Fook-Hung in Birmingham

Not Birmingham, Alabama...though I've never been! Visiting my childhood friend, FookHung, in Birmingham, England, was partly for some respite from crazy London sight seeing and largely to reconnect with an old friend who'd kind'a disappeared from my life suddenly back around Standard Five (5th Grade.) My sister, Josephine, and I used to have a blast playing badminton with FookHung and his brother, CheeHung. As I recall, the Khoo gals often beat the boy's asses! But hey, we were after all a badminton star's daughters! Never mind that these boys were younger than us, ages combined.

It was great fun getting to know FookHung again. His flat was in a quaint neighborhood south of this second largest city in England, which provided all the amenities I could need, even a choice of yoga studios! My time spent there was much like when I was in upstate New York in Nyack with Elizabeth. FookHung took me walking around downtown where there are considerable beautiful architecture. My favorite site was the canals with lazily floating barges, largely commercial as opposed to the homey Little Venice ones in London. In particular was the Book Barge as pictured - a cute little travelling bookshop!

FookHung was very concerned that I would be bored out of my mind for the week and constantly asked what else I could be doing. In reality, having nothing to do was what I was relishing in! The last few weeks, heck, years has all been about doing, doing, doing...I truly needed some time to just chill and contemplate some more on the meaning of life! Well, that and to also reorient my life so that it's not just all about doing, but living. One of my favorite yoga teachers, Janet Stone, often said in class, that if you keep on rushing and "doing" life, it will rush on by you as well. "Doing," in and of itself is not so much a bad or wrong thing per se, but I think oftentimes people tend to get into a mode of doing life without a moment of conscious thought to the reason or purpose behind. And I'm certainly writing from experience! I could go on for quite a bit more on this, but shall reserve that for another time!