Stuck within a tunnel of countries (from Hong Kong)

Written by Torbjørn C. Pedersen on 18 November 2021.

Day 2,962 since October 10th 2013: 194 countries out of 203. No flight, no return home, min 24 hrs in each country and 1 pandemic!

(The opinions expressed on this site are my own, and do not reflect the position or policies of the Danish Red Cross which I represent as a Goodwill Ambassador).

No news is good news

pano

I used to hear that a lot within my childhood home: “no news is good news”. I guess it means that things are going well as bad news travels fast.

Last week’s entry: We can (almost) go to Palau by ship now (from Hong Kong)

It has been smoking busy for a while. There is still 24 hours within a day so I manage to reserve some time aside now and again. But I haven’t watched a movie for a while and I haven’t done any reading either. And that means I’m pretty block to block occupied. There is a lot of traffic on social media, within my inbox, and on my phone in general. For weeks it has been a lot worse than normal. When people ask me how I am, I don’t know how to reply? The standard and superficial: “I’m fine. How are you?” Or just: “UHGH!” Well, the good news is that The Government of Palau has been absolutely fantastic!! Pacific International Lines agent in Palau wanted an official letter address to him and the Presidents legal team arranged for it within a day or two. Outstanding! Hopefully he has now informed Pacific International Lines in Singapore (in black and white) that I can leave the ship in Palau and things can start rolling. Meanwhile Once Upon A Saga ApS has been reported to the police in Denmark for violating rules related to the collection of donations. This is the second time it has happened and is just a misunderstanding and nothing more. But it is time consuming to deal with. Fortunately, I have a lot of great people in my life who are fully capable when it comes to sorting out that kind of bureaucracy.

Eating local. Good stuff...

In spite of what most people think, Once Upon A Saga is in reality a very demanding and time consuming project to manage. Some times it can be quite calm. But in reality, it is more than often hectic. And recently it has been hard to balance my job at the Danish Seamen’s Church with the many tasks within Once Upon A Saga. Especially as the annual Christmas Bazar at the Seamen’s Church is taking place this weekend. There has been a lot of preparation for it and it is still ongoing. It will be an open event with food, good bargains and lots of Christmas lunacy both Saturday and Sunday. Monday everything needs to be packed and moved away. Meanwhile ships are still arriving to Hong Kong with all sorts of request from the seafarers, so there’s that to coordinate. And then the online kiosk with specialities and sweets from Denmark was restoked with nine full pallets from Denmark!! So there has been a booking frenzy over the past few days.

Anders and I worked on assembling this table football game. It took about 20% of our time to assemble 80% and another 80% of our time to complete the last 20%.

Anyway, I really don’t have time to write this entry and it is already past midnight here in Hong Kong now. My wife has arrived and is being hotel quarantined for 14 days about 8km (5mi) south of where I am. Not the most ideal way for her to start her vacation but these are the terms. Last night I had a nice video call with Florence from Surfrider, which is a non-profit organization which works for the protection and enhancement of the ocean, lakes. Rivers and coastline. Afterward I had a nice videocall interview with Ben from Euronews Travel. The world is full of nice people. I can’t believe this pandemic is still going? Didn’t we have people walking about on the moon back in 1969? It has almost been a full year with effective COVID-19 vaccines. How is Europe once again becoming the epicentre? How do COVID-19 cases keep rising? Anyway, I’m running out of time. So, the rest of this entry will be picture based. Enjoy.

The latest South China Morning Post (SCMP) interview came out this week. People back home don't know how huge SCMP is. They think it's a big deal when the Saga makes national TV in Denmark. But SCMP has a far larger audience. It's kind of funny to think about.

This was last weekend...

Jakob's friend Peter delivered a spectacular speech.

Jakob became 2nd in Greater China but 1st in Hong Kong.

Kenneth (left) is married to Rose and Anita (right) is married to Christian.

In October 2016 I was in Tanzania, buying a simcard from an old lady at a street parlor. There were a few people there. One of them was Bob (Robert) from Uganda 🇺🇬 We started talking. He was out traveling about, and suggested we should meet up when I came to his country. And we did.

From Tanzania we took the Saga to Burundi, then Rwanda, and finally Uganda where I met up with Bob again. And we became friends. Bob has since moved to the USA 🇺🇸 where he took a job, and as such we are now on opposite sides of this planet of ours.

Somewhere between 2016 and today, Bob suggested we should start an online shop selling merchandise from Once Upon A Saga. And so we did! A fraction goes to Bob and the rest goes to help fund the Saga.

Man!! I used to be able to see the light at the end of this tunnel of countries. But the light disappeared last year. Now we're just stuck in the longest tunnel of countries ever created. when people ask me how I am and I reply that I am tired, then it's not the type of tired which can be mended with sleep.

After a quick Thursday Hike with two of the nutcases we had some Indian food and once I got back I created this entry for you. See you next week.

I would like to thank our esteemed partners for their invaluable contributions to Once Upon A Saga: DB Schenker Denmark, Kameli, Red Sand Solutions, Salomon, the Danish Red Cross and Ross DK / Geoop

Hi Res with Geoop