October 7 -- Hong Kong

Hello Everyone,

After composing the most eloquent email ever written, my computer crashed on me, so we'll have to make do with this.

I'm still waiting to hear whether our ship will have to depart from Hong Kong harbor tonight.  That may happen if it looks like the typhoon is headed our way.  If the ship does pull out, I may have to go with it.  I could stay in a hotel, but nothing would be open anyway.  They say it's safer on the ship.  I'm not sure if I believe that.

Anyway, we finished our Hong Kong shoot today -- with two days to spare.  It just gives us more time to spend money we don't have.  I bought some souvenirs but I think I may wait till Vietnam and India to get most of them.

This morning, we met at 620am to go to this park where a "qi gong" teacher was holding a class.  She taught us how to do qi gong to keep us healthy and then she performed qi gong for this old man who has cancer of the throat.  The exercises made us look rather silly, so I hope no one ever gets a hold of our raw tapes.

Afterwards, we went to visit the feng shui master.  He was rather stern and unfriendly, without meaning to be.  He also had a deep booming voice -- it made the whole experience quite intimidating.  We felt as if we were consulting the oracle or meeting Buddha.  We asked a few questions and got the hell out of there.  He was a good interview though.  We found out today that our lives are fated -- I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that.

In any case, I should go see what's up with the typhoon.  If you don't hear from me in the next two days, then you'll know the news is bad.

Hope you are all well.

Charles

p.s. internet access in Vietnam may be scarce, so you might not hear from me for a while.  But please keep writing.