Photo by Steve Webel

by Jasmine Williams on September 19, 2011

Hong Kong taxis were added to the top 10 ranking of world’s best taxis; London and New York cabs have been top-rated globally for the past four years.

“With the increased flag falls and better economy, taxi drivers are earning more, so they are happier in their jobs and provide better services to their passengers,” Lai Ming-hung, chairman of the Taxi and Public Light Bus Concern Group, said.

From a daily earning low of HK$200 (US$25.65) during the 2008 financial crisis, drivers are now earning between HK$400 and HK$500 a day, Lai said. He encourages drivers to be friendly to passengers – locals and visitors alike – and avoid cheating tourists to improve their public impression…

http://www.thirdage.com/news/taxis-in-hong-kong-rank-among-worlds-best_09-19-2011

Our family had the opportunity to go to the USA this summer for 3 weeks to visit our families, it was a WONDERFUL trip.  If you’d like to see some photos from that trip, you can go over to my (slightly more active) Flickr site ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/webel ).  If you are not logged into Flickr, you’ll just see a small handful of photos, however, if you are logged in and I have you marked as ‘friend’ or ‘family’, you’ll get to see several dozen of my favorite photos from our trip to the US.

When I first moved to Yueyang (about 9 years ago) there were two ways to get to this city from the closest city with an airport.  The ‘highway’, which took 3-4 hours in good weather and the train which was a pretty consistent 2-2.5 hours.  Then the ‘super highway’ opened up and you could ride a bus in about 2 hours and then take a taxi from the bus station into town in another 40 mins to an hour.

Those of you who have braved the trip to come and visit us can testify to how getting to us was not an easy task!

But things have changed.  On December 26th, the day after we celebrated the birth of Christ, the high-speed train started operating.  It’s amazing (it’s the fastest train in the world with an average speed of 350 Kmph and a high speed of 400 Kmph)!  It will take us to the capital city of our province in just 30 minutes!  The city to the north of us, which used to be 3.5-4 hours away, is now only 50 minutes! This has potential to change things in a big way.

We are hoping to ride it soon – when we do, we’ll be sure to share the story and post some photos!

First, it was calling for rain, then it changed to thunderstorms, then it was just calling for high winds (probably due to the typhoon hitting China to our north) and now it’s calling for sun and rain.

I’ll post a picture or two to my Flickr account and I’m sure Erica will blog about it in a day or two.  This I do know, rain or shine, there are going to be some pretty happy little kiddos tomorrow!

This trip is a combination of vacation, medical, and logistics.

Logistics – Elizabeth’s and my passports expire soon, so we need to go to the consulate and get new ones!  Medical – a whole bunch of routine checkups are on the schedule as well as a dentist appt for me that I’m not thrilled about.  Vacation – there will be Western food, grandparents and Disneyland involved…

Maybe I’ll even post a blog post or two while I’m there!

This is the largest model railway in the world, I think I could get lost in there!

HK airline apologizes for airport tantrum video

HONG KONG (AP) — Cathay Pacific has apologized for embarrassing a customer whose anguish after missing her flight was captured on video by an airline employee and posted on the Internet.

The Hong Kong airline said in a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday that the worker who filmed the video has been disciplined but that another person posted the footage on YouTube, a video-sharing Web site.

The three-minute video shot on a mobile phone shows a woman wailing, throwing herself on the floor, banging on an airport counter and trying to barge through a closed boarding gate at the Hong Kong International Airport on Feb. 4 after missing a flight to San Francisco.

“They have no compassion. The plane hasn’t even left, and they’ve shut the gate. They’re crazy! They’re crazy!” the woman shouted.

First posted on YouTube on Feb. 12, it had drawn 4.97 million views and nearly 18,000 comments as of Thursday. Some postings have added mock subtitles.

Does our world seem backwards sometimes?

The reason why is mostly due to the fact that my family and I are all traveling right now during the Chinese New Year.  As you may already know, during Chinese New Year, there are no classes to teach and all of our friends are very busy with celebrating this very, very family oriented holiday.

It’s not that I don’t have internet access, I do.  In fact, last week I had faster internet access then I’ve had since I was living in Texas last year!  The reason is I’m spending more time on activities pictured below than on my [new, and very, very cool computer!]