Our 6-month anniversary

Happy New Year, everyone! We hope you had a safe & happy New Year's celebration. We had quite the New Year's extended weekend and spent most of last week recovering from two very late nights.

The weather has warmed up a bit and is back in the upper 60s with lots of sun. So nice to not be "freezing" anymore. How quickly the blood thins.

Crazy enough, yesterday (Jan 6) marked the 6 month anniversary of when we left the U.S. We marked the day with a very nice hike on the south-side of the island with great views of the north-side of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon side.

The pictures didn't turn out the greatest because of the brown "haze" that has seemed to plop itself over Hong Kong for the last month or so. It is such a shame because you can't really get an appreciation for how many buildings there are here and what a beautiful place it is. The weather was great, though, and we had a nice hike for a couple of hours.

Here's Chris at the trail head.
Views of North Point, Quarry Bay and Kowloon side neighborhoods.
What was supposed to be a good picture of the Kowloon side with all of the mountains in the back.
In this last picture of the Kowloon side, you can see where the old airport was. The flat stretch of land in the water is the old runway. Talk about scary. The new one is far out on a different island with plenty of room for landing a plane. The red building in the middle is the new Megabox mall, as if Hong Kong needed another mall, but it is a good marker for Chris's office. He is just on the other side of that building.

Since today is our 6-month anniversary of arriving in Hong Kong, we're heading out for a nice little dinner at what is hopefully a good Italian place. The last 6 months have flown by. It's really hard to believe. The good news is, we're enjoying ourselves and our new home and looking forward to discovering so much more in the next year and a half. Even better is that I easily got on and off the 28 mini-bus today that got the best of me in our first week.

I'd like to give a big shout out to my cousin, Natalie, who left for a semester in Rome yesterday Depending on what time she left the east coast, she might be just about landing as I'm writing this. I'm hoping that my guide here that says the Chinese Farmers' Almanac claims Jan 6 to be a bad travel date is crazy and she hasn't lost any luggage or anything.

I'm also thinking it must be wrong because Jan 6 also marks the 10th anniversary of when I left for my semester in Seville, Spain. (I have decided that I am really starting to get old.) I had the time of my life for those 6 months and I'm sure that Natalie will do the same. Kudos to her for making a jump across the big pond. It's not easy, but is so worth it.

We're starting to get ready for our trip back to the U.S. for my sister, Bridgette's, wedding. We're looking forward to her and Kevin's big day and can't wait to catch up with friends and family.

In the mean time, wishing you lots of health and happiness in 2008.