HONG KONG, China – My recent interview with Aki Ra, a Cambodian dedicated to landmine removal after being forced as a child by Khmer Rouge to plant mines, reminded me of my own close brush with unexploded ordnance.

A Cambodian woman walks past a landmine awareness sign near the Thai border in July 2007.

I was on a reporting assignment in former Khmer Rouge turf in northern Cambodia.

After hours riding on a bumpy road, nature called. We were in an area that had just reportedly been cleared of landmines and the government was resettling military families there.

Some villagers came out to greet us. We asked for a bathroom but there was none. Instead, they pointed to a path that still had a sign warning about the presence of landmines. You can never be sure if the mines are all gone, they said, so just stay on the path and find a spot along the way.

There were no trees and I juggled modesty with safety as I hesitatingly inched down the path. I turned back a few times and saw the dozen or so villagers standing on the road, watching my progress.

I finally got my business done and briskly returned along the path to our car.

But I have never forgotten that moment. It made me think of the risks that Cambodians, and others living in such heavily-mined countries - Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan - take everyday to go about their daily lives: Tilling a field to cultivate crops, walking to school, rounding up the family's livestock or even finding a spot for a community outhouse.

As a reporter for an international news agency in the country for more than two years, I encountered many Cambodians - old and young - whose futures in one of the world's poorest countries were literally hobbled by these weapons of war.

They all made do with their challenging situations in a country where physical fitness is part of daily survival, since many Cambodians are doing some type of farming or fishing to put food on the table.

Meeting Aki Ra, who has now started his own non-profit group to rid the country of mines, reminded me how much this sad legacy of decades of conflict will continue to linger on for Cambodians until the last mine is cleared. Read the article on Aki Ra

HONG KONG, China – Details of Sarah Palin's trip to Hong Kong - in what is being billed as her first speech outside North America - have been kept under wraps.

When I interviewed a spokeswoman for the event she will speak at, the 16th CLSA Investors' Forum, she said she didn't know when Palin would land in Hong Kong or when she would leave, and the former Republican vice presidential candidate's keynote address would be closed to the media.

Contacts put me in touch with people attending the speech, and I asked if I could interview them afterward about what Palin said: They both declined, though one was open to it if it was off the record.

CLSA head of communications Simone Wheeler told me: "She (Palin) has chosen to come here to speak to our clients on the condition that it would be closed to media so she could therefore have a candid conversation with investors as opposed to using this as a PR trip to promote herself globally."

She had earlier said: “She is coming to present to our investors, not to seek publicity. I think she really understands the value of presenting to a room of 1,000 global fund managers who really can influence the markets. We are really glad that she sees the value of that and that she’s not using this as a publicity-seeking exercise.”

I wondered, “Why the secrecy?” What do you think?

HONG KONG, China – Ten years ago, I experienced a total solar eclipse in northern France. It was as if someone had turned off the lights on a Hollywood set and we were in the blackest of nights. The sky turned purple and I saw some stars. It became cooler and a breeze picked up, though it was late morning.

A girl peers through a telescope Wednesday in Hong Kong to witness the solar eclipse.

When I was heading out on the train to the rural area where I watched the eclipse, I met people who had traveled from across the world to see it. I did not know then what the appeal was, but afterward, I vowed to make it to any other eclipses that I could.

Fast forward to one week ago when I learned I was living in the path of another total solar eclipse. It reminded me of that feeling of witnessing the power of Mother Nature - to turn day into night, then back into day – and in the process play a little game with humans and animals with the sudden switching on and off of the lights.

Today, I went out to a primary school in Hong Kong, where sky gazers gathered in droves. They were armed with sun goggles, telescopes, binoculars, a large solar filter and even a homemade eclipse viewer.

The air was charged with enthusiasm, and I was swept along with it. I knew we were only getting a partial eclipse of 75 percent, and so it would not equal my earlier experience, but the skies were unusually sunny for what has been a very rainy typhoon season in the southern Chinese enclave.

Hong Kong is a typically busy financial hub, cluttered with skyscrapers and block after block of apartment buildings. Even if it had not been raining, the city could have been covered in an all-too-frequent haze that blocks out the sun.

At the school, I spoke with parents who made their daughter a homemade eclipse viewer, a woman who brought her family and her housekeeper, a 13-year-old astronomy enthusiast who asked his teacher to join him, among others.

The astronomy enthusiast, Louis Chung, told me: "City folks wouldn't usually be able to see this."

"Nature is wonderful. It is awesome to know that nature can provide such spectacular sights," said Chung, a member of the Hong Kong Astronomical Society.

Yolanda Yip, 12, came with her parents to the school. Her father, Frankie Yip, fashioned a homemade way to see the eclipse: He took a shoe box and put aluminum foil at one end - with a small hole poked in it - and cooking paper on the other. He said he wanted Yolanda to learn more about the solar system.

"We love the Earth, we want to know more about it. The sun eclipse is one of the rare phenomenons about the sun, the Earth," said mother Sammie Chan, noting that she thought the eclipse was "gorgeous."

As the moon slowly passed over the sun, I grabbed my own solar viewer to watch. Even though the sky did not darken - it was though the lights had been dimmed - I still marveled at the show that Mother Nature had to offer us on this day.

There are many things we can try and control in life, but this is one of those moments that we need to step back and watch nature conducting a grand performance for us.

