I've been writing my journal everyday to reflect the more mundane aspects of the trip, and to make sure that we remember the details when we re-read this in twenty years. Darren is providing the color commentary. If you wonder where Darren's stories may be straying from the truth (he's been known to exaggerate every once in a while), you can check my summary for "just the facts".

My journal is the Ying to Darren's Yang. Darren has the color-commentary; I'm stuck with the play-by-play descriptions. It's the right-brain, left-brain description of our travels. I slog through the daily updates with attention to detail and truth; Darren uses a little more creative license.

So join me in the truth department. Enjoy our travels through the lenses of 20/20 vision.

Click on the Links to the left to read my daily comments. ---- Nicky

03.10.2006

We're off.

We had a 30 hour trip from Orlando to Hong Kong. We left Orlando at 3:30 pm EST and arrived at the Hong Kong hotel at 10:00 am (9:00 pm EST the next evening). We had a five hour flight then a 15 1/2 hour flight. The girls didn't fall asleep until the Hong Kong flight, which was 3:30 am EST. They really were amazing the whole trip. Thank goodness for adrenaline and movies—they watched 15 hours of cartoons with no complaints from Mum and Dad. They had a 3 1/2 hour nap today at 12:00 noon Hong Kong time (I had to wake them up), then off to bed at 8:30 pm Hong Kong time. I don't think they'll have any problems adjusting to time zones. That was a trick I learned a while ago...change your watch to the destination time zone as soon as you get on the plane and start acting like that. It really helps defeat the jet lag. We've got a two-bedroom apartment to allow for four people having sleep issues, and we've left the lights and TV on and told the kids to watch movies if they wake up early. Hopefully that will work.

So here are some random thoughts that I've had since we left:

03.11.2006

Hong Kong

We decided to forgo the tourist things in Hong Kong and take it easy for the day. The girls did great sleeping but they were up from 1:00- 3:00 am and again at 6:00 am, so we thought it would be more important to catch up on some sleep. I think we're all pretty much converted to local time, so we should be able to hit the ground running in Thailand. It was a great day for me. Very relaxing and fund with the kids. We went to the pool in the morning and Dominique really improved her swimming. Staying in places with pools is great with the kids.

Even though we didn't tour Hong Kong, ' been great staying right in the expat community and seeing how they live I'm sure they have a lot of fun and ' great for the kids growing up around so many cultures (like Cayman, but a big city).

My random observations for the day: