Good bye Steve Jobs, Hello Yangshuo, Cebu, Hillary and joint Toronto visit

Dear Friends - I have been terrible at keeping up with my blog. First and foremost, Steve Jobs, the legendary innovator behind Apple's amazing story, Pixar and disruption of the music industry, passed away from pancreatic cancer a day after the IPhone 4S was announced. He told Stanford Grads in 2005 to Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish, and with our careers, Don't Settle.  The world shed so many tears and so did I. What a loss and in time to stick it to Bill Gates for copying Apple's OS decades ago.

Two months have passed since we headed off to Cebu Philippines for a one-night two day trip to Mactan Resort in Lapu Lapu for my birthday.  Awful beaches and mediocre food, but a great nearby getaway with spa, pool, jetskiing and snorkeling!  Great weather too; not too hot. Wifi and lazy lounge chairs as well. Only 2 hours by flight away, we managed to have a great b-day dinner with friends then scoot off on Sat morning until Sunday night!

https://picasaweb.google.com/118026906425264328225/CebuPhilippinesAug2011

Somewhere in between the stock markets crashed again. Sad for our new investments in HSBC.

Anyway the rest of August my two close friends Claire and Domina moved to Hong Kong. And we got did fabulous hikes to Sai Kung beach which was surprisingly far better than in Cebu! And the stream of visitors continued with my MBA classmate Alice and her sister, Stephen's cousins from France, my cousin Lily from Toronto, his uncle from Toronto, etc. Fun times!

In September, we took a weekend trip to Yangshuo, a gorgeous karst mountain range in Guangxi province near Guilin (this is the home province of my father's family). Local tour guide (Mulan) was hired and we rode bikes about 50km (flat) through rural areas. The weather was humid but we enjoyed wonderful locally chilis and food, rice picking hats, outstanding views cormorant fishing and random local shops for snacks.

https://picasaweb.google.com/118026906425264328225/YangshuoGuilinAreaGuangxiChinaSept2011

For the rest of the month, I was in North America, first in LA for work then San Francisco as an APEC delegate with Hong Kong for the Women & the Economy Summit. At this amazing conference, we got to hear Hillary Clinton and Sheryl Sanberg (Facebook) and Christine Lagarde and Yang Lan speak how Women's full participation is good for economic recovery.  Met a lot of great people from public and private sector from all around the world!  Then it was all work after that before meeting Stephen in Toronto.

It was our first trip back to Toronto together since moving to Hong Kong. A lot of babies and family events which is nice but totally different from Hong Kong life. Seems too short. I am so glad to finally be back at home in HK after an immediate trip to Taipei to speak at a work conference. Then getting really sick after throwing up from a fancy Hakka lunch meal. Thankfully I recovered quickly!

Miss everyone and sorry that my blogs are becoming more factual and less insightful.

Typed from my new mac book air!!! thanks Stephen!