EcoLog02 - The move from NZ to Hong Kong

Hi to you all

Our little valley here in Hong Kong is all that we imagined. From 6.30am all the birdies are twittering away. Jenny (whose home we are living in) has very kindly given up her room for us. We can look out of the window at the trees surrounding the house and foggy hill tops. It is all very green with splashes of red from the bougainvillea and hibiscus flowers with many colourful butterflies flittering by. Mr Magpie has already woken and is hassling pussy cat that sleeps on the balcony. They play a game where cat gets fed, magpie stalks food. Magpie seems to have the upper hand. He wouldn’t if it was Mr Bo and Humphrey (our fluffy monsters in New Zealand) were out there defending there food!

We now have our very own transport. Yes our own mountain bikes! In the first couple of days here we did a bicycle tour of Mui Wo. It is a nice little village of about 4000 people, which has its focus at the ferry/bus terminal where there is a massive bike park for all the locals whose only form of transport is pedal power, as the road across Lantau Island ends at Mui Wo. Have checked out the local supermarket, bar and café are – all the important places. Looped around the market and discovered the flower shop and a fantastic book shop. Cycling up the valley is a bit of a workout. The homeward journey is not too steep but has three distinct “ups” that you need to negotiate. No need to frequent the gym. All the cycling and walking exercise is going to keep us fit.

Jenny has 5 dogs that all spend most of their day sleeping in the yard. They are various sizes with Belle the little pug the most lovable. Charlie the pig has a wonderful new house. Since moving into the kid’s pink dolls house he has become a very lazy pig – not keen at all to say hello now that he has no need to move from his salubrious accommodation except at meal times!

Jenny has two teenage children who live at home along with Nancy and Ron, Jenny’s Filipino helpers who do all the cooking, cleaning and home maintenance. Our day generally starts with business activities that can be attended to from our “home office” then in the afternoon it may be time to go into HK Central to catch up with people at our own XL networking events or spend time at other organizations’ networking events. Today we also worked with Jenny on an environmental project where Year 2 school kids came into the valley to learn about organic farming. Yes it is a pretty idyllic life style!

Yesterday we had a good poke around our little house at the top of the valley. It is a very cool place and we are looking forward to having real fun decorating and setting it up.

EcoLog01 - Why move to Hong Kong

Why Hong Kong?

Three key reasons

1) A Business

We have been involved with XL Results Foundation, an entrepreneur's coaching network since 2004. A year ago we took on the license to run XL in Hong Kong and Macau. Now we are heading over to really get this business rocking. The business is about helping people grow their businesses so that they can then have more resources available to donate to charities.

Another core part of the organization is what is called Wealth Dynamics, a personality profiling system that shows you your path of least resistance for generating wealth. For more info on the profiling check out http://www.wealthdynamics.org/ and to learn about XL head to http://www.resultsfoundation.com/

2) A Conservation Project

For those of you who know about Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington (http://www.sanctuary.org.nz/) or the Eden Project in the UK (http://www.edenproject.com/), we are setting up a similar type of project on Lantau Island called Ark Eden on Lantau (http://www.arkedenonlantau.com/).

The basis of it is working with 2 other people who as teachers now have children come to the village of Mui Wo to plant trees and learn about nature conservation. We are going to assist this through providing eco-tourism ventures such as accommodation, bush walks and cultural tours.

3) A Change

We were thinking of going off on a big OE trip as a holiday. Then thought why not make it a working one where we are working on our own businesses rather than working just for money and not necessarily in areas that we are passionate about.

The business and conservation projects both really excite us hence why we can not wait to get to Hong Kong.

So what does that mean for us...
You will have to read the EcoLog's of our journey!

Grow well
Merrin and Louise
The Ecopreneurs