Hong Kong

And poof! they disappear! Sorry. We're here. We got into Hong Kong after a lovely flight in sold-out coach class. It wasn't as horrible as it could've been though. They fed us a lot (decent food even), and I slept through half of the 14 hours from San Francisco (thank you, Ambien). No snags in immigration, baggage claim & meeting our guide. We checked into our hotel room & took a quick walk around the neighborhood (Shatin).

Funny little story from SFO: when we got off the plane, there was a little old Chinese lady trying to ask the gate agent where to go for her connecting flight. The lady didn't speak English; the gate agent didn't speak whatever the little old lady was speaking. We saw her pointing at her boarding pass, which said "Hong Kong," so we walked over to her, pointed at our boarding passes, which also said "Hong Kong," and motioned for her to follow us. We started to walk off, but when we looked back, we realized she had her mom? grandma? with her. An tiny, ancient looking Chinese lady who would've lost a race with a snail. We had plenty of time in San Francisco though, so we walked with them to the international terminal and dropped them off at the gate. We never learned anything about them, other than the fact that they lived in Hong Kong.

Saturday morning we had a tour with the other families in our agency. I think there were about 15-18 families in all. It's been fun to meet some of the other people on CCAIWCP in person. It feels a little surreal, since I've "known" them for over a year now, but never seen them before. Anyway, our HK tour took us to the top of Victoria Peak, where we took a chilly & windy walk and took in a view that was spectacular in spite of all the haze. Next stop was Aberdeen and a quick spin around the harbor in a sampan. We blew through a jade factory, where the "very good, factory direct" prices that were still in the thousands helped us keep our money in our pockets. We did shell out a little bit at the Stanley Market for some souvenirs. Last stop was a dim sum lunch, where we stuffed ourselves with dumplings and started to feel the jetlag. We had planned to stay in downtown HK when the tour was over & find our own way back to Shatin later on, but changed our minds after lunch. Long story short: I fell asleep at 3pm yesterday and woke up at 5:00 this morning. I'm hoping all that is out of my system now & I can function like a human.

The view from our hotel:

The pink panther had dim sum too:

A few families left yesterday afternoon for their province. The rest of us head out today. We have 5-6 other families traveling with us. We have to be downstairs in about three hours to head to the airport. We're not sure when we'll meet Little Z, but it will be sometime this afternoon/evening. Wow. After a journey of two years, we're hours away from THE MOMENT. I'm hoping to check back in tonight, but we'll have to see how Z is doing and how the internet connection is in Nanchang.

First though, we pack. Then I'm going to go downstairs and inhale the entire breakfast buffet. Hey, I slept through dinner!

The pink panther sneaks up on a jet lagged dad: