Hard Drive fried and so am I

Today was a beautiful day, perfect temperature and sunshine! This has been a bad week, still seeing green (if you know what I mean) and my hard drive died, that means all my photos from all my travels fried! Can it get any worse! Yes, I could of not had a back up. So for all of you that do not back up, BACK UP! I would have died if I did not back up!  This is the reason for no photos temporarily. I have to get organized again and this will take a while, because I am no technical guru. Tomorrow I go to the doctor's again. Lets see what she says this time. I have five days to clear my head and chest before going to Vietnam. Keep your fingers crossed.
Here is your fun fact:
When the Chinese in Hong Kong marry, they go through two wedding ceremonies. The first is the official signing of the register and the bride wears a white western bridal dress. The second ceremony is the banquet which can take place up to two years later. The marriage is not recognised until the banquet takes place. During the banquet the bride wears the traditional red mandarin collared gold embroidered dress and a tea ceremony takes place where the bride and groom serve tea to the groom's parents.

Doctor visit number two, more meds and more green gook!

You are probably wondering why I have not written a post, I have been busy being sick! Sorry to be gross, but I have had more green gook coming out of my nose and throat than I thought humanly possible!

The diagnosis, huge sinus infection along with bronchial infection. The doctor was trying not to put me on antibiotics again since I was just on it two weeks ago, but due to my rapid decline she is now bombarding me from everywhere!

I will not bore you any further with details, hopefully they will kick in and I will be ready for Vietnam! I have also been taking a photography class! Imagine that! I have never had formal training and was having technical issues.

The solution, Craig Norris, has to be the most technical guy I have ever met. A camera geek is an understatement!

Tuesday is my final class. Ken has been traveling all over China and comes home tonight. I would show you a few photos, but my Lightroom is giving me technical difficulties! Hopefully my Lightroom guru Jamie will straighten me out!

I thought I would leave you with the one of Ken's stories from his travels this week.

Enjoy!

So, today's lunch included bowls of boiled pig's feet (just like in the market) with little plastic gloves to wear while you picked them up to try to dis-assemble the toes and find something to eat.  I found nothing but fatty skin (not even crispy); and all I could think about was "where has this foot been - and stepping in what!?".   The rest of the fare, delivered today on a motorized 8 ft Lazy Susan, was the usual:  tiny whole river fish, funky meats from what?, chicken feet, tounges, wingtips, etc, 5 kinds of noodles, 3 kinds of spicy beans and tofu, lots of bok choi and broccoli, and of course, peanuts to be eaten one-by-one with chopsticks.  Everything was a specialty of GanZhou, I was told. Chinese only drink wine by downing the whole glass at once, so I must have had a bottle-and-a-half of "vintage" Great Wall red after the 30 or so toasts I had to respond to during a 2-hr  lunch.  Note to self: do not serve Ann Colgin cabernet to Chinese. Every Chinese CEO is a philosopher at heart.  Lunches are an amazing tour-de-force of quotes and parables from Hegel, Confucious and Mao.  I have to give them credit for erudition - or was it just the wine?

What would you do?

Is Hong Kong Pollution the cause of Broncial infection?

Well it has been five days of more medication and I have yet to turn the corner in feeling better. I originally got sick in February and it is now March 20th, for more than a month my lungs have been fighting pollutants of all kinds. Today I had the sofa vacuumed for mites and air condition filters replaced. I decided to do more reading about the air quality or the lack there of in Hong Kong. Here is an article I read from CNN. Appreciate your clean air and good weather, hopefully I will be able to venture out tomorrow!

Hong Kong (CNN) - Hong Kong is one of the world's richest cities. Almost one in 10 households boasts a millionaire. The government sits on a cash pile of about $80 billion. Yet Hong Kongers are choking, sometimes to death, on their own success. A bold claim, but the statistics are compelling. The Hong Kong University School of Public Health has just unveiled a new real-time cost of pollution index. According to new research from the university and local think tank Civic Exchange, there are 3,200 avoidable deaths a year in Hong Kong due to air pollution - more than three times higher than previous estimates. As I write this (at 7:15 p.m. HKT Tuesday) the index reports there has been seven preventable deaths and more than 14,000 preventable doctor's visits in Hong Kong in the 19 hours beginning midnight on Monday. Preventable, because the bad air quality that researchers say was responsible, can be easily improved. The HKU's team leader Professor Anthony Hedley - 22 years as chairman of community medicine at the university - says the model they have developed is "state of the art.” Certainly the Hong Kong government has nothing like it. In fact, they have no statistics on pollution-related health costs, and their methods for measuring pollution are, say critics, well out of date. But even with that technology, the quality of the air at roadside level in Hong Kong is rapidly deteriorating. Roadside pollution levels reached a record high last year. The number of days that pollution was rated "high" hit 20%. That is five times more than in 2005. And the impact, according to the Hedley Index, has been hard. To take December as an example: 311 people died, nearly 800,000 visits were made to doctors and heathcare experts and days lost at work cost the economy about $60 million. But clean air campaigners say the level of roadside pollution could be brought to within acceptable World Health Organisation levels within weeks. Roadside pollution is the chief cause of pollution-related respiratory illness in Hong Kong, according to Mike Kilburn of the thinktank Civic Exchange. He says that if the government spent some of their cash reserves in a cash-for-clunkers scheme to take dirty trucks and buses off the streets, then air quality would improve dramatically. Instead the government is giving Hong Kongers a tax rebate of around $800 per person. The government appears to have been stung into action by the release of the Hedley Index. A few hours after the index was released the Environmental Protection Department held a press conference to announce it was modifying its pollution monitoring to bring it in line with WHO standards. But many clean air campaigners greeted that move was greeted with a "too little, too late" response. The question they want answered is why is a government as rich as Hong Kong's is not spending more on a move which could have a big and rapid impact.

