October already!

It's called neglect people. I haven't had a chance to blog for a while. Sorry about that. I know - excuses are lame.

Well the Snuze and I had a gay ole time in Hong Kong. It was, as predicted, extremely hot but we enjoyed ourselves a great deal. Hong Kong was much cleaner, safer and tourist friendly than I imagined. We prepared ourselves well for the heat and the crowds. We were so impressed with the city's efficiency and modernness. Cheap food was everywhere and there was soo much to see and do. Our hotel, The YMCA Salisbury (yes, it was a HOTEL), was wonderful too! It had an AMAZING view of the Hong Kong harbour from the Kowloon side. A great bargain in a fantastic location. Highly recommend it.

Being the Disney fanatic that I am, we went off to Hong Kong Disneyland of course. On our way there, we were on the train with a bunch of other people. I thought we would take an early train to beat the crowds but I guess I was wrong. When we got off the train, everyone was turning right when it clearly showed that the park was straight ahead. On closer examination, I noticed that all these people were the park employees. We had almost beaten the staff to the park! Okay, so we were in fact quite early.

I must say that I've never seen so many Disney staff members educating/disciplining/yelling at so many people before. I think most of this was directed at the many mainland Chinese tourists which, in my stuck up North American opinion, are a few years away from being "good" tourists. I get that they live in a place with 2 billion other people. I get that. They have to push and be assertive or they get nothing. I get it. But why do some people feel the need to budge and push when there is clearly a well delineated queue? Case in point. We were next in line to take a picture with Mickey and the people behind us kept pushing us like we were being packed into a Japanese subway car. I turned around to see the crush of people behind us but there were only 10 other people behind us. So...why were we being pushed again? I mean we couldn't go any further; we just had to wait for one more couple to get their photo taken with the Mickster and then it was our turn. Why shove? It's too hot to shove! So we clearly explained to them that they should be patient that we couldn't move up any further without being in the couple's photo ahead of us and they should respect our personal space. Well, I hope that's the message they got as we actually just started swinging our backpacks to brush them off our backs. A tad immature, but there was a language barrier so we had to do something that was universally understood - thus the swinging of backpacks.

I don't mind crowds at all. I mean for 10 days there I was probably one of the biggest people in Hong Kong so I realize I take up a lot more space than the average Hong Konger. Go ahead and stand real close. You can even touch me but if there's no need to shove, then don't shove me. I admit there are times when it's every person for themselves but standing in line for a picture with Mickey is not one of them.

Sorry for the rant. Where was I?So yeah, Hong Kong was a great trip. Oasis (the new low cost carrier to HK) was great. Flew business class there and economy on the way back. For less than $500 each, I had nothing to complain about.

Since our trip, we've been trying to enjoy the last vestiges of summer. We won our year-end softball tourney and went 18-0 or something like that for the season. Good group of people to play with.

We headed out to the Vancouver Aquarium last weekend, had a picnic lunch and then biked around the seawall. Good times. You know this summer has been so cool, I don't think I've worn shorts once (except when I'm playing some sort of sport). I honestly think that our vacations to tropical climates in the dead of summer have totally increased my heat tolerance. Nothing seems hot to me. It's like a superpower. I didn't even turn on the air conditioning in the car once this summer. I didn't use the fan in the house once. I know it was pretty cool but there were a few days of heat, weren't there? Please tell me I have a superpower and it just wasn't a cold summer...

On Tuesday we start up our indoor volleyball league again. The Half Dozen have reunited! We've won the championship two out of three years so we're hoping to win again after a one year hiatus.

This Saturday we're off on a one night cruise from Seattle to Vancouver on board the Norwegian Star. We're going with a bunch of friends so it should be enjoyable - albeit short.

Susan has been keeping busy at school with her new role as Vice-principal. Her boss seems like a good guy. She's been stressed out but frankly she's kinda always stressed out during school. What can you do? I just complain and make life difficult for her. That's my role.

Alright so that's it for now. All is well on Moresby Drive. Hope you're having a good day!