vivian, chris and rachel

Originally uploaded by artchow.

Vivian together with the kids .. Chris the big brother and her sister Rachel, from the Pong family. They are so cute … yes including the adult!

someday i wish upon the star …

Originally uploaded by artchow.

this is our god-daugther rachel pong taken in Nov 2006 to celebrate her 2nd birthday. I quite like the her post, as if asking for a present … so cute!

I was browsing Yahoo! site and saw this expandable banner of Prison Break.  So it is already season finale in the US for PB season 2.  Too bad that it is still not available in HK.  This is a heck of a show and the characters are well played by the actors (althought the actresses are comparatively speaking less convincing).

Actually the show is availale on iTunes the other day after it is being aired.  Too bad this is not restricted to the US.  With the internet and broadband so common nowadays, they should be offering this to worldwide users.  Guess the terrestrial TV are paying a lot to FOX and hence their rights need to be protected.  That means as customers and fans of the show, we suffer.

港幣風光時通行無阻

港幣曾在深圳非常風光。深圳所有銀行都有港幣業務，深圳家庭有港幣存款可謂司空慣見，有些深圳人賺的就是港幣，不止有商店收港幣，甚至的士也收港幣。港幣對人民幣「最威風」時達到1比1.2，有的精明深圳人專門用港幣購買某些商品。

不過，隨情勢轉變，不少深圳人悄悄將港幣換回人民幣，有的只餘小量留待赴港消費。據了解，目前生活在深圳的十幾萬香港人及經常往返深港的幾十萬香港人，也紛紛將港元兌換成人民幣，或投資內地房地產，或存進內地銀行。

This piece of news taken from Mingpao in HK.  Saying that shops in Shenzhen refused to accept HK Dollar as the Chinese currency Renmenbi continues to appreciate in value and worth more than HKD nowadays.

I remember when I first went to China I could get like 120-130 RMB for $100 HKD.   Back then people in China prefer to take HKD as it can be easily convertible to other currencies.  How things have changed nowadays.

What I don’t get is why do they have to reject HKD?  They can simply ask for more HKD for the same piece of product.  I can foresee that there will be a lot more tourists from China coming to Hong Kong and shop like crazy as the Yuan continues to appreciate.  Why not, with the strong economic growth and the massive foreign reserves, the Yuan will only get stronger.

http://hk.news.yahoo.com/061126/12/1×49x.html

Sunset in the ‘Burbs

Originally uploaded by scooter.john.

This is from Flickr and I believe it was taken in UK. Awesome photo .. just wonder if Hong Kong may have that kind of scenery … sigh.

Taxi @ HSBC

Originally uploaded by scooter.john.

came across this photo while surfing Flickr and thought it is really nice. The photographer is called Keith and his photos are of very high quality. Check him out, his ID is scooter.john

went to see HK Open for the last 2 days.  A bit disappointing that the big names were not playing that well this year.  Michael Campell, KJ Choi, Colin Montgomery were non-factors.  Retief Goosen did not even make the cut!  At the end it was quite exciting with Lara from Spain only winning by one stroke over a Philippines Rookie.

Just hope that next year the big names can play well.

IFC 2

Originally uploaded by artchow.

Took this photo on a nice clear day. Uploaded to Flickr and trying to blog this via Flickr to WordPress … wonder if it works …

After trying out a number of blog options, I finally tried to use WordPress together with the Yahoo! Hosting pacakge.  Will see how it goes and whether I could import my other blogs smoothly.