Hong Kong!!!

On July 23, Shafi told me he was about to get a job offer in Hong Kong. Of course I responded with shock...and a bit of disbelief. Sure enough he got the offer the following week, had final negotiations and accepted it on August 2. Since then it has been quite a whirlwind. We had about 7 weeks to prepare. During that time we closed on a refinance of our mortgage and opened a home equity line of credit (to have just in case of emergency). We had water damage in our living room and decided to have our floors completely replaced with new hardwood after our move. We found renters and rented out our apartment starting October 15 for 18 months - a nice young couple who were recently married.

And of course we hired movers, we found a serviced apartment for the beginning of our stay in Hong Kong, we organized, we donated lots to Salvation Army, we spent extra time with friends and family as much as possible.

And now we are in Hong Kong. Our movers came and packed our stuff on the 20th, loaded it into a 20 foot container on the 21st, and we flew out on the 22nd, arriving in Hong Kong on the 23rd.

I've decided not to rename the blog as this is still mainly about my family and the adventures of Will and Leah - but no doubt it will be very Hong Kong focused for awhile.

We packed our things into 4 large suitcases, 2 medium suitcases and my large backpack (from my trip to Europe in 2000). Those and the pack n play were our 8 checked bags - along with 2 strollers and 2 carseats. We carried on 2 small rolling bags, a big tote of snacks and toys, a diaper bag, a laptop bag, and a gym bag with other miscellaneous items for the trip.

We actually chartered a van from Super Shuttle to get to the Fairfield Inn at JFK, where we stayed for our last night in New York. Everything went mostly smoothly with the pack/load of the container - they had to muscle it closed at the end but everything made it in - we'll see what condition it arrives in. If all goes well, it's on a ship that left NY on the 24th and arrives in Hong Kong on the 25th of October. We don't have confirmation of the load onto the ship yet, but the container was delivered to the port - so we've got our fingers crossed that it all went smoothly.

We flew business class on Cathay Pacific - Leah had her own seat and Will was in a bassinet in front of my seat. The 16 hour flight was not too bad. Leah was a bit restless but loved watching lots of TV. Will slept quite a lot and wasn't too much of a handful when he was awake. Shafi and I each got about an hour of sleep and each got through 1 movie. Leah stayed awake until 9 p.m. NY time and then slept about 3 hours. She woke up just in time for descent and was incredibly cranky, but we managed to keep her awake.

Immigration and customs was uneventful and our things seem to arrive unscathed. Our cars were waiting for us - a sedan to ride in and a mini-van to carry our belongings. We arrived at The Repulse Bay, where we are staying for about 6 weeks, pretty quickly and they were ready for us, as well. Our only complication was that something upset Leah's stomach and she vomited in the car. Luckily for everyone she hadn't eaten much the 2nd half of the flight and so it was pretty much just water - no smell - and it was all in her carseat and did not cause any issues for the car/driver - although he was obviously much less friendly after that incident than he had been at the beginning of the drive. Fortunately she was fine after that - not sure what caused it but at least she's not sick.

That's a long enough post for now...I will write more about our first few days here when I get another free minute. I've posted some pictures on Picasa - http://picasaweb.google.com/elissa.imran/September2010#