New Photo Album - First Children Assignment

I know it's been a while since I last updated this blog.

Over the past few months, I have been traveling on and off, mostly to Japan, running in some races... and above all, slacking.

Luckily I still got one item on my to-do list done - a long overdue promise to take pictures of my friend's lovely daughter, Liana. We picked Nan Lian Garden, a park on the Kowloon side with a nice wooden mill and bridges, to do the shooting.

Liana was quiet at the beginning when she met a total stranger who carried an equally strange equipment on his neck, but gradually opened up with some giggles later. Cute girl.

Photos uploaded in the Galleries session. Here is a slideshow of it.

We made it in 23hrs 35mins.

Although Monami got huge blisters (same size of her heel) on both feet and My old ITB problem came back after 30km point, we finished the Hong Kong 100km race yesterday in 23 hours 35 minutes.

Bonus happiness from our new Singaporean friend Alan and Eason from China's Guangdong. We met at around the 66 km point, where they were struggling to finish the rest of the trail. We pushed each other and finished together hand-in-hand. Running gives us strength and friendship!

Counting down to HK 100!

Getting excited before the race tomorrow. Mo and I will be limping along with more than 700 crazy trailrunners, including some of the best friends we met in the Mongolia race last summer.
And of course, we are running for Shoe4Africa, raising fund for this inspiring charity to build the first children hospital in Kenya. Support us if you have an extra nickel!

(Picture: Timo, Mo and I training for the 100km race in Tokyo last month. Timo is the person who introduced Shoe4Africa to us.)

New Photo Album - Amina the Mongolian Monster

Uploaded a new photo album "Amina".

Amina is the three-year-old daughter of our Mongolian friend Bujima, who generously allowed us to stay at her place in Ulaanbaatar before we headed for the ultramarathon race. During the week we spent with Amina, we observed several things of her:

1) She's super energetic - she woke up before us and slept after us. Whenever we opened our eyes, she was either screaming, jumping on sofa, or eating loads of snacks...

2) She eats a lot - by 3-year-old she can finish a full bowl of udon at Sakura restaurant, a famous Japanese restaurant in downtown Ulaanbaatar. When she's done, she would also pay respect to the owner by yelling, "Oishi!!" ("delicious" in Japanese)

3) She likes photography - when we arrived at her place, the first thing that caught her eyeball was my Pentax Optio WG-1 camera. Amina grabbed my camera and played for days, taking tons of self-portraits. Here is an example of her masterpiece:

Amina self-portrait

Running for a Children Hospital in Kenya

One more update of myself - I have just registered as a runner for Shoe4Africa, a charity organization which focuses on improving healthcare issues in East Africa. For the coming races, Monami and I will be running for them to raise money for a children Hospital in Kenya.

Please visit their website and see the meaningful projects Shoe4Africa have brought to the kids there so far. If you are moved by their initiatives as I do, please support me and Monami by donating any extra dollars you spare for the cause!

My donation page (click on the image to visit the original site)

Thanks so much for your every support so far!!!