navigation.

I hung out with the girls for the two days that they couldn't arrange other coverage. One of those days we invited my mom in and decided to do something we'd been talking about for years. We took the T downtown, each of them picked a place they wanted to go to, and using a map, they had to get us there. L. was up first, and really took to the idea. Looking at street signs and navigating the map, she got us to the public gardens for the obligatory ice cream (from the ducklings soft serve truck) and our yearly ride on the swan boats (just in time to see all the little babies on their island!).

M. brought us to faneuil hall for some quality street performers and a trip through the shopping areas.

and to finish the day off, e. brought us back (navigating from memory as opposed to actually reading the map) to the common for a swim in the frog pond and some water color painting.

forth.o.july.

Andrea and i have a long tradition of hanging out on the forth. This year was no different. We packed a picnic, and trekked over to larz anderson park. The food was delicious (as you might surmise from this picture...)

and the location was also ideal...

Afterwards, we went back to her porch, and waited for it to get dark. In hong kong, it stays light until 7pm, and then gets pitch black in about 15 minutes. In boston (on july 4th), it's light out until 8:30ish. I was so tired (since i'd been home for all of 31 hours) we had to light the sparklers a little early. We managed to go through six boxes, and had a great time of it. Here's an action shot to finish things off.

random.stanley.

This is one of the four dehumidifiers in the house. As you can see, it's about half full. They need to be emptied twice a day, or we all suffocate.

I'm standing in front of the entrance to the house, and that's the beach straight ahead. Nice.

Another view from the roof on a very cooperative weather day. Yay for no haze!

You can often find snails or slugs hanging out on the sidewalk in front of the garage entrance. This is no small fellow either, he's about the size of a key lime.

And finally, one more picture from my favorite place, stanley main street. It's so clear you can even see some of the outlying islands!

light.show.

Finally uploaded all my hong kong photos to my computer at home, so thought i'd throw in some quick posts recapping things i never mentioned.

Hong kong has a nightly "light show" that occurs at 8pm on the kowloon and hong kong island sides of the water. Yes, it's touristy, but it was one of the few things i had left to do. So, during my last week there, i met a. at work, and we took the mtr to the kowloon side, hung out in a bar, and watched the show. Happy i did it, but far from amazing. Here are a couple pictures.

Though the wine was tasty, we decided to try some place else for dinner, so went to one of their favorite restaurants, yung kee, in central. It's apparently known as one of the most famous cantonese restaurants in the area, and didn't let me down! For those of you who like the leftover food pictures, here's another one.

I ate the rest of the prawns on the bus ride home (a. had to go back to work) even though food and drink are not allowed. Soooo delicious!

new.nano.

As i've mentioned on facebook, a. and i have been doing the p90-x workouts. Though i hated them at first, now that i can do them (and can feel the difference in my muscles), i love them. My nano died over there, which gave me the excuse to get a new one (that has video capabilities, thus allowing me to bring the workouts home with me). I sat at the store and looked at all the color options. My definite favorite was the green, but since my old one was the same color, i had to mix it up a bit. I finally settled on the blue one, added the videos, and brought it to the gym the morning of my flight. It was an "arms and shoulders" day, and despite a.'s crazy memory, she couldn't remember some of the exercises. After using the nano to review, she was very impressed, and decided she would buy her own. This morning, i woke up at 10:30am and checked my email. Seven minutes earlier, a. had sent an email asking for help getting the videos onto her new nano. After talking her through it, i asked what color she chose, and she said blue. 

"Oh!" i said, "we're twins!"

"What?" she asked.

"We're twins," i repeated, "mine's blue too."

Apparently she'd also really wanted the green one, but thinking that was the color i had, thought it would be better to keep things less confusing, and went with blue. So now we both have our second choice color, and have to keep them straight to boot!

home.again.home.again.

Jiggity jig. Here are a few random things that relate to home.

1. My flight was a bit rougher than my flight to hong kong. I flew through san francisco, and due to the fantastic boson weather, ended up at the airport for 5.5 hours. What made this painful was the fact that i was there (and trying to stay awake) from what was 2:30-8am hong kong time. Were i on a plane, i'd have been able to nap a bit. Though i have never really been able to sleep, a few 15 min cat naps seem to work wonders for me, and limit any potential jet lag. I finally got to boston around 1:30am, and wrestled with all the other delayed passengers for luggage before meeting up with my wonderful parents (who refused to let me take a cab home!).

2. Thanks to facebook, i knew the boston weather had been crappy for about 5 weeks straight. Since i had adjusted to temps in the 90's, super strong sun (and the resulting tan despite being religious with 55 spf sunscreen), and high humidity, i was a little concerned with coming back to the cold wet weather. I bundled up in fleece, pants, socks, etc. for the flight, so when i emerged in the middle of the night, i wasn't as freezing as i thought i might be. I was still cold though.

3. I think it's funny how everything that used to be familiar looks so strange after being away for so long. Roads, houses, colors, etc. Everything seemed darker to me, except the green stuff. That seemed much lusher and brighter, though that's likely because of the previously mentioned weather.

4. Smells again. The smells of houses and cars were so strong and obvious to me after coming back. The scents must be filed away in the memory somewhere. I think this is the case for most people too- not just connected to my strong sniffer.

5. Hong kongers drive on the other side of the road. I didn't drive while i was there, but i did spend a considerable amount of time in cabs, on buses, and with p. in the car. My impulse quickly became to drive rotaries in a clockwise direction, and to take soft rights and hard lefts. Vivian (my car) stayed with my parents while i was gone. This was so they could have an extra car should kevin or julie be around and need to drive. Because my parents are saints (which must make me one too, right?) they had vivian's clutch replaced and her oil changed while i was gone. Driving a car with a new clutch when your old one was really bad takes some getting used to. So, while driving home for the first time this morning, i had to consistently remind myself that i didn't want to die. Shift, soft left, counterclockwise at the rotary.

6. I spent the afternoon weeding the garden. It was ridiculous. I never got around to planting all the veggies, but did completely clean out the vegetable garden. The entire thing was jam packed with weeds that reached mid- thigh. It took quite a while to tame it down. Thanks rain. Though it's too late to plant from seeds, i'm hoping to find some plants somewhere and hopefully get some tomatoes (etc) going for early fall. 

7. The weather today was my idea of perfect. 83 F, 0% humidity, sunny, with a very light breeze. I could handle this all the time.