For the last three years working at Barnes & Noble I usually had to work on Christmas Eve, have Christmas Day off, but then have to be at work at 6:00 AM the day after Christmas to facilitate a special breakfast for the employees. Now, as a teacher, I had from Dec 20 - January 5th off. WOW!!
Although we wanted to head back to the States for the holiday, we decided it was more fiscally responsible to spend the time in our adopted home of Hong Kong...and from the moment our plane touched down in the territory, we felt like we were home. Many of you have heard us talk of how we missed Hong Kong over the years. Tammy and I met there, fell in love there, our son was born there, and we spent the formative years of our married life there. Yep, its safe to say we had big smiles on our faces.
And as much as we have enjoyed being in China and count it a blessing to us, we were quite happy to take a break from it for a couple weeks. Standing in the taxi queue at the airport Tammy beamed at me and motioned around us, "Can you feel it?" I looked at her a little puzzled. "It's order " she exclaimed (Order being sometimes a bit of a challenge on the Mainland)
We stayed the first couple nights at the Salsbury hotel near the waterfront. Because of some visa issues for the new teachers, the school had to pay for all the teachers to leave China and then re-enter the country. Because of this, the school informed us they would reemberse us for our airfare as they had to send us to Hong Kong anyhow, and then paid for two nights hotel. Can I hear an AMEN??!! Hallelujah!
Staying those first couple days downtown was a blessing. Right near the hotel was the Ocean Terminal mall that has the largest Toys R Us in Hong Kong. Those of you that know Gabriel know that he LOVES Star Wars. However, Qingdao has a distinct lack of quality toys, especially Star Wars, so our first night in Hong Kong was spent mainly in Toys R Us watching Gabriel run to all the Star Wars toys like he was celebrating a family reunion.
After the first couple days, we moved into a friend's apartment in the Park Island area of Hong Kong which is a new self contained residential area. It was pretty posh and Gabriel said the whole time, "When we move back to Hong Kong, this is where I want to live!"
Anyhow, I realize I want to write a lot more about our trip to Hong Kong so I'll leave this as the end of part 1
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