Here’s a post to link to a new website that is a nice collection of Dutch expat related sites all over the world.

They’ve included some of my posts there as well, happy reading!

ExpatCentrale is de website met de leukste blogs en relevant nieuws voor Nederlandse expats die wonen en/of werken in het buitenland….

An interesting and typical Hong Kong story happened today:

As I was strolling along my office area during lunch I noticed this excitement around one of the traffic junctions.

Two of the electric trams had collided somewhere smack in the Causeway Bay shopping area. Up to 40 of the
passengers have been injured in this collision - but fortunately no one was seriously hurt and most had minor injuries.

But the interesting thing is all the fuss around these two trams afterwards. I arrived at the scene when both trams
were already empty and all passengers had been carried away.

Still though - I counted FIVE ambulances, THREE fire trucks, FOUR tv crews, and about 50 odd staff of the various
public forces. Most of them were just loitering around, while their managers seemed to be frantically speaking into
their walkie talkies. Nothing happened here at all for most of the time!

It would have taken one of the tramway’s own maintenance cars to get the two trams back up the tracks and
scurry them off to the repair workshop.

This is just crazy!

It’s been a while since I visited the Computer Center at 298 Hennessy Road to find new gadgets, stuff, etc.

Here are two key observations from this time:

16GB SD Cards now sell for a mere 248 HKD - very affordable, and it already hurts that I purchased one just 4 months ago for close to 500 HKD…

The other novelty this time around was the sudden increase in brands and types of digital video players on offer. The ones I found definitely indicate a trend towards low cost, reasonable quality devices, including 8, 16, or 32 GB storage, a 3 or 5 inch screen, and built-in speakers. Plays nearly every type of video format and retails here from 600 HKD up to 1300 HKD.

This certainly isn’t a new category, but the sudden onset of very affordable devices could put these devices into the hands of a wider group of consumers. Similar to what happened in the GPS navigation category some years ago. Unfortunately in the case of the digital video player though - this will be an “intermediate device”. I.e. it will at some point be integrated in smartphones and then the need for a separate digital video player disappears. This is already happening in the area of mp3 players. You can see less of these on offer these days!

Below a picture of some of the video playing devices on offer - sorry for the poor quality.

We rented a car for a day and drove up to Sai Kung. A nice day on the beach with great Chinese food.

For a change the weather is excellent in Hong Kong. No smog and a pleasant 20-25 celsius.

Went to the peak last Saturday with mum and Matthijs for some city gazing.

This picture was taken around 5pm - near dusk. Click on this picture for the larger version.

I pass some of these container ships almost every day. This time of the year full cargo loads with all kinds of China made goods for the holiday shopping season pass through Hong Kong.

In Nederland heeft Pa heeft net iets op Youtube gezet - nog van het bezoek van “de oma’s” hier in Hong Kong.

Domino spelen met matthijs…

Waren in het land.

Matthijs heeft zich dus goed vermaakt met oma en tante en zijn nederlands is er weer een stuk op vooruit gegaan.

Hij kent ook weer een aantal nieuwe nederlandse liedjes en verders is hij nu volledig in de ban van ‘chocolade hagelslag’ dat hij voor het eerst op z’n boterhammetje bij z’n ontbijt kreeg.

Toos en Mies hebben zich ook goed vermaakt - buiten het spelen met Matthijs in en rond het huis zijn de dames er bijna elke dag op uit getrokken om Hong Kong te bekijken.

Ook zijn we nog een avond wezen stappen in Lan Kwai Fong met een prima diner in Orange Tree restaurant. Cultureel zijn we ook geweest door eens in het Historisch Museum van Hong Kong te kijken. Daar was ik zelf na bijna acht jaar in Hong Kong ook nog niet eens geweest en ik moet zeggen - een aanrader.

Al met all een leuke twee weken - de tijd vliegt en inmiddels zijn moeders en tante mies alweer ruim een week thuis.

Hieronder wat foto impressies.