A peculiar experience

Last Saturday Honey and I had to go eat dinner with Honey's parents and some of their friends from their church to say Thank you to them for coming to our wedding and give us such generous gifts. I thought it was going to be a regular Chinese dinner, but it didn't start that way... They brought an electric piano to a dinner, which was my first clue. Not that I still understood exactly what was coming. 

Happy people singing hymns. 

One after one the guests started to arrive. They all greeted us and congratulated us for the wedding. A couple showed up with hymn books. Hmmm... I was a bit surprised, what was going to happen? As the last person showed up they all sat down, passed out the hymn books, Honey's mom sat down by the electric piano and they started to sing hymns, starting from hymn 1 (there are like 300+ hymns in that book)! And they sang, and sang, even some solo singing, some times a Capella.  They kept singing song after song in the hymn book, skipped a few songs here and there, and sang for about an hour. It was surreal, and I didn't know what to do, or what to think. After a while I thought it was cute, they all seemed so happy. They were all pretty good singers, and they knew every freaking hymn in that book! Pretty impressive. 

I asked Honey if this was something they did on a regular occasion, that they met to sing hymns, but he said No. It turned out that this group of people used to be the church choir, and even if it is many many years ago they still liked singing together. 

And if you want to know, there was a dinner after singing, twelve course traditional Chinese food. :)

Hymn book in Hong Kong. 

I got my visa!

I got my visa! TODAY!! Now I can REALLY start applying for work. However, of course it's a twist... Since my passport expires in May this year they could only validate a visa til April 30, 2013. So just three months. And I cannot apply for a Hong Kong ID card yet either, because they will only issue that to me when I have a visa that is at least 180 days. Sigh... Yeah, who thought about that? I should have just gotten a new passport earlier, but what the hell, the world doesn't end due to extra paperwork now, does it? Not my world anyway, just to deal with it and move on. 

We may be going to Japan in February so I cannot apply for a new passport just yet, have to wait til we get back. So here is what we need to do (like we haven't dealt with enough paperwork). 
1. Apply and get a new passport from Swedish Consulate in Hong Kong, (takes 2-3 weeks). 
2. Apply for an extension of my current visa, (takes up to 4 weeks). 
3. Apply for a Hong Kong ID card (takes up to 2 weeks). 

THEN I feel like I can really relax with all this crap. I hope this doesn't create any problems in getting a job. Keep your fingers crossed!! :) 

By the way, if you know anyone in Hong Kong who is looking for a fantastic Marketing Assistant or Customer Service Representative, please let me know! 

So dusty!

People who knows me know that I like to keep things nice and tidy. Put things in piles, hide clutter in drawers and in cabinets. Yeah, I am almost a bit OCD about these things, even if I am telling myself that the world doesn't end because everything is not in order. But here is a secret... Even if everything looks nice I am pretty bad at cleaning. During normal circumstances I would clean thoroughly once a month. That's when I would dust, vacuum and mop the floors. Here in Hong Kong that is not possible. 

Hong Kong is a city, huge city, many people and pollution. All these people and the pollution is making the air pretty bad, and the dirt is flying in to people's apartments (at least in to ours), with or without open windows. A day after I wiped a table clean it's dusty again. It's sooo annoying. I don't like cleaning! But I also don't like when it gets dusty. Both Honey and I know when it's time to do a serious cleaning, it's when both of us starts sneezing haha. Yeah, it's sad. Not to mention the floors... sigh. I know that Dingding is helping making it dusty with her rabbit hair flying around, but it was never this bad when I lived in the US or in Sweden with my lovely rabbit girl. 

I just had to whine. Now while I'm not working it's possible to keep up the cleaning before it gets too bad, but I'm just worried that once I start working (hopefully very soon) it will not be that easy to keep up. Oh well, there I am again, worrying about something that hasn't happen. No point in thinking about it now. We will deal with it when we have to, IF we have to. 

Visa paper work complete!

At my third visit to immigrations with the latest additions they asked for the immigrations officer actually said everything was okay! They had all the paperwork they need!! Woohoo! The lady said they will call me or Honey once the visa is ready to be picked up. I hope it will be soon, like... tomorrow haha! The next call we get from them is probably another piece of paper missing... Nah, it's going to be fine. 

Now time to chill in front of the TV with Honey and Dingding. :) It's still fairly cold in Hong Kong, around 15 degrees. We have the portable heater on, nice and warm, for the whole family. 

Dingding likes the heater too. 

Visa progress, or not...

