Time to dust off the old suitcases....

You probably thought I had disappeared never to be heard from again and certainly not in blog form. There were times that I kind of thought that too. However, after a wonderful trip to Africa, a nine month job search with a fabulous ending at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a cross country move and over two years of very hard work....the time has come to cross another continent off of our list.

After a lot of adjustment to our new environs and job, Joe and I found that we had a serious case of wanderlust. After much discussion, we decided to conquer Asia. Now, you may not realize this...but Asia is HUGE and full of infinite possibilities. After several arduous months spent pouring over travel books, web sites and old episodes of the Amazing Race..we finally narrowed our choices down to SE Asia. What did we learn from this? We learned that SE Asia alone is HUGE! Back the old drawing board we went and finally came up with a whirlwind sampler of SE Asia and in true Chiappa fashion...it is going to be epic.

Our journey began in San Francisco last night where we boarded the Cadillac of planes hosted by Cathay Pacific. Things were rocky at first as we realized we hadn't been assigned seats together (three years ago when we went abroad we couldn't check in online ahead of time...but now you can). Over 14 hours of flying on one plane and not together...I have to say this redhead was quite distressed. Luckily a kind flight attendant put in a seat request and we ended up with some of the best seats of all....bulkhead seats! We had nobody in front of us and I could actually rest my long limbs on the wall in front of me from time to time. Cathay Pacific also has these great seats encased in a shell that slide forward which means you don't disturb the person behind you.

The food was pretty good (and we enjoyed our Cup of Noodles snack about 8 hours in) but the best part was the Entertainment system. We have flown a lot, but never has there been a better system to stay occupied. They have over 100 movies, entire TV series, language lessons (Joe has now learned that the word for Cat in Thai sounds like "meow"....you can imagine what he is calling me now...) and loads of games. Joe and I even played trivia against each other (though we decided we were too young for some of the questions). Of course we got a little antsy..how could you not when flying for 14 hours...but overall it was a great experience.

We landed in Hong Kong about an hour ago and I am writing to you via the free internet station in the airport. Gotta love technology! It is very overcast (turns out we didn't leave the Monterey fog behind) but it looks like a fun place to explore. So many places...so little time... It will have to wait for another trip.

For now, it's onward Singapore..and almost four more hours of flying! Remember....Asia=huge. See you soon!

Cat