Happy New Year to Everyone !!!!

This is definitely the gazillion and first time someone has used this for a title but it is appropriate so what the heck !!!

I have been able to catch up on most blogs (and found quite a few new ones !) since arriving home (actually more at work while waiting for reports to run or processes to complete !!) but haven’t been able to leave many comments. It seems as though most of us had a wonderful Christmas and a good New Year. I wish everyone everything that you wish for yourself for 2006.

A (not so short) synopsis of our holiday :
Our holiday was fantastic - while I wouldn’t say to anyone “You have to go there for a holiday” - I am really pleased that we went. Not only did we see a lot of the places that Al has spoken about but we probably got to see more than he has because we did a lot of touristy things which he hasn’t been able to do. We walked for miles and miles but that was partly to compensate for all the goodies we ate from the multitude of bakeries which they have. We were adventurous with our evening meals on occasions and ate from the markets - but only if we saw what they were actually cooking !!!!!! Some of the smells and some of the food looked totally inedible - the people there must have cast iron stomachs. One of the most amazing things was that there were no flies around - even with all the food (including mussels and oysters just on the side of the road - no ice - nothing !!!) - we never saw one fly there at all.

It was a wonderful experience for K who now realises that she really DOES live like a princess here !!!!! The poverty is something else. I don’t think she ever realised how much poverty there was in SA before we left. For any ex-Durbanites, many parts of Taipei look like Gray St and the bottom end of Berea Rd.

Hong Kong was very different to Taipei - much more commercialised. Although the weather was sunny - we were never actually in the sun because there are so many high rise buildings that the sun doesn’t make it as far as the streets - there is always some building case a shadow. We stayed at the Sheraton and it was really a lovely hotel to be in - the best thing was a hotel bed which was actually comfortable !!!!!! The pillows were cr*p but the bed was lovely !

We did lots of shopping at the markets in HK. I also had another “Oh sh*t” moment (pretty much like the time we flew to Milford Sound and we had been in the little plane about 3 minutes when I realised that, while I had said before we took off that I would be fine, I actually wasn’t fine. I don’t mind flying but I don’t do little planes very well at all !!). Anyway, we arrived in HK on the day that they had the dreadful riots due to the WTO conference. We say all these riots on the massive TV screens above the shops but didn’t know where they were and couldn’t understand anything that was being said. The following day we went to the tour desk to find out about going up Victoria Peak and were advised not to go across to HK Island due to the riots - so we shopped in Kowloon and went across the next day. We went up what is called the longest escalator in the world - it is actually a whole lot of little escalators but some of them were rather steep. At the top we walked across to get the tram to the top of the Peak - that was when the “Oh sh*t” moment happened. We used our Octopuss Cards to get into the tram station and Al asked how long the tram ride was. It is 400m and it takes 10 minutes - I can do 10 minutes I tell Al, I mean, how long can 10 minutes be ??????? VERY LONG !!!!!!!!!!! After about 2 minutes, I started to hyperventilate, after about 3 minutes I started to cry and not long after that I was nearly completely hysterical !!!!!!!!!!!! It stopped at two stations during the 400m but I couldn’t get off because it was so steep. Well, after what seemed like about 5 hours, we got to the top and I had to get off - Al’s shirt had black all over his sleeve and shoulder - I looked like a raccoon - when I think about it now, I can laugh about it but it wasn’t funny at the time !!! Actually when Al talks about it now my hands still get all sweaty !!!! I wonder why I just can’t get my head around heights - logically I know that there is no way that the tram could fall off or anything like that but my head just doesn’t deal with it like that. Anyway, once we were up there we still had to get down - Al wasn’t going to risk going down on the tram given the gradient so found out we could walk down except that there was no railing on the path and sometimes the steps were like walking down a ladder. So we started walking down on the road until a taxi came passed and we stopped him - 20 minutes later we got to the bottom (don’t know how long it would have taken us to walk it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