HONG KONG, China - No compulsory drug testing in schools. Free Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. End corruption in the property sector. Give Hong Kong universal suffrage in 2012. Include domestic workers in minimum wage legislation. Save a radio station from government ownership.

CNN's Miranda Leitsinger with Leonard So,who painted his body white to support freedom of expression.

The demands from the crowd at Victoria Park in Hong Kong on July 1 were many. I had been sent to the park for the second time in a month to cover an anniversary – this time the handover of the city by Britain to China in 1997.

I did not know what to expect –- would it be a parade, a march or a protest? - but did not have to look far to find out. People approached me on some issues, while I – intrigued by the many multi-colored banners, stickers, T-shirts and activists jockeying about with megaphones and collection boxes – approached others.

“First of July is the day for Hong Kong people to speak out what they want!” said Cindy Leung, 52, who came from three hours away to join the protest with her husband. “Different groups, different aims; actually we group together to demonstrate.”

Leung supports universal suffrage in Hong Kong for 2012 – a date pushed back by the government last year to 2017. She was upset with the fact that they could not elect their own leader.

“For many years, Hong Kong people, we were just concerned about our living standard, maybe money, but after 1989 (Tiananmen Square crackdown) we put our concern on to our country, and after 1997 (Hong Kong handed over to China) we put our concern on to our own place. Yeah, that’s good, we improve.”

“Among us, we got something to say, to speak out, to express.” See more photos of protests

And speak out they did. There were young people, parents toting children in their arms, students and the elderly (Since I arrived here in 2007 I have always been impressed by the number of senior citizens I see marching through the streets of Hong Kong in support of one cause or another – especially during the searing heat, which on this day reached 32 degrees Celsius).

As I looked around at the thousands of people, I realized once again – just like with the Tiananmen vigil – that this is the one place in China where these types of protests can happen freely. When I covered the vigil, I met a girl from southern China who told me there was one line in her textbook about the Tiananmen crackdown, and that her history teacher told students about it – but only outside the classroom walls.

She said in Hong Kong she could find books about Tiananmen and learn about the country’s dark chapter, and she wanted to join the vigil because it might be the only time she could.

Mak Yin Ting, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association, whose organization was collecting signatures for the release of the dissident Liu, echoed those comments.

“If China cannot remain open, Hong Kong as part of the special administrative region of China, it may be affected, too. That’s why the self-censorship of Hong Kong became more serious after the handover,” she said. “You can see the interaction between the two places. So that’s why I say asking for the release of Liu Xiaobo is also a very important message and the meaning behind is that we are angry with the suppression of freedom of expression in China.

“Opposing the suppression of the freedom of expression in China also helps to maintain the freedom of expression in Hong Kong.”

Leonard So, a 21-year-old originally from Hong Kong who has spent 10 years living in New Zealand, painted his body white to support freedom of expression in Hong Kong.

"My main purpose is to support the Hong Kong people to hold on to freedom and democracy while they still have it," he said. "We got to hold on to it and speak what we want to speak while we have freedom."

I had wondered since I moved to Hong Kong from Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory with strong activism) whether or not people here were concerned about democratic freedoms or what issues they were passionate about.

What I found on this day was, yes, there does seem to be quite a few who have something to say on issues they feel strongly about – and I was fortunate to learn about them.

HONG KONG, China - There I was: An ark on my right, giraffes in the distance and a gaggle of animals beating a path out of the vessel in what appeared to be the merriest of moods.

The glass-reinforced concrete ark abuts a roadway. Organizers are aiming to attract underprivileged groups to the site.

No, I was not at the zoo, nor was it a theme party or a festivity of any sort. Rather, it was one of Hong Kong's latest attractions: A massive five-story Noah's Ark that its creators said was built to proportions detailed in the Bible.

It was surreal. Sounds of music mixed in with the growls of cougars wafted through the park where the ark was perched in the shadow of a bridge and towering apartment buildings in a corner of the city.

Theme park it is not, the organizers said. They wanted it to be "edutainment," noting the signs under the ark's inhabitants (67 pairs of animals in all, designed by a British artist) that describe their habitat, survival skills and if they are endangered. The vessel houses a children's education center that includes information on the solar system, fossils and dinosaurs, as well as a little theater area.

Organizers also said the ark was not meant to be viewed in a religious light, they just wanted to remind people - through a story known around the world - about the worth of certain values, such as loving thy neighbor, respecting the environment and to have a little hope (as these animals seemed to be feeling when they emerged after the floods) in these troubled financial times.

They also noted the venture, which received $103 million, was a private-government-nonprofit endeavor and this made it a unique project in this financial center.

Hong Kong is a city of extremes; lush, mountainous islands bursting with nature and populous, concrete skyscraper districts. Ma Wan Park, which houses the ark, is not immune from this. With planes zooming overhead (the international airport is not far), workers using drills to do maintenance on the ark and the noise from a passing freighter, it was difficult to fully appreciate the calm world the creators envisaged.

I spoke to a few visitors, some who said they were drawn to the ark because it was something new and different. My only fear is that, like all other things "new," the ark would soon become old - thus squelching the enthusiasm in this little corner of the world.

And though I appreciated the efforts of the organizers, especially the educational aspects, I also could not help but wonder why we humans have to go about recreating nature rather than preserving what we already have.