Richard Zinkiewicz - Personal Blog

Last night VJ and Uma celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary at a restaurant called one-thirtyone (131). I have never been there but it seems both VJ and Uma loved the place, and they agreed it was very different from a normal 5-star hotel restaurant. They said the vegetarian food was extremely well prepared and tasty (Chef Gordon Ramsey would be proud). The food preparation not too heavy, not too light, not too salty, not too sweet, just right. They loved the flexibility of the accommodating management and staff. The restaurant has a great environment. VJ enjoyed smoking his own cigar on the patio, walking in the garden, and sipping from his own bottle of red wine (red wine from the movie "Bottle Shock"). Both VJ and Uma appreciated Chef Gordon coming out to greet them with complementary champagne. They both insisted I take Vanessa there this week or asap...

wwww.one-thirtyone.com

Note: VJ and Uma were also impressed with the houses, gardens and lifestyle in the area and will drive up to look around the homes this Wednesday.

It seems one of the latest buzz words revolving around social media today is Twitter. I discovered Twitter while watching CNN as they were covering the horrible news about the attack at the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai. For those who haven’t heard about it yet, Twitter is somewhat similar to text messaging. Some call it the ‘SMS of the Internet’ and micro-blogging. One of the major appealing features about this service is that ‘tweets’ (Twitter messages/posts) are limited to 140 characters per message, making the stream of exchange sweet and simple, perfect for older users like me who don’t bother with the complicated features of other social networking services. Tweets can be sent from your mobile phone via SMS or by posting at the website itself.

I heard a lot of famous personalities have Twitter accounts with hordes of followers who receive first-hand and real-time updates from this person each time he or she tweets. I think I will give it a try myself!

Most people who know me know I'm an outdoor person who specially enjoys hiking a lot. My prime years of this activity were mostly here in Hong Kong after I left Ernst and Young and tried my hand as a quasi entrepreneur. It was from 1991 to '96 that I hiked and climbed the MacLehose Trail, the experiences of which have significantly molded me into who I am today.

So what is the MacLehose Trail? If you only know Hong Kong as a metropolis of concrete and neon signs, the notion of hiking here may seem a bit farfetched. Yet, Hong Kong is a marvellous place for hiking, and the MacLehose Trail is one of its famous hiking routes. Named after the longest serving governor of Hong Kong, Crawford Murray MacLehose, this 100-kilometre long trail crosses over some of the toughest terrain in the capital. It starts in the east from Pak Tam Chung, Sai Kung, to the west territory of Teun Mun. The trail is 2 ½ times a marathon (1,000 kms)and twice the height of Mount Everest in terms of elevation change.

My first tackle with MacLehose began when I joined the Trailwalker in 1991. The Trailwalker (now called the Oxfam Trailwalker), is one of the largest fundraising sporting events in Hong Kong which takes place annually in November. Since 1986 it has had more than 58,000 participants raising over HK$270 million to support Oxfam’s various poverty alleviation and emergency relief projects in Africa and Asia, including Hong Kong and mainland China. Historically, when Hong Kong was still a British colony, the Trailwalker was used as an endurance training regimen for the Gurkhas (or Gorkhas) who originated from Nepal and northern India. The Gurkhas were thought to possess physical strength, resilience and aggressive qualities, among other warlike attributes, and were thus recruited by the British to serve in the colonial army.

Getting back to the Trailwalker...basically this is a challenging race consisting of teams of four who are sometimes people you know like friends, but often times they are colleagues; otherwise, they are acquaintances. The trail has 10 sections to it, up and down, and each team must be together through each checkpoint. Mind you, this is not a relay and you all have to finish. Some people walk and some people run. Obviously, there's a core group of kind of very aggressive people who compete all the time. You can imagine that with varying levels of fitness amongst the members, the strongest and most fit would have no choice but to wait for the slowest of the pack to catch up.

I've done the Trailwalker 5 times -- I finished 3 and twice was unable to complete it. My best time of completing the trail is 20 hours. The record I think is 12 1/2 hours. A good time would be anything below 25...in fact, anything below 30 hours is a good time. The maximum they allow is 48 hours.

To be able to compete in the Trailwalker, I needed to train twice a week, after work, and in the evenings when it was cooler. I learned a lot about myself during this time. I learned that I'm very competitive. I learned that when I hit my physical or psychological limit it takes a lot of determination to overcome your desire to quit and to continue and not stop. I learned that as you get older, it gets more difficult to get up and go despite the fact that you have more experience and are thus wiser and more familiar with the track.

The Trailwalker was a good experience for me. I grew up raised by my mother who was a single parent. Anyway, I think I needed some military training after going through some soft discipline back then, so to compensate I underwent 5 seasons of training for the MacLehose. For one thing, it gave me confidence in terms of my physical abilities. It also gave me confidence in my ability to overcome my limitations when I hit the wall, psychologically. It taught me that physical strength is not as important as mental strength.

I would encourage anyone to try the MacLehose or something similar. Apart from discovering your capabilities in pushing the limit, you also learn a lot about team dynamics. It is an interesting experience both in terms of personal and group development.

Someone in the Philippine office shared this with me a long time ago.. It reminds us that sometimes being carefree is not a bad thing at all; emotions are the most natural thing for us to feel:

"Smile. It makes a world of difference.

Live. Because life is everything."

I'm a creature of habit. I think we all are. Each day I have one cup of coffee, my usual serving of fruits, and during weekends i go hiking. It may seem a bit toned down compared to my younger ('wilder') days, but I realise as you get older you begin to rationalise about your existence and focus on that ever prevailing existential question: "Why am I here?"

I exist to make a positive impact to anyone I meet each day. That is what I believe in.

I came across this quote by Jim Rohn a long time ago and it has always been one of my favourite anecdotes:

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan and guess what they might have planned for you . . . not much!"

During one of my business flights about four months ago, I remember watching a Louis Vuitton commercial on the inflight entertainment system. I thought the advert made quite an impression. It's about a journey:

"What is a journey?

The journey is life itself, where will life take you?"

Where the journey will take you will depend on whether you know where you want to go. Most people in their life go through life rather aimlessly without actually having a specific objective. They are born,they go through their early childhood and then elementary school, then they go into high school and in high school, you start selecting if you want to go into university and what you are going to major in..and then later on, all of a sudden, you find yourself in a law programme, or dentistry or medicine...or you find yourself out of the university and basically you find out that by process of elimination, you either made the wrong decision or did not make them at all and allowed decisions to be made for you. You find that the path that you are on is not created by you by predetermination but rather by accident, accident by others.

I think your journey will take you where you want to go, IF you know where you want to go. If you don't create a path for your own life, then it is created for you by others but not in your best interest!