Thursday, April 24th

Thursday, April 24
Nick woke up at 3am saying how hungry he was. Mary had taken a sleeping pill, so lucky for her she didn't hear his chatter from 3-5am. I fed him crackers in bed (hey, what can you do-it's a one room studio!) then tried my ignoring tactic. He finally fell back asleep, as did I, only to be woken by the phone at 7am. John was calling for Mary. He doesn't realize we've already become accustomed to the late morning/late nght lifestyle here. We packed up our studio this morning, as we're moving at 9:30am. Yeah!!!! The new one bedroom (sansa pull out couch) will seem downright spacious! Nick and I went out for a Starbucks date this morning before work (since our nights are so short). We had to stop and look at the fish outside our apartment. One jumped out of the bucket onto a lady. We kept our distance. Order at Starbucks got mistranslated, so Nick ended up with a hot chocolate with whipped cream. 8am sugar - glad I wont' be there when the sugar wears off.

I've turned into super tourist. Wearing my ridiculous MBT orange sneakers to/from the office. It's a big hill! I've felt dizzy ever since I arrived. Altitude? Blood clot? I thought it was just the after affects of being on a plane for 15 hours, but it's been a few days now… If I die, tell them I was feeling dizzy. Maybe it's lack of snacks? Why oh why didn't I bring some oatmeal with me?! I'll find food this weekend. There's a tea in the kitchen called Iron Buddah. Do I dare try it? Sounds like it'll make hair grown on your chest.

A HUGE bird flew by the office window today. What in the world could it have been? Looked bigger than a hawk. But the same sort of coloring. It circled the buildnig next to us. An omen? Or maybe just checking itself out in the mirrored building?

Had lunch with two of the consultants today. One Chinese and one Japanese, which proved for playful banter (I think it was playful) between the two. We went to a Cantonese style dim sum restaurant. Very elegant with wonderful food. Luckily one of the consultants ordered for us and kept in mind my aversion to red meat and pork. Lots of mushrooms, some amazing chicken (chicken with the skin-it was like heaven) and then a tubular veggie they told me was like a mushroom. It had the texture of a biodegradeable packaging tube. Lots of tea-I'm a happy camper! Lunch was purely social. When I tried to discuss business, they said we could continue at the office later. So we had a delightful discussion of our favorite foods, areas of the world and debate of how many hurricanes really hit Florida.

The past two days have been very overcast, but it has also cooled off a bit. I've been told that I'll know the difference between smog and clouds. These are apparently just clouds.

I made my way to the eatery that Emily showed me and picked up some dinner and dessert to take home to our new spacious 1 bedroom apartment! Nick was so happy when I walked in and then proceeded to have his typical 7pm meltdown. This must be a lot for a little guy to take in. He and Grammy did a ton of walking today. They went to the Zoological Garden and saw lots of birds. Apparently there are pandas further in, but they didn't make it that far. The leopard was out for medical reasons.

Nick was following me around last night as I finally unpacked by suitcase. Why is the shower bigger than the closets? And where does one hide a huge suitcase? (behind the curtain in the bedroom). I was pulling some of my toiletrees out of my dobb kit when Nick started screaming. * Warning - this story gets gross, but all is ok * I looked down to see the hook that the dobb kits hangs from is somehow in Nick's eye. HOLY S&!T! I lowered the bag, ran with him to the kitchen and tried to find a towel and ice. Think I was praying the whole time "please let him be ok, please let me be able to find 9-1-1 in Hong Kong, please let him be ok". No ice, but luckily we'd just bought some $8 popsicles. So we popped an popsicle on his eye. He finally calmed down. There wasn't blood, but a tiny bit of pink on the towel. I think the hook (which was covered in round plastic) must have got his eyelid somehow. His eyelid was a tiny bit swollen. I did a few tests to see if he could see out of it. Asked him if he needed a pirate patch (he didn't) and then we all collapsed into bed. Just to be jolted out of bed minutes later by an alarm. Sounded like a fire alarm. We stood in the hall in our pjs not knowing what to do. Do we run down 12 flights? The alarm finally went off after 2 scary minutes. We think someone just went down the fire escape and set off the alarm. After two very dramatic scenes, we collapsed into bed and said "that's enough for tonight!".