Heading out and moving on

For the last four years, aside from about 8 weeks spent at home in Canada, I've spent every vacation period in mainland China which I calculated to be about 18 weeks off. Needless to say, I've traveled extensively in China, taken quite a few photos and made many friends. I'd like to say that they were all happy times but that'd be a lie, but like a friend said before, after the trip the hassles, bad weather and pains go away and you're only left with the good memories.

Nevertheless, I'm happy to say that I have finally stopped my addiction to traveling in China. For my Easter/Qing Ming 清明节 holiday I'm going elsewhere. It's been planned for awhile but I didn't want to announce it too early on this space in case something came up and I couldn't go. I'm leaving on Friday and heading to Macau to fly to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. The main highlights of my trip are to climb Southeast Asia's highest mountain, Mount Kinabalu at 4000 metres+, photograph heaps of wildlife in the rainforests and perfect my sunrise/sunset photography skills at the mountain and at a few of those white sandy beaches that Southeast Asia is so famous for. I'll be gone for two weeks returning in mid-April. Look out for my photos upon my return.

I'd also like to announce that I've decided not to renew my contract for the maskofchina website. That means that I won't be writing a blog anymore, at least not for the foreseeable future.

Since I moved to Hong Kong I've been losing interest in blogging as life demands inevitably increase when one moves to a city such as HK. At this point in my life, I'd much rather take, edit and look at photos, invest in the stock market, read politics/economics, hike and cook more than blogging. I will still be making quirky comments on other people's blogs and commenting on my own photography at flickr.com but that will be the extent of it. I'm hoping my photography touches more people than my blog has.

I'd like to thank my family, friends and readers-those who randomly come by via google or links from other sites-for supporting my efforts. The biggest surprise of my four year run of blogging was that people actually liked what I wrote and came back for more. The greatest gift I received from maintaining my website was the fact that I was able to meet and converse with so many interesting people in mainland China, HK and around the world. Some of the friendships will last a lifetime.

Thanks for joining me on my journey through China.