Hello All,


A TYPICAL DAY WITH ATYPICAL PNEUMONIA
SHIPPING TO THE PHLIPPINES
SNOW IN HONG KONG
SOPHIA BABY PHOTOS
ONLY THE BEST DAHHHLING

A TYPICAL DAY WITH ATYPICAL PNEUMONIA
Thank you to all those who have emailed saying how concerned they are for our
health. The dreaded pneumonia hasn't got us yet. It is certainly surreal to be
walking down a familiar main street seeing 9 out of 10 people wearing face masks
as if we're living in a hospital ward. On the whole, we're just going about our
daily lives and not living in fear. We and all our friends up here have avoided
SARS so far but, rest assured, we are taking suitable precautions against
catching it.

It's interesting, though, watching how a culture reacts to a crisis situation in
its own special way. If this were Australia, radio breakfast show comedians
would be cracking jokes about the whole thing within no time and tearing to
shreds anyone so uncool as to be seen wearing a mask in public. Hong Kong, on
the other hand, has responded in typical entrepeneurial style, with that vital
touch of fashion-consciousness. We visited the street markets a week or so after
people started wearing masks and already, local manufacturers had produced
fashion masks in a mind-boggling variety of cartoon and brandname prints:
Adidas, Hello Kitty, the Paul Frank monkey, you name it! It's not uncommon to
see people walking around wearing one of these as WELL as a regular surgical
mask. Well, come on, if you're forced to accessorise against your will you may
as well be trendy about it. Another cute one we saw was a street busker singing
into his mike with all the passion he could muster, wearing a face mask! The
gothic/fetish looking guy in Mong Kok who was wearing a black leather mask with
silver studs to match his belt and dog collar was probably going a little too
far...

But, the reality is that this strange illness is still floating around the city
and making people sick. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers!


SHIPPING TO THE PHILIPPINES
One casualty of the atypical pneumonia outbreak has been the number of community
volunteers coming in to the warehouse. Many of the people who make up a valuable
workforce of part-timers (young students, expat wives, etc) are staying away at
the moment. This has meant an extra load on the shoulders of our warehouse guys
and processing co-ordinators. There were a few red eyes around this week as
those people put in extra hours preparing a shipment to the Philippines with
fewer hands on deck. It paid off though, as this lovely huge container went out
the door on Thursday full of furniture, electrical appliances and other good
things. The group receiving the shipment works with young people in the
Philippines, managing a drop-in centre for kids who have no other kind of
recreation in the area. One of the staff who works with the kids said, "there's
nothing for them to do, no gym, no library, unless you can afford to pay huge
membership fees, they end up getting into trouble and wrecking their lives".
It's a great kind of service to be offering the young people in this poor area
and it was exciting to see so many things going into the container to help that
work.


SNOW IN HONG KONG
Evan, that is. Evan Snow spent five days with us, staying in our spare room,
while on his way to a business trip to China. It was great having a friend from
home to bring all the Sydney news. We did a few touristy things like Stanley
Markets and riding hire bikes around Silvermine Bay and generally had a great
time just hanging out together, getting the inside scoop on the travel industry
(he works for a travel company) and taking photos of humourous SARS-related
scenes. He did get a spot of the old Hong Kong belly but we don't need to go
into that. Evan, you can come back any time! We miss you already!


SOPHIA BABY PHOTOS
Back in October we reported that Sophia Grace had been born to some friends up
here. We promised photos at the time, but never delivered on that. Ok, ok, so if
you don't know this baby you are less likely to be interested, but doesn't
everyone like a cute baby photo or two? We have now uploaded to our website some
of the latest photos of Sophia Salsido, the much cuddled baby of the Crossroads
team. She belongs to Fiona and Jose and big sister Gabby. Crossroads ex-pats and
others who know the family will get a kick out of seeing how incredibly like
Gabby Sophia is looking - it's spooky! Go here to see some adorable photos:
http://www.matt-ad.com/photos/sophia


ONLY THE BEST DAHHHLING
When Ad asked a Lantau local if he would help do blonde highlights in her hair,
she didn't realise she was soliciting the services of a hairdresser to the
queen! Yes, that's right, Mark from Lantau who is currently retired as a
colourist, used to work for the Queen of England's hairdressing team. He was
quick to point out that he didn't ever actually work on Her Maj's locks himself,
but he did definitely know the procedure for having a gin and tonic in the royal
quarters. This information was obtained in the usual hairdresser/client exchange
by Adelaide with a head full of foils sitting in our living room. Mark,
originally from England, lives in a neighbouring village and is an old local pal
to the team, leaning out his doorway for a chat as we walk past for the ferry
each morning. He kindly came out of retirement to do a highly professional set
of highlights on Ad's hair for no charge except a slice of pizza. Not bad for
two hours with an ex-employee of Hong Kong's and London's finest salons, not to
mention royalty!

Well, it's been a long update so we'll leave it there. Love to you all!

Matt & Ad