Friday April 14 2006

I’m in the apartment and suddenly the light will change. It will get brighter and I’ll think “the sun is out!” But, when I look up I’ll realize that no, the sun is not out. A cloud has shifted or lifted, the light HAS brightened, and the light is being reflected off of the leaves on the plants on the Peak. But there’s no sun, just white sky.

We leave for Japan tomorrow morning, and will be gone until the following Sunday (April 23rd). The flight is around 4 hours, but there is only one time zone difference, so no jet lag. Its north of here, so the temps will be in the 50's and 60's. Yay! Lee has a business trip, so it’s business for him and pleasure for me. We are staying at a very nice hotel in Yokohama, about 30 minutes from Tokyo. I will spend my time being lazy and being a tourist. I will leave my HK cellphone on because it has international roaming, so people can reach me on it if they call my HK cellphone number. But it’s relatively expensive, so don't call unless it’s important!

I'm not sure how much internet access I will have. Lee says that it’s expensive in the hotels, so I probably won't buy it more than once or twice. We'll see...I can hardly stand going without it now for more than 24 hours!

I'm bringing the camera and I promise to take pictures. We're going early and staying late, so Lee can be a tourist with me on the weekends.

Jane, I think you would like visiting here. You enjoy wildlife so much. Today walking up to the Peak I practically fell over a couple of times staring up, up, up into the forest canopy. It was so misty and foggy that there really wasn't any view to see, so instead I looked at all the plants.

Oh! I forgot to tell you all...besides the bougainvillea draping over the sides of the highway, there are ORCHIDS on vines hanging from the trees, like weeds! I KNOW I need to take the camera with me on one of my walks....

There were the cutest little boys in the elevator today. They started to accidentally get out on my floor and we started talking. "Where are you from?" one of them asked. "I'm from the US." "Ah..." "You can tell, can't you, by my accent. Where are YOU from?" "Sri Lanka, all 4 of us!" "Oh, well cool!" I felt like asking if I could go play with them. They got off on the upper level of the parking garage so I know they were going to the pool or the indoor play area, even though it was cool and cloudy.