Office I know, but I think the setting is interchangeable to that work. Same job, different place. That's what's so cool about it though, it has allowed me to thrive in so many unique environments and I have learned so much from each place. Anywho... I volunteer here at Crossroads non-profit in Tuen Mun. It's beyond inspiring to see the operations that go down there everyday, and everyone doing it for FREE. The team is so hard-working and passionate, I feel grateful to be a part of it all and the moments in time we all get to share and create together. One aspect of our mission is to help alleviate poverty in communities by selling their goods in our fair trade marketplace, at craft fairs, and by consignment to other shops in HK. Crafts, Jewelry, textiles and the like, generate enough income for families to have shelter, food, and education for their kids. It's that easy. Makes you think twice about going to the mall, paying the rich to be rich. Anywho...I work in the internal operations office for the Marketplace which has me doing a ton of sales reports, stock statuses, invoicing, processing orders and deliveries, etc. I love it. Here is a fun picture my friend Annette sent me. That's her on the left and our Supervisor Gina to the right. This was us doing over-time after we filled the office with the HUGEST order. 6 months worth of consignment awesomeness for one of our vendors. We had to count it, label it, package it, and ship it... in 3 hours! This picture is when we were just about done :) Huge tasks are always fun when you have a good crew, an open window, and that sweet Hong Kong autumn breeze flowing through. This post makes me think of all those years I spent as a kid playing store all day. Or hotel, library, clothing store, restaurant, doctor's office. You name it. Every year I waited for that damn Sears Wishbook to magically show up on our porch so I could pick out my next cash register. Every year they got a little more complex, a little more real. I played and played until one day I looked down and it really was real. The bakeries, the restaurants, the spas, the medical office, the you name it. I realize now, all that time I was playing at home, I was training for my future career. I always thought my brothers had it so figured out too, like they knew what they wanted to do. At least more than I did. But it turns out the answer was right under my nose the whole time too! I feel like I've been working this job my whole life, but never realized it because I think of it more as my hobby, something I enjoy, that I do for fun. Business, operations, people, quality, and good times, all that! That's what I love. How lucky am I to actually get to be doing that with my life? As the years continue to go on, I know I will keeping growing, learning, expanding and exploring my horizons. The best is yet to come! I feel that :) So lucky I've have had a coach like my Dad all these years too. He is a business legend. Whether either of us knew it or not, he was teaching me all he knew. And he still is. Thanks all for reading my update! Mom, Mike & Sharon I know you're reading this :) Loyal blog followers hehe To you and to the rest of our beautiful family and friends out there, I want to say I love and miss you so much! Enjoy the holidays at home with each other and try to see the beauty in the snowflake before you feel the cold. Sit by the fireplace in your comfiest clothes with a hot drink, a cheesy afternoon tv movie, a bowl of jujubes and just enjoy the moment with our animals, our friends and our family. I miss those moments most. Keep being awesome. Love, Jen :) PS The mall here has the most ridiculous and awesome Christmas displays I've EVER seen! Not like what you're used to seeing at home...way CUTER! I'm talking Pingu, Hello Kitty, My Melody, the whole Sanrio family! And I mean HUGE displays. Don't know if my capital letters CONVEYED that enough, so here's proof! PPS Thank you, Internet, for not only allowing me to post this update, but for giving me the juice to upload all these fun pictures too! It's a Christmas miracle.
Just got a new phone that has the weebly app so it is much easier to post compared to the brutal Internet we had before. Hope this helps us post more often!
Yesterday we went out to Freespace festival, which was completely free outdoor experience. We both enjoyed ourselves, hoping it will get even more events in the coming years! The view from the water as the sun fell was totally badass. We also gave away some buttons from our board, which has really been fun lately. Hope everyone is doing so well back home in Canada! Looking forward to connecting to you as the holidays are quickly approaching. We are really excited for our next adventure to Thailand on the first of December! We have booked it all including some elephant fun and will let you know the details soon! What a time tonight! Prakash had his party for the badminton club at a private country club with a spit-roasting lamb and full ballin' buffet. He surprised everyone by introducing me as a Cantonese teacher. So when they found out I was making jokes, telling stories and messing with the party, they got super excited!
During the show a kid said "you better not mess this up, Buddy!" the whole group totally laughed alot about that, helping me to really have a blast. That was the youngest stern warning I've ever received ahahah After I had finished speaking, each kid got to enjoy a free Be Awesome Button, or as the Brits call them badges. Then we shared riddles and trailers(they're obsessed with Annabelle the horror movie) on their IPhones as the moms told them to leave me alone, "He's trying to eat!" They would ask me questions about everything I talked about when the kids left for a bit. One boy Abir made sure I remembered his name by teaching me some Hindi so that I can tell people who I was. He said "its important because your name is who you are, you can't change it! " as I was taking in that great advice, we had a coke chugging contest ahahah so much randomness! The dads were so welcoming and grabbing drinks for me and congratulating me on a job well done. They were so happy to get their kids away from their ipods and DS's for a bit. Some of the best moustaches I've ever seen! Wish Jen could have come as she loves Indian food, especially paneer, and great people! They told me this is only the beginning as they have a huge group with lots of parties, so I'll invite her to the next one :) super exciting time right now filled with incredible adventures! We're in line crossing the Chinese border over to Shenzhen, a tiny lady security guard walks over to me, puffing up her shoulders in an over-sized all black uniform,
"FOREIGN! YOU!" BAM,flip up my HK ID. Her eyebrows go up, the people in the "Foreigners" line go "OHHHHH" loving that she's mistaken. She's already made them feel like foreigners. She turns and glares at them, snarling only as a released hound can. She stares them up and down. Glancingly moves onto the next person. This person's Jen. "DEFINATELY FOREIGN, YOU!" pointing in her face. Jen shows her Canadian passport, Securitantrum Lady brushes that to the side, "HONG KONG ID OR NO ENTRY, YOU, FOREIGNER! " Jen says "HOW RUDE! You don't know me! You're probably a nice lady, but I'd never yell FOREIGN in your face!" Holds up her HK ID. BOOM! Securitantrum Lady faints into the arms of her drug-sniffing dog partner. The whole Foreigner line goes absolutely APESHIT! Screaming pointing laughing cheering, one of the moms throws her baby at Jen and she kisses it, "You're not a Foreigner anymore, buddy!" She's like Oprah, "You're a resident, and you're a resident, we're all Hong Kong Residents!" 2 fully armed Imperial soldiers walk out and place a sash across her shoulder with "RESIDENT" written across it. And we all dance the Chicken Dance, very popular here. Here's a picture of us enjoying a beer and cider after we entered into Shenzhen, China! |
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