Angry.

I’m sure most of you are probably already aware of the hostage crisis in Manila that claimed that lives of 7 (or 8, as some reports claim) Hong Kong holiday makers.

To be honest, when I was watching the news on TV, I was getting angrier and angrier at the Phillipines police. I mean, using a sledgehammer to try to break the windows on a bus was about the worst hostage rescue mission that I’ve ever seen in my life. What’s pissing me off even further was that – how can a rescue operation last 2 hours? I could understand that standoff to last for a long time, but rescue operation to last 2 hours? In the 1991 SIA hijack incident, SAF commandos finished off the four hijackers and saved all the hostages in 30 seconds. We have one hostage taker, and the whole operation took 2 hours. I don’t even think that’s a “rescue operation”.

There were also several opportunities during the day when I thought the police could have taken actions. If you look back at the pictures of the whole saga, you could see at several points in time the hostage taker was standing “leisurely” at the bus entrance, and nothing happened. While I’m no armed forces experts, I thought that would have been the best opportunity to take action. Either take him out with a sniper shot, or just shoot him in the arm, the leg, the whatever and bring him down. Instead, nothing happened. If that lot of dummies would have actually done somethign more constructive, we don’t have to endure the pain of losing so many lives.

And when the rescue operation did take place, just what on earth were the policemen thinking when they were trying to break open the window using a sledgehammer? Isn’t that like announcing to the hostage taker that “we are coming in”? Haven’t they got anything like mild explosives which would be just enough to blow off the bus windows at the front and back of the bus? Also, when they were trying to “storm” the bus using the emergency exit, just what were they thinking?

Thank goodness I’m not a Filippino – I would have been ashamed if the police force that I depend on to protect my lives is so outrageously incompetent.

Holiday.

While I have 2 more weeks to go in my monster schedule, I am making plans to go for an overseas holiday after those 2 weeks are over. I know everything is still castles in the air at this point of time, but it’s still enjoyable to be able to have a good thought about making this holiday come true.

At things stand I have two plans. Plan A is a Shanghai-only tour that would probably last from 28 August to 2 September, and the main purpose of this trip is really the World Expo. Considering that I’ve been to Shanghai about once a year on average, I don’t think there’s much for me to explore about Shanghai so my main mission is really the World Expo. To be honest, without the World Expo, I probably might not be thinking about Shanghai as my holiday destination this year. But since it’s kind of at my doorsteps, it probably might be worthwhile to go take a look.

Plan B is a slightly more mammoth plan which is going to take me to two places – Shanghai and Seoul. Apparently I can do an arrangement with China Eastern to fly to Seoul via a stopover in Shanghai without additional cost. Considering that an air ticket to Seoul alone probably costs more than $3000, this offer by China Eastern seems like a decent deal to me. And given that I can visit two places, this plan certainly sounds exciting.

I’m looking for travel mates for either of the plans now and while it would be fine for me to really travel on my own, it would probably be fun to have someone tag along too! For Plan A, the whole thing is simple – we go to Shanghai, walk around Expo for 2 or 3 days, then perhaps throw in a day of Hangzhou or Suzhou for good measure, then we are done. I think I know Shanghai pretty well, so I don’t think you’d ever get lost following me. For Plan B, you can choose to join the Shanghai part only or the Seoul part only, or do an extended tour and visit for Shanghai and Seoul with me. I’ve been to Seoul last year, and I think I didn’t visit the place enough, so it would still be fun. And the highlight of the visit to Seoul would be watching FC Seoul play at the Seoul World Cup Stadium!

It’s actually quite exciting to be thinking about the trip even though absolutely nothing is confirmed yet (at least my leave isn’t confirmed yet, which is the most important thing!). But my past travel experiences were such that everything got confirmed within a day or two, so it looks like things are going to happen that way again this time round!

Exhaustion.

I have been carrying a very exhausted body for the past couple of days. I think whenever I have to bring these Mainland groups around, I tend to become physically and mentally exhausted easily. Luckily the weekend is coming, and I could take a small 2-day break from work, and hopefully I can recuperate as much as possible so that I can conjure up enough energy for the group that’s coming in next week. And when next week is done, hopefully I’m not dead yet so that I can still look after that group that’s coming in the week after!

Anyway I think I’m quite sure I’ll be taking a few days’ leave when these 3 weeks are over, and I most likely would be flying off to somewhere just to get out of all these exhaustive work. At things stand I would be heading to Shanghai for the World Expo, but nothing is confirmed yet as I don’t even know when I could be taking my leave. I think I need to really sit down and plan my leave or something like that – actually ideally I would like to take a longer break, and perhaps visit Seoul at the same time. Well, I’ll see how I could manage.

God help me through this.

Thanks.

Thank you everyone who remembered my birthday and sent me all the good wishes. As I step into the big three-zero into the journey of my life, I am grateful that I have so many friends around me. I guess God’s treating me well to allow me to have so much love.

Actually I didn’t really have my birthday on my mind for most of yesterday, especially as I had to be bringing around another group from Mainland. To be honest, for about half a second yesterday when I woke up, I thought it was a public holiday. Luckily for me, reality brought me back to earth and I reminded myself I’m in Hong Kong, and National Day is on 1 October instead of 9 August!

Anyway I’ll probably be busy for the whole week with the Mainland group, hopefully everything is going to turn out fine.