These are innocent looking shoes sitting outside of my home door. I use them only when I go out to throw rubbish at night, or for occasional stroll downstairs of my building. The building management company of my area is running a campaign to clear all public areas in the building in accordance with the Fire Safety Act. They served me couple of notice, which I disregarded cos I did not think shoes will obstruct in cae of a fire.

Then today I got this scary letter warning me to remove the shoes or face the court! I removed the shoes and put inside my home. Am I criminal?

I have been living on edge of China for 4 years O’ Shanghai, but never made it to you, the heart and financial capital of China. Now that you are rising, and in fact competing with Hong Kong to be the Gateway to China, I am off to to you this X’mas. Though I am on a 23-hours long train to you, wait for me, O’ Shanghai.

It is as cold as it can get in Hong Kong, well almost. Some days are as cold as 5 degree celsius, but such days are 4 or 5 in a year. It is real cold, dry, windy and not so bearable nowadays. Cold weather comes as Christmas is almost here too, perfect setting for Santa to ride a sleigh. The only problem: there is neither snow nor reindeers in Hong Kong.

This Christmas is also special for me as I got a personal letter from Santa full of ‘Happy Christmas’ wishes, right from Korvatunturi in Finland.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I was supposed to buy mango-flavored jelly poweder in Park-N-Shop (a supermarket in Hong Kong) and it made me 20 mins staring in 2 lanes of confectionaries till I lost patience to look anymore!

Having a local friend always helps, like when you get into taxi and want to tell chinese-speaking driver where you wanna go. It is always useful to keep handy names of things you wanna buy/go to at hand, but if you don’t (like I do), calling a friend and let the person next to you talk to him/her always helps.

Thank God I have good friends here. One of them helped me find mango jelly tonight!

It is a festival called ‘Dragon Boat Festival’ on Wednesday and so a public holiday in Hong Kong. This time in 2003, it is different than it used to be. Hong Kong is different, I am different, it makes all the things different. If I got some pictures, I will post here tonight.