January 20 2007 Back in Hong Kong

Well we had a really nice trip to the US, and we’ve been back in Hong Kong for over a week. It wasn’t bad getting over jet lag. I seem to be getting used to that long, long flight, and the problems with sleeping once the flight is over. If I don’t get in a tizzy about it, it’s just not that much of a problem. I don’t like taking Ambian though; I’d rather recover from it au natural.

My only problem has been re-acclimating to Hong Kong. I’m happy to be back, but I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. I haven’t recovered my routine yet. But it’s slowly coming back to me. I’ve hauled out my counted cross-stitch project, gotten back into the habit of practicing my Cantonese, signed up for some hikes, gone to some yoga classes. On Friday I went to lunch with my friend Jan and spent the afternoon wandering around the little boutiques in SoHo. I bought a couple of tops and some interesting jewelry. My favorite thing that I bought is a silver necklace with Hungarian glass and matching earrings. It’s really pretty and unusual too. The pieces of glass are all different, and so are the earrings. It all matches, by not matching at all.

It’s been cloudy and rainy here a lot, but earlier this week the clouds lifted and I could actually see Kowloon and the mountains of the New Territories. It’s been a long, long time since they were visible. Then the next day the weather socked us in again, and a hike I was going to go on was cancelled. Oh well!

I also went to Mahjong this week. I haven’t done that in quite awhile. It’s really enjoyable, mostly because of getting to visit with friends. Lee and I have been working on trying to set up some short vacations this winter. We’re pretty sure we’re going to go to the Maldives in April, and we’re trying to decide on another short vacation too. We were thinking about maybe going on the Orient Express through Malaysia and Thailand, but now I’m not sure. We’d like to go to Vietnam too. We’ve got to make up our minds.

I’m going to go back to the US at the end of April. Then when I get back we’ll start making plans for home leave this summer, and maybe getting the kids over here for a trip somewhere – Japan or maybe Tibet. There are so many things we want to do while we’re here and we’ve got the opportunity. Who knows how long this will last, or if we’ll ever have this chance again!