Leglessbird Sharing

Sydney March 2009

Dear Friends and Family of Leglessbird,

It has been more than 4 months since our last Leglessbird sharing. We did travel a bit during the first 2 months, but have been taking a break on travel since beginning of March. In the meantime, the world is under the threat of the on-going outbreak of H1N1 influenza A and Susan Boyle became the biggest thing on earth, the world needs inspiring stories like this.

Cairo, Egypt

During Christmas and new year time, we visited Egypt, Jordan, and Qatar, it was our 1st proper tour to the middle-east region, and I have always dreamed about visiting the Pyramid of Egypt and the Petra of Jordan (ever since I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989!!). A lot of the biblical stories sprung to our minds, the Exodus, the ten commandments, the red seas and the promised land. Not to mentioned the other interesting places like the Dead Sea, The Museum of Islam Art in Doha designed by I.M.Pei. To find out more, I also watched the classic film - Lawrence of Arabia. Please visit http://www.leglessbird.com/travel.html for photos.

Sami Tribe, Kirana, Sweden

Then over Chinese New year, we went on a dream trip to one of the other remaining largely untouched places on earth, the largest island on the planet, (larger than Australia and Antarctica is counted as continent and not island), the answer is of course Greenland! We were hoping to see the Northern Light, but was disappointed despite clear sky in Kangerlussuaq, we did enjoy the 12-Husky sledge ride over the endless icecap. Since it was such as long journey to get there, we also visited Denmark (Copenhagen) and Sweden (Kirana, Stockholm). In particular, we liked the stay at the Icehotel very much and did catch a glimpse of the Northern Light in Kirana (which is north of Arctic circle).

We had a one-week family trip with mum to Sydney visiting Dominic's sister and nephew. It is always good to spend time with family, we went to a vacation house in Jervis Bay.

We are learning from a tradition Chinese doctor on how to do head massage, so we can practice it on each other. We continue to take Japanese class once a week, the progress is slow but hopefully steady! We exercise at the gym in Cyberport regularly and supplement that with short walk at the hill behind our building. We did try to start organizing hiking again, but unfortunately was met with heavy rain and had to cancel it!

Hope you like our sharing and please drop us a few lines, we would love to catch up with you.

Yours,
Irene and Dominic

May 2009

What is Dominic up to?
Dominic has been giving talks and lectures on various topics: At Baptist University and Student Travel on visiting Egypt, Jordan and Qatar, sharing his trip that took place during Christmas and New Year; Co-hosted a seminar on how to become an independent professional (aka Freelancer) which was attended by ~30 people, he talked about the dos and don'ts, and how to go about making the transition from full-time employee to full-time self-employed, time management, the advantages and the challenges of being independent; Spoke to Chinese University business students on angel investments and with engineering students on consulting industry; at Polytechnic University with students studying e-commerce on a company case study that he co-founded.

March has been a busy month as there were a number of events related to Cambridge University, namely, the visit of the Vice Chancellor Professor Alison Richard, together with 4 heads of college and a college choir, record turnout of alumni and friends (over 250 people) at the reception for the vice chancellor. Then there was The Intelligent Airport Seminar, jointly organized by Polytechnic University and The Friends of Cambridge University in Hong Kong, to present the research results of the two universities and together with Cambridge alumni in key logistics industries in Hong Kong. This year is the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University and the 450th anniversary of Cambridge University Press (CUP) (the 3rd oldest commercial company in the world), a celebration event took place at the British Council organized by the CUP.

Dominic was very happy to be one of the best men at a friend's wedding in early May and met with a lot of new friends.

On the work side, Dominic did a location free project in April, closed an angel-round investment, working on a strategic review project and continue to advise on e-learning. He is also preparing on a workshop for SMEs and independent professional on how to save significant cost on IT infrastructure, service and software, spending almost next to nothing (click here for the poster of the workshop).

What is Irene up to?
Irene is taking Taichi and Latin dance classes regularly and has also resumed her Mandarin lesson. She was excited to be working on a project pitch for promoting a certain region in Italy to China and Hong Kong.

Leglessbird movie recommendation:
我的機械人女友 / Boku no kanojo wa saib?gu
http://cyborg.gyao.jp/

Japan 2008
A sci-fi romantic comedy, of a man in his old age and close to his dying years made a human-like robot in the form of a beautiful young girl and send her back in time to meet his younger self, to save him from a series of fatal disaster and to save innocent people from crime and accidents. He fell in love with the robot but does the robot love him back? What sort of disasters await him? Will she be able to save him every time? Read more...

Leglessbird restaurant recommendation
Tea & Herb

Shop B, G/F, Po Wing Building, 6-16 Shell Street, North Point, Hong Kong
Tel: 28068418
Read more...