Cacophony of the Senses

This is one of those times where I could absolutely kick myself for not having a camera. I left my camera-phone with Courtney since she's running around managing the NNHS Varsity Baseball team. So I came over to Asia sans camera.

I wish I could have gotten a shot of the view from the 41st floor gym of the Langham Place Hotel here in the Mong Kok area of Hong Kong. The treadmills are right along the floor-to-ceiling windows. The view is spectacular.

My meetings don't start until later this morning so I had time to take a walk around the neighborhood here in Mong Kok. The hotel is a couple blocks off Nathan Road but it was still pretty quiet this morning. However, when I went around to Reclamation Street, I fell upon the open-air market on Nelson Road. That's when the cacophony of sights, sounds, and smells hit me. What an amazing place! And this is so where I wish I had my camera! I'll try and do it a little justice...

I was the only Westerner there but that hardly caused an eye to blink. The first few stalls were nothing but fruits and vegetables. Carrots the size of a steroid-enhanced body builder's forearms were the first thing I saw. Then the fruits! Talk about exotic. The majority I couldn't even begin to identify. The colors were amazing. Rich, rich reds and incredibly vivid orange colors. Most of them were covered natural spikes and other protective coverings. Then came the durian....maybe you've heard of them. Or their smell. These fruit look like big spiked hand-grenades. When they are opened, the smell is utterly undescribable. I got a whiff this morning. Imagine the contents of a fetid sewer mixed with meat that has sat in an unplugged refriferator for a few weeks. Let's just say it was bad. And it was a hot seller. Who knew?! Then I came upon the meat, fish, and poultry section. It's a fresh market, remember? So in other words, lots of freshly slaughtered birds and pigs hanging out. You can walk right up to one of the chicken stalls, pick your live chicken, and get it slaughtered to your liking. I'll not describe that. All this is going on under the din of the crowds. Old ladies doing their shopping; Filipina domestics buying the day's food for their Chinese employers, and one Western guy who couldn't get enough of it.

I head out shortly for meetings on both the Kowloon side and Island side. It is so easy to get around on the MTR - I bought a day card so I can ride all I want without issues. I love this city - I just can't get enough of Hong Kong!

A Quick Note from Tokyo Narita

Just landed in Tokyo and once again so happy to find a FREE wireless hotspot in an airline lounge. Kudos to Japan Airlines for making it free! Anyway, almost to Shanghai. While on the flight from Chicago today, I read an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times by Christopher Hitchens. Typically, I am really irritated by what Hitchens has to say. This time, however, his column on Shrillary is a precision strike on her character - or complete and total lack thereof - here's a link to it from Slate.com

Eager to get to Shanghai - got caught up on the news of a new Apostle, which is very cool. Amazing to see how the Church continues to roll on.

Chairman Mao wouldn't recognize it

Just a quick entry before I head to Shanghai and Hong Kong tomorrow. These two cities are some of the most dynamic that I have ever been to and they are constantly changing. Chairman Mao would have no idea that he was in the land of his ill-fated Cultural Revolution. They also have some of the coolest hotels I've ever seen. I'm at the Regent in Shanghai and that will be my first time there:

And the Langham Place Mong Kok on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong is one of my favorite hotels. This has got to be one of the most technologically advanced hotels that I've ever stayed in. You could spend hours tricking out the in-room phones. It's very cool.

It's good to be going back to Asia, and based on a conference call I had this afternoon, I think I've got a big run to India in the near future too.

Police Beat

OK...while it's good to be home, we still wish we were on vacation and back in SoCal. But that can wait...

My alma mater, BYU, has what can only be described as the best police reporting ever. So good that the campus newspaper, The Daily Universe, (a highly "regulated" paper if there ever was one) dedicates an entire section on its website, BYU NewsNet, to the train wreck that is the police blotter on the BYU campus in Provo. I graduated close to twenty years ago but I still read the "Police Beat" with a fervor all its own. I think what I read today pretty much nails why you can't NOT read this:

March 26: The mother of a BYU student called the police when she suspected that her daughter's roommate stole her butter knife. The mother later called to drop the charges.

It does not get any better than this. Seriously. Ever. If you know me, you know I can spin a pretty good story. I could never top this stuff. By all that's holy, drop what you are doing and get to the NewsNet page and bookmark the Police Beat section and read it often. It is BRILLIANT! It's stuff like this that keeps me donating to the University. Reporting like this has got to be supported!