Paul and I had such an awesome time touring the East. We spent the mornings making epic breakfasts at home with my mom and dad, afternoons catching up with old friends, and evening competing with Scott and Stacy on Wii. We spent a blustery afternoon in New Hope catching up with Jen, hit NYC for drinks with Chetta, Ryan, Kati, and Kristina, lunch with John, Brady and Lara, then head down to DC for the night to drop off Stacy and Tickles. I miss DC! It was so fun to be back and see my old stomping ground. Chetta and Ryan played host in their beautifully renovated town home in NE, which is where we all went out to dinner with Liz and Joe and had perhaps a bit too much to drink with Henry at Lola's. After a quick breakfast with Sherine, and a curbside chat with Alex, Paul and I zoomed up to Baltimore for a quick drink with Justin. Zoomed again up to NYC where we caught up with Maria, Dave and Paul's friend JD. And alas finally made it home to see the Laganas and ring in the new year with my parents.
Being home made me understand and appreciate Paul a little more. Seeing where he comes from, his family, his friends, opened up a new part of him to me. And I think vica versa. There was never any awkwardness between either families and we feel so lucky for this!!
Being home also makes me realize how much I am missing here. I love Hong Kong, but home is still home. I'm going to implement a twice a year home policy. Yup there it is.
So if you couldn't tell by the above, we really, really had a fantastic trip home. It always goes too fast though!! We had an interesting trip back to our new home. Our flight was delayed in hour in JFK, so we hit the bar for a snack and a drink. Some drunk guy next to us started chatting and it came out that Paul and I had lived in Korea. The guy on our other side chimed in and said HE was a teacher in Korea. Small world. We chatted and discovered he had the same 13 hour layover we did in Bejing. Weird. Paul and I slept 90% of the 13 hour flight to Bejing, met up with new friend Jordan, and made it to the Air China counter to see if we qualified for a free hotel. We did!! Asa! We get on a sketch bus and wind through sketch Bejing streets in the dark until we pull up to this hotel in the middle of nowhere. I'm talking we crossed through train tracks, fields, industrial complexes and ended up at this joint. But hey, it's free. The room was surprisingly nice, although reeked of smoke, and dinner was complimentary as well. Of course the only thing on TV was Al Jeezera and Chinese channels, so we hooked up the laptop and watched a movie until we fell asleep for another 5 hours. That's 14 hours of sleep that day. ha. Quick 3 hour flight back to HK, cab, and we were back and unpacked by 2. Then, da da duh, Paul tried to hook up the Wii we got for Christmas. Poof! The US cord is 200 volts, the power here is 110, so I think we fried the plug. Luckily the Wii wasn't plugged into the power cord. We took the subway over to Sham Shui Po and super easlily/quickly found a Chinese power cord. Come home and no dice. For whatever reason, no power is getting to the Wii. Hmm busted cord perhaps? Paul had been looking forward to playing Wii since we left. He doesn't have to work today, so he'll go see if he can get it sorted. Here's hoping.
We cooked dinner with our new amazingly sharp knives and settled on the couch to watch some TV. I feel asleep 5 minutes later at 6 and didn't wake up this AM til 6 again. Asa! I have to go to work today at 10 and we have a wine tasting in our office (warehouse) at 7:30, so I'm guessing I won't get home til 10 or 11. Starting off with a bang. Wooh.
Photos from the new camera coming soon, I just need to get the software installed. That'll happen after I catch up on 2 weeks of emails and facebook messages. So much to do, so much to do. Luckily we have enough chocolate, cake, cookies, bread to get through the week, for it doesn't look like grocery shopping will happen any time soon.
Happy New Year!!!
Being home made me understand and appreciate Paul a little more. Seeing where he comes from, his family, his friends, opened up a new part of him to me. And I think vica versa. There was never any awkwardness between either families and we feel so lucky for this!!
Being home also makes me realize how much I am missing here. I love Hong Kong, but home is still home. I'm going to implement a twice a year home policy. Yup there it is.
So if you couldn't tell by the above, we really, really had a fantastic trip home. It always goes too fast though!! We had an interesting trip back to our new home. Our flight was delayed in hour in JFK, so we hit the bar for a snack and a drink. Some drunk guy next to us started chatting and it came out that Paul and I had lived in Korea. The guy on our other side chimed in and said HE was a teacher in Korea. Small world. We chatted and discovered he had the same 13 hour layover we did in Bejing. Weird. Paul and I slept 90% of the 13 hour flight to Bejing, met up with new friend Jordan, and made it to the Air China counter to see if we qualified for a free hotel. We did!! Asa! We get on a sketch bus and wind through sketch Bejing streets in the dark until we pull up to this hotel in the middle of nowhere. I'm talking we crossed through train tracks, fields, industrial complexes and ended up at this joint. But hey, it's free. The room was surprisingly nice, although reeked of smoke, and dinner was complimentary as well. Of course the only thing on TV was Al Jeezera and Chinese channels, so we hooked up the laptop and watched a movie until we fell asleep for another 5 hours. That's 14 hours of sleep that day. ha. Quick 3 hour flight back to HK, cab, and we were back and unpacked by 2. Then, da da duh, Paul tried to hook up the Wii we got for Christmas. Poof! The US cord is 200 volts, the power here is 110, so I think we fried the plug. Luckily the Wii wasn't plugged into the power cord. We took the subway over to Sham Shui Po and super easlily/quickly found a Chinese power cord. Come home and no dice. For whatever reason, no power is getting to the Wii. Hmm busted cord perhaps? Paul had been looking forward to playing Wii since we left. He doesn't have to work today, so he'll go see if he can get it sorted. Here's hoping.
We cooked dinner with our new amazingly sharp knives and settled on the couch to watch some TV. I feel asleep 5 minutes later at 6 and didn't wake up this AM til 6 again. Asa! I have to go to work today at 10 and we have a wine tasting in our office (warehouse) at 7:30, so I'm guessing I won't get home til 10 or 11. Starting off with a bang. Wooh.
Photos from the new camera coming soon, I just need to get the software installed. That'll happen after I catch up on 2 weeks of emails and facebook messages. So much to do, so much to do. Luckily we have enough chocolate, cake, cookies, bread to get through the week, for it doesn't look like grocery shopping will happen any time soon.
Happy New Year!!!
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