Bailey gets a walking buddy

I don't have any fun pics to share from the weekend because we didn't go to Taiwan. That's 2 trips to Taiwan canceled in 2 weeks. Some force must not want me in Taiwan. This time the trip was canceled because the client canceled her trip and therefore there was no reason for me to go.

Instead, Mark and I stayed in Hong Kong and just hung out, did laundry and had pizza delivered. I did get pics of those activities. Here's the cute little Pizza Hut motor bike delivery in front of our apartment.

New helper
Some exciting news is we did hire a new helper who started on Monday, Aug 18th. We have not replaced Beverly since she left us to go work in Canada in March. But, I've been having a very hard time escaping work mid-day to come home at lunch and take Bailey out for a walk so to be fair to her poor 11 year old bladder, we needed to hire some more reliable help.

Our new helper's name is Virgie and I really couldn't guess at her age, except its somewhere between 45-65 years old. She's from the Philippines but has lived in Hong Kong for 18 years and is now married to a Chinese man so is a citizen. She works full time for someone else, but now works part-time for us Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She'll walk Bailey and do some light housework.

Hungry Ghost Month
What I don't love so much about Hong Kong is Hungry Ghost Month which is what people are celebrating right now. It's another time of the year when people light candles and give offerings of fruit and other food and burn paper money. In ancient Chinese tradition, the gates of Hell burst open, unleashing the spirits of the restless dead, or 'hungry ghosts', and offerings were given to appease them.

Now, the belief is not quite so scary. Instead, many Chinese believe the dead return to visit their living relatives and so they prepare a sumptuous meal for the "hungry ghosts" in order to get good fortune and luck.

We live in a very local part of town and this belief is widely held with people leaving full meals on the sidewalk out front of their apartments.

In Bailey's mind it's like a street littered with an all you can eat buffet. Walking her is a nightmare and you have to keep her on a short leash so she doesn't eat any of the ghost's food.

Olympics
Friends back home also have been asking us about the Olympics but it doesn't seem that big of a deal anymore around here, but maybe that's because I'm not reading the Chinese media. In fact, Mark and I are getting all our Olympics news via Portland, Oregon TV. We have our Slingbox hooked up to my sister's house in Oregon so we get to watch Portland TV live whenever we want and end up watching the Olympics coverage via USA news.