Big Buddha on Lantau Island

Despite what the doctor ordered, Ken and I got up early and ventured to Lantau Island, the largest of islands. We saw
Tian Tan Buddha, the worlds largest, it measures 24 meters high (79 feet) tall. The attraction of the day was the iguana sunning himself. The day started with a lot of fog and smog, you will see it with the photo of the U.S. military ship in the harbor. As the day progressed so did the sun, even though the smog did not burn off completely
it was warm and sunny! Afterwards we took a cab to this cheesy little town Tai O. A village that sells the smelliest things on earth! They had homes on stilts that were made of tin. We came home and now I am back to taking the nastiest cough syrup ever! Check out the girl in red with the umbrella, do you think she has an aversion to sun?

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Back in Hong Kong with Bronchial infection

Well we arrived back from Florida yesterday, after spending a much needed week of sun and fun. I returned with a bronchial infection. In February I caught a cold and now a month later I have a bronchial infection from my cold. My guess is that my body is not used to the pollution.

The one thing I can say about Hong Kong is that they are efficient. We arrived to the airport and we were through
customs and immigration in less than five minutes! This is only for people with a residency card, this little card is magic! No lines and no waiting!
Today the doctors office opened at 8:30 a.m., I registered, saw the doctor, got a chest X-ray, and a saliva specimen,
and a consultation, with my scripts filled in less than an hour! Everything done in 50 minutes! I wish my cousin Maria could see this place, they have comprehensive care down to a science. I now am the owner of God awful cough syrup, an inhaler and antihistamines. Doctor ordered to rest, no partying! The sun is hiding behind the clouds and it is warmer than when we left.
 Since I am not going out to shoot, I thought I would share some photos of our trip to one of my favorite places in the world, the Dominican Republic. I did include the photo of the gentleman that passed as a reminder that life is too precious and too short!

Hopefully tomorrow I will be better and venture out! I thought I would let you know that my next trip is on the  31st of March in which I will travel to Vietnam. By the way, if you were in Hong Kong and had the ability to travel, where would you want to go? I am thinking of my next trips to Bhutan, Mongolia, Yunnan province in China.
Where should I go? These are the places where I have been: Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, China, Bali,
Kuala Lampur, Thailand.

Rested and renewed!

A week in the Dominican Republic with family and friends is exactly what the doctor ordered. Plenty of sunshine, good times and great food, has renewed my spirit. I will post photos when I get back to Miami. We had a wonderful week of catching up, celebrating birthdays and enjoying the surf and sun. Villa Lazy Heart was spectacular and the service was amazing! Even the two dogs Paula and Paulo were great. On many days it was just watching the sunrise, walking the beach with the dogs and listening to the thunder of the waves. On Thursday, we experienced something very tragic, a man drowned and was pulled on to shore in front of our home and carried up the stairs to the house two villa's down. The man was from New York preparing for his son's wedding today, Saturday. Even though he and his other son were advised not to swim, because of the bad currents and waves, they decided to take on the waters. The  son was getting tired and decided to swim back in, when he looked back for his dad, he was not there.
The son searched for a half hour before calling for help. We saw dozens of people looking out to the sea from the bluff, I thought they were looking for whales. Shortly thereafter, I saw a small boat and then some swimmers brought the body to shore. The man still had his fins on and was foaming at the mouth and purple. Lauren (my daughter) had never seen a dead person and was very upset and in shock. Even the most experienced of swimmers should not have been in the water that day. This sent all of us in to a quick reality check, it is times like this that you truly realize that life is short, that one should not take things so seriously and that one must live life a little lighter and love a lot more, the material things are just that and at the end of the day it is in God's hands. Sadly we came to find out that the couple has delayed the wedding. They will not get married today, they took the mans body to Santo Domingo for cremation and will take him home to New York.
Enjoy the time with family and friends and let go of all the small stuff, and to tell you the truth, it is all "small stuff". Enjoy life and live, you never know what tomorrow will bring. May he rest in peace and may his son find peace.
Thank you D.R. and my friends for a beautiful time!

Sick at home with manicure gone bad

Arrived home late Tuesday evening sick with a serious head cold! I have been busy with trying to sift through a months worth of mail, having people here all day shooting a novela called Realciones Peligrosas and trying to see family and friends. Before I left Hong Kong,Nery and I had the manicure and pedicure. What the hell is up with Chinesec manicure's? I cannot get them to last more than 5 days! The same nail polish OPI, the one I use in the U.S.. Does anyone know of a salon that does manicures that lasts more than three days? I will not be posting for the next few days as I am taking some rest days with my family in the D.R. I do have a photo of my nasty chipped nails, stay tuned!