We are trying to get my dependant visa so I can officially start looking for work, being able to learn Cantonese at a university, to be able to live a full life in Hong Kong. But it's not easy. I went to immigrations today, for the second time. The bureaucracy at Hong Kong immigrations is not much different from many other countries. There are so many forms to fill out, they need the right copies, translations, originals etc. Yeah, we who have applied for visas before know how it is. 

I was hoping that I got all the paperwork today, since I brought everything that the immigrations officer last time highlighted for me to bring. Still there was another form that we apparently needed to fill out and another piece of paper missing, that we didn't know was necessary. It's always like this though. I hope to have everything ready by this week at least. My tourist visa expires soon as well, so I want it all to be handled as quickly as possible. Otherwise I will have to leave the country and come back, which in reality means a trip to Macau for a day or a night. That could always be nice of course... 

Well, soon it should all be ready, I hope anyway. Keep your fingers crossed for us! 

10 km run

I haven't been working out for a month due to being sick, visits and the wedding. I know, excuses excuses. I totally got a caught by the lazy bug as well... But now I'm back working out and it feels absolutely fantastic! 

On my way to spinning class yesterday I saw a poster at the gym about a 10km run here in Hong Kong on Sunday January 27. It's three weeks away. I am not a very good runner, I run pretty slow, but I do have stamina. After conquering 5 km a few years ago I decided to go for 10 km now. I know I can do it, I ran 10 km a few times already. But now I'm almost starting from scratch again due to the long break. So, Honey and I signed up for the 10 km run on January 27, three weeks away. Are we going to make it? Failure is not an option, and three weeks goes by fast, but I see it as a goal to get back in shape very quickly. So the race is ON! 

Do I have a plan to get ready for 10 km in three weeks? Well, I have an idea for sure. 

1. I will go to my beloved RPM/spinning classes to get the cardio going and to get my heart rate in shape again, 3 to 4 times a week. Okay to take double classes during lunch to work up my stamina. 
2. I will run three times a week until the race: 
1. First week 5 km.
2. Second week 7 km.
3. Third week 9 km. 
3. Make sure I work out six days a week, sometimes twice a day. 
4. Keep eating healthy. 

I will do this for three weeks. It's a tough schedule, but it is also during a limited time. And I am used to work out six days a week, the difference this time is that I have an actual goal; to run 10 km on Sunday January 27. It will be the first race Honey and I do together. 

Okay, wish us Good Luck, we will need it. 
"Ida, get your head in success-mode, you know you can do it, three weeks is nothing"... 

New year, new possibilities

2012 is now behind us. It was a year where a lot happened in my life, and January to May was the preparation for what's to come. 

June: I quit my job at Philips Consumer Lifestyle (miss them), moved to Hong Kong with all my belongings, to be with the love of my life. 

July: A wonderful vacation to Cairns, Australia to hang out with my beautiful sister and her husband. 

August: Met with the great people at SWEA (a Swedish women's organization in Hong Kong). 

September 2nd: Honey proposed!! 

October: Finally got rid of the eye infection (took two months), and Wedding planning. 

November: Joined Bulletinen as a volunteer writer and editor (a free magazine sent out to all Swedes in Hong Kong who are registered at the Swedish general consulate), and more Wedding planning. 

December: Family on a visit (still missed Nicke, Misan and Stella), and the wonderful wedding! 

It was a pretty darn good year! I hope this year will continue the same way. My goals for 2013 includes: 

• Get the dependent visa. 
• Start working again. 
• Sign up to learn Cantonese. 
• Be able to work as a Spinning instructor again.
• Become an RPM instructor. 
• Continue to write articles for Bulletinen. 
• Develop my knowledge in editing. 

This list is not definite and will very likely be edited and things will be added as the year goes on. 

The normal new years resolutions like "Lose weight, and work out more" etc is not on the list. Instead I have once and for all decided to like my body the way it is. It's so tiring to fight it all the time, to always be unsatisfied. I will focus on seeing the good things of my body instead. At my age I have to realize that my legs will never be slim, because that's not how I'm built. So what if I have cellulite, we all do. From now on I will choose not to see them, because they don't mean anything to me. 

I know how to eat right, and by doing so most of the time I'm not going to feel bad on days where I let go for my cravings and stuff my face with chocolate, pizza and other unhealthy snacks. 

I want to feel good about myself, and a start is to accept me for who I am and what I look like. We all have different genes and body types. Is it really worth cutting out the good stuff like a bag of salty licorice, a creamy sauce, fresh bread with butter and cheese to have a perfect body? (What is a perfect body anyway?) To me it's not worth it. I don't need perfect, I want to enjoy life, all of it, with both food, work out and other fun things. 

Enjoy life, and if you don't like something, make sure to make a change, don't just whine about it! 

Let's all have a fantastic 2013! Let's all have a great year of the Snake!