Elwing’s Weblog

I’ve finally got a few minutes to write up my latest international adventure in Asia. had to go to Guangdong province in China for work, and the nearest airport is Hong Kong. My client also had offices in Hong Kong and would pick me up at the hotel there to take the train into China. So it made perfect sense to fly into Hong Kong. I also took a vacation day to enjoy the sights.

I took over 24 hours getting from DC to Hong Kong - left the house at 5:30 in the morning, got there at 7pm the next evening. And I was only at the airport an hour before my flight… I wandered around the hotel a bit, it’s in a touristy part of town - Kowloon, and a *lot* of people asking me about foot massages and tailoring.

I spent the next day on Hong Kong Island, the “center” of the city. Most of my time was spent at “the peak” looking over the city, but I also looked at some market areas. Then I went to Lantau island and took the cable car to Ngong Ping - a “fake” village built near the large Buddha (tian tian buddha). I didn’t get to walk up to the buddha because I would have missed the last cable car down the mountain, but I got fairly close.

Tuesday I was supposed to meet my client, but there was a miscommunication, and I ended up going to Macau instead. I took the Ferry, and I had to go through customs and immigration again. But I liked Macau more than I liked Hong Kong. It’s older, more “European”, and less foggy. It does have more casinos than Vegas though. I didn’t go into any of them, and apparently that’s abnormal for tourists. They all go to Macau for gambling… I got to see the ruins of Sao Paulo, the Se, and the old fortress. I also walked to the A-ma temple. I caught a ride back to the ferry terminal on a bicycle rickshaw, which was fun. I didn’t see many other people doing it though. I didn’t think it was that expensive ($100 HKD or about $15), and it was worth not having to walk 5 miles in the heat.

Wednesday, I met my contact and we went into China. He picked me up at my hotel, and we took the train to the China border (Lo Wu station). We walked across the border, then a company car took us to the offices. Most of the pictures are out of the window of the car, but there are some. I didn’t get to see as much of China as I would have liked, but I have a double entry Chinese visa, so I can go back within a year without getting another visa.

I had to cross so many borders on this trip, not counting the chinese visa (which took a whole page, I now have two more pages “full” in my passport. The trip home was a nightmare though. It started innocently enough with my flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco being canceled. They rebooked me through Tokyo and Chicago. Not ideal, but it would have gotten me home 2 hours earlier than originally planned. The flight to Tokyo was uneventful, but once I got to Tokyo, I saw the Japanese response to the Swine flu. The plane we were supposed to be on had come from Chicago. As part of their operations, they took the temperature of everyone on the arriving flight. Well, two passengers had a fever, so they quarantined the plane to verify if there was flu or not. We finally took off, 4 hours later than expected, and I missed my connection in Chicago. I luckily got rebooked on the last flight from Chicago to DC - arriving at 12:30am - 6 hours later than I should have arrived I went home got a shower while Brian cooked me dinner, then got in the car and headed to Pittsburgh with me driving - I had slept on the flight to Chicago and felt pretty good. But UGH.

The pictures are up on my Flickr account:

• Hong Kong
• Macau
• China

I actually biked to work this morning, and it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Granted, the radio was warning people to watch out for cyclists because there would be a lot more, but I think I might continue cycling to work. It’s a great workout - especially up the hills, and I’m looking forward to going down the hills on the way home

Update 1pm: found an awesome mashup at http://veloroutes.org. Here’s the elevation profile for my ride in.

Elevation graph for my commute

I know some of the women who read my blog have already had children. After talking with Brian about the possibilities and problems associated with childbirth - I’m pretty sure I don’t want to give birth - for multiple reasons. The biggest is that I’m needlephobic, and while pregnancy and childbirth *can* happen with no needles involved, Brian has said he won’t support my desire to not have a needle without my permission. i.e. he’ll let the nurse/doctor stick me with a needle without asking my permission first. I will not have an IV put in me “just-in-case”. The second is that I’m a pretty selfish person, and after several horror stories about bodily functions after birth (incontinence, bleeding, and hemorrhoids), I’m not sure that it’s worth it.

So, it basically seems like I’ve heard all of the horror stories, and none of the good ones of giving birth. I’m inviting my readers/friends/family to share with me non-horrible birth stories, or reasons why I’d want to actually give birth. I have no problem with the raising children part - we both want to be parents, and there are options other than giving birth that result in raising children, so “it’s all worth it” is not a valid reason. My mom loved me just as much as she would have loved a child who wasn’t adopted, so unless you’ve got one birth child and one adopted child, the “you’ll love them more” isn’t a valid reason for me either.

So, stories, reasons?

I had to take a break when we went to London because I wasn’t taking a laptop with me, and we were planning on doing a lot of walking and biking anyway, so I took a break. Unfortunately, I somehow pulled a lower ab muscle (and I mean *pulled*, not just made sore), and getting out of bed was painful. I waited a few days to rest, while walking all the while, and restarted at Yoga on Wednesday. I couldn’t do some of the moves (plank) because of my stomach muscle, but I did what I could. Yesterday, I did the Legs & Back for the first time. It was nice. I haven’t worked my leg muscles like that in a very long time. They’ve always been really strong and muscular, and most of the body weight exercises I know wouldn’t really work them out much. I learned a lot of new ones that *will* work them out now

I had trouble with the back exercises - they were all pull-ups and chin-ups, and while I have a doorway bar, I can’t lift myself up, so I took some advice on various forums, and used a chair to get myself up, and let myself down without too much assistance. I’m still having trouble. The next step is to get a set of resistance bands that I can use instead, and then move up to the pull-up bar when I can actually do something there.

My pulled ab muscle is feeling a little better. I can sit up in bed without pain, but sneezing and coughing still strain it a little bit, and anything that specifically targets those muscles is out of the question for a while, so no Ab Ripper for me.

Tonight is Kenpo. I’m still trying to decide if I should do it before or after Brian and I go up to his dad’s in Baltimore..

I’m not as sore as I was on Monday (day 2), but my shoulders and my arms are weak. I didn’t get up this morning to do the Yoga workout. It was too cold in the house and I didn’t want to get out of bed. But it’s on the list for as soon as I get home. I kinda liked the shoulders and arms workout. I’m not sure I used the right amount of weight though. I started with the lightest weights I own (3lbs), and if that was too easy, I switched to the heavier weights (5lbs). Right now, I’m focusing on learning the forms, not on how much weight I can lift. So, the default is to start with little or no weight.

I also might need to consider buying heavier weights. The heaviest weight I have is 10lbs, which will probably keep me for a while, but I suspect that my legs will soon need heavier weights.

The ab ripper is not really going to work for me I can do almost all of the exercises - except the ones that make me completely lift my back off the mat by rolling (ie. full situps). My spine’s not quite aligned right, and it’s painful to my spine to do that particular kind of move. Any suggestions for alternatives? I just kept doing crunches while he was lifting his spine, but I’m sure that I’m not working the proper muscle groups by doing that.