hong kong

Sunday evening at the Olsen's in Hong Kong (Repulse Bay, for those of you who know the city). We are having a marvelous time with the Olsen family - Andy and Ari, and their three kids - Ana (7), Adam (3-almost-4) and Aaron - 2. Andy and Matt are having a blast being big brothers, and we have visions of Andy's baby-sitting service starting up upon our return to Seattle.

We arrived on Friday noon, after some all-night/little-sleep flying from Bangalore. We didn't mind the lack of sleep, since we were reasonably convinced we were never going to get out of Bangalore - our driver was almost an hour and a half late picking us up, and Bangalore traffic is crazy. So the fact that we made the flight at all, and didn't end up sleeping on the airport floor, made the lack of sleep not such a problem.

We've been adventuring with the A-team here since then. Andy is a friend and colleague from Seattle (we did the Danforth Principal program together), who has been teaching here at the Hong Kong International School for a couple of years, after having principaled an elementary school in Highline for a number of years. They are fabulous hosts, and all our kids are having a blast together. We've hit many Hong Kong hots spots and traveled by subway, bus, taxi, cablecar and foot hither and yon. Though Hong Kong is a high density big city of about 7 million folks, there is greenspace in the midst (not so much grass, but lots of little parks and playgrounds), and some real hiking. We had a great hike yesterday along Dragon's Back (a nice, high ridge, complete with some parasailors), played frisbee on the beach, and at moments we are reminded of Seattle and San Francisco as we adventure our way along.

One of our favorites here was our trip last night to the "night market" full of great deals that stretches for blocks. We picked up quite a number of things we didn't know we needed, and didn't get home until after 11pm.... Today's dim sum lunch is right up there - mmmm....

Suddenly tomorrow we are flying out to Japan (Tokyo... for one day, rather 23 hours) on our way to Hawaii and the grandparents. Originally we had intended to be in Japan for a week with Chrissie's cousin Steve and his family - but if you remember our Frankfurt day a ways back, the Steve-Austins moved to Germany - so we've adjusted our Japan time, and are heading to Hawaii a bit earlier.

We are looking very forward to getting back closer to home, and beginning to reintroduce some routine into our lives. Hawaii will be a chance to do some organizing of pictures and thoughts, and decide just what it is that we have learned, accomplished and done with these past 6 months. I also need to start the process of finding work, so if you have any ideas for me, let me know. We'll keep the blogs coming, but they will certainly evolve as we work our way back into something a little more "regular."