Kung Hei Fat Choy! Are you enjoying your Chinese New Year holidays? I wish every one is. It’s probably the best time of the year, people are always smiling and the atmosphere is just fantastic, except that most shops are closed and you couldn’t spend your red pocket money right away.

It’s “business as usual” for me: visiting relatives, non-stop eating and mahjong games starting from the Chinese New Year’s Eve (Jan 28th). My family has had the same 3-day schedule probably since I was born. The only modifications made were the number and length of visits - we go to fewer places and spend less time in this traditional activity gradually.

Last year I did not go to the New Year Fair in Victoria Park as I always did in the past 20 years or so. I forgot why, but this year I went again with my family. We spent less than 20 mins and left quickly after buying a few plants, it was just too crowded to stay any longer! Still, I managed to take a photo.

I wish all of you a healthy, lucky and prosperous Year of Dog!

It’s my turn finally, after both my mom and sister fell sick last week. I started coughing seriously on Monday and finally fell on Thursday. I should have gone to the doctor earlier, big mistake. It turned out that my last visit to the doctor was in 2002! I caught a cold, with a light fever. The doctor gave me lots of pills, there were 10 different types of them! Can you believe it?! Anyway, I took them and just rested as much as I could. I feel pretty OK today, hopefully I could recover completely after one more round of medication.

The Watsons Finals on Saturday was great, I got some free tickets from my morning league teammate and spent the whole day in Victoria Park Centre Court watching some of the best women’s tennis in the world, that should have justified my skipping of the regular practice at HKU. The seats we had actually cost HK$680 each and were right behind the Players’ Box, that means we were just two rows from the court! I could literally touch Kim Clijsters or Lindsay Davenport! There’s nothing better I could ask for. I can’t wait to see them again next year.

Meanwhile, I have finally started my training for the 10KM run last week. I now go to the gym three times a week with my new, expensive pair of Mizuno running shoes. Under the advice of professional coach, I took things as slowly as I could because I am an absolute beginner (and definitely not a good runner). I only ran 3KM every time during the first week, using the most comfortable (lazy?) speed and trying to practice different ways of breathing. The last recorded time was around 22 mins and heart beat rate was at 157 the highest. I plan to increase the speed and distance gradually, so that I could finish the 10KM race in around an hour ultimately.

The gym is right next to my office, usually it won’t take me more than 45 mins to complete the training and shower. I find it extremely convenient and have no clue why many people say I don’t have time for exercises.

As a birthday present, Andy took me to the Victoria Park last night to watch the Watsons Water Champions Challenge (the site crashes my Safari though), where I saw top WTA players like Davenport, the Williams Sisters, Clijsters, Dementieva and others play in a close range. Tonight I went there again with Bernice, and it was so much colder that I had to keep eating to get some warmth. Although it’s an exhibition tournament, I think I got my money’s worth simply because it’s very difficult to see any of them (not to mention eight!) so closely in any other place.

A side note: I took the faulty SD card to a data recovery expert and got the report finally. Their analysis report reads:

Physical state of the drive is very unstable; it cannot be read by our recovery tools. Analysis shows that it’s hardware error of the drive. Electronic test of the PCB and clip shows that, core memory has been fail. According to the physical defect, we cannot analyze the logical state of the SanDisk. Due to the above physical error we suggest close case.

Any idea what should I do now? I have yet to tell mom this bad news! May be I should start planning to take her to Tokyo Disneyland again!