We looked around Santa Town when it got dark before going back to Kowloon. We took some photos while I will try to get into Flickr - if I could just find out how to put a link on the side to make it easier for everyone to access. Let me know if you can’t see them and I will see what I can do.
On the weight front - I stayed the same while we were away which I was very happy about. I did put on over Christmas but then stayed the same over New Year. I went to weigh each week just to make sure that things didn’t get out of hand because I know that this is when I really battle. I haven’t been counting points, I haven’t been tracking and I wanted to see how I had done. I had eaten what I wanted and just tried to make good choices when there were choices to be made. I had to change my weigh-in day to a Wednesday because there was no class on the two holiday falling on Monday. I was SOOOOOOOOOOO pleased to go back to Monday weigh in tonight as the weigher on Wednesday was really rude and very offish because I was a LTM wanting to weigh twice in two weeks !!!!!!!! She told me that I had to wait 3 months to get the new programme because I could only get one book a month and didn’t seem the least worried that (if I had wanted to follow the new programme) I would have to wait 3 months before I had the tools required. She did say that as a LTM I shouldn’t be obsessing about what the scales say. I told her that if I only weighed once a month, I would be in trouble as that is when things get out of hand and she basically told me I had to learn to deal with it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was really quite annoyed as I got the impression that they would only let me weigh in once a month and that way, when things did get out of hand, I would have to start paying again and they would make more money. That probably isn’t the reason but it certainly came across like that.

Tonight when I went to weigh, I was down 0.6 (since Wednesday) on my scale at home but when I got to WW, I had put on 0.2. So I have decided that from now on I am going to use my Monday morning weight for my blog - I really don’t have too much faith in the WW scales anymore. I know that I am maintaining reasonably well as my ¾ work pants are still fitting - probably a little tighter than they were but they aren’t at the uncomfortable stage. In light of the gain on WW scale, I am going to go back to counting and tracking this week - I have had a read of the new No-Count programme and while there are really good results for some people using it, I don’t think it is for me so I will continue with what worked for me to lose 23kgs.

It was a sad morning for me today - I had to take Al to the station to get the train to the airport as he has left for Taiwan again - where have the last two weeks gone to ?????? It just feels like a few days ago that we arrived home. We had a fantastic Christmas with our family - my folks and in-laws came over for lunch and friends popped over during the course of the day. Thank goodness for the air-con as it really was a life saver.

This has turned into a rather epic post (and I have left heaps out as well !!!!!!!!) but at least I have managed to get you all up to date (roughly) on what has happened and where I am at the moment. I do feel very motivated to lose a couple of kilos, which I think will be easier with Al away as K and I do seem to eat a lot ‘lighter’ when we are by ourselves. We also bought ourselves iPods which Al has loaded with music for me so I will be hitting the roads (either walking or cycling) and getting back into the exercise thing. My water intake has improved since I went back to work last week although I am still battling with low blood pressure. I also bought myself a Palm - it is the best thing out and now I can get rid of my bulky, but faithful, Filofax.

Al has just phoned to say he arrived safely in Taipei after a long flight - there were about 30 people on the flight !!!!!!

I hope that you are all getting back into the swing of things. I have not made any New Years resolutions as I feel that, for me, it is just setting myself up for failure. What I want to do is try to focus on making healthy choices for myself and my family with food and exercises.

TFTD : Happiness doesn’t depend on how much you have to enjoy, but how much you enjoy what you have.

TIAGF : Getting back into blogging

(I have absolutely no idea what has happened to my blog - I seem to have lost whatever I had before. Given my lack of skills at anything to do with web pages, I am not sure that I will be able to get it back to looking like it did !!)

I have managed to load some photos onto Flickr for anyone interested - I will try to finish loading them tomorrow night as I have to be off to work now.

1.50am update - have tried to upload some more photos but have been advised that I have used 100% of my upload allowance for the month (obviously all the months I never used it don't count for anything) so I will have to finish uploading the photos next month.