If I've taken one thing back with me from my trip, it's that I can't let a whole four years pass again between visits to Asia. It was all excellent, and travel in Asia tends to leave a much bigger impression on me than European or North American travel.

As I've already mentioned, Burma itself was an incredible place, and its sights were even better than I was expecting. If you have an interest in Asia at all, I encourage you to go. Some of you will have heard about the boycott that many organisations support. I am very much anti-boycott, as I believe the boycott is actually making things significantly worse for the people of Burma. The Free Burma Coalition, formerly a staunch supporter of the boycott, also changed its mind a few years ago for that reason. Nothing you do is going to cause the government to lose power in any way.

So, where to next? I was thinking of going to Worldcon this year in Yokohama. I'm also looking into doing the Buddha Trail in northern India (and a bit of southern Nepal), though I still have to work out when the best time for that would be.

I think I'll cut down on my US travels. I've seen most of the places I wanted to see anyway. I am, however, still up for the VPX gatherings - that's something I do look forward to!

And finally, just in case you missed it, here's another of my favourite pics from the trip:

Our final stop on the trip, before heading back to Yangon, was a place called Ngapali Beach. Some of the cousins had been talking about Ngapali ever since the trip began, and were very keen to go. After our exhausting trip around Burma, they were even more keen.

The hotel picked us up at the airport on a rickety old bus with no leg room or indeed space, while people going to other resorts were sped away on proper air-conditioned buses. We hoped our hotel was just giving us this one for a bit of local flavour, as it didn't bode well otherwise. After a bumpy, dusty ride, we were relieved to discover that the hotel was actually pretty nice - we stayed in little wooden cottages with balconies looking right out onto the beach. So we spent the day lounging around and playing in the water.

The water was wonderfully warm, and shallow too - I walked out really far, and the water still only came as far as my chest. The tide was very gentle too, so even out here it was extremely relaxing - evidently the water in Ngapali is more salty than in other places we've been, however, according to Olivia, who's more sensitive to such things.

Olivia's dad also joined us on this part of the trip, but her mom did not, which was a bit of a shame, as this is where they spent their honeymoon, many years ago.

To some, Ngapali was the best part of the trip, though not to me. Ngapali is a really nice beach, but I have been to better. On the other hand, I've never been anywhere like Bagan or Inle Lake before. Ngapali was just a nice bit of relaxation at the end of the trip, rather than one of its most memorable parts.

There was also the whole problem with service - there really wasn't any. Ngapali is a resort that's been built in a very rural part of Burma, and by the look of it, they just hired whatever local people they could. The people there really had no concept of what they were supposed to be doing. After calling room service, and learning that they apparently had nothing in stock except for club sandwiches, we went to the restaurant and ordered. Twenty minutes after I ordered (no exaggeration), the waiter came back to tell me they didn't have what I wanted. Olivia's order was in stock, but it took them a whole hour to bring it! Many other people had similar problems, and it was the only cafe in the place. For dinner they gave us a buffet, and we got to try some unique cocktails at the bar. The bar man was the only person working there who could speak any English - turned out he was actually the manager, though cocktail mixing seems to be where his heart is.

We had to leave a day earlier than everyone else, so the next day we were on our own. We'd arranged for a bus from the hotel to the airport at 8:30am, but by 8:30 they weren't even putting the bags on the bus yet and it turned out they weren't planning to leave until at least 9, which was a bit too late for our flight. Olivia kicked up a fuss - after a few of those, the hotel finally called a taxi for us (and they paid for it) to take us there in more comfort. Then we had to go through airport procedures on our own for the first time (with the group, we'd always had someone take care of it for us) - mostly this was just watching what other people were doing, as there were no clear instructions as to what we were supposed to actually do.

One thing I forgot to mention in previous posts was the non-assigned seating on flights. Yangon to Mandalay had assigned seats, but none of the other internal flights did. Which meant quite a bit of chaos upon boarding. When people seat themselves on planes, they don't seat themselves particularly logically, or with a mind to being efficient. By the time the people towards the end get on, all that's left are a bunch of single seats spread across the whole plane. Incredibly annoying, and after the first time, I always made sure I was one of the first on. This particular flight was a bit easier, since there were just two of us to look out for, but it was still a bit of work (the flight was already half-full, as this airport was just one of several stops)

In any event, we made it back to Yangon in the end just fine.

In Yangon, we headed to the Scott Market for a bit to get some last-minute gifts for people, and then on the way back to the airport went back to Aunty Pene's house one last time to say goodbye, which was a nice little sending off, as her house was also the first place we visited when we arrived.

We had a 3.5 layover in Bangkok. John Thompson, one of my old friends from HK, lives in Bangkok nowadays, so he came up to the airport to visit. We got our boarding passes at the transfer desk, then went through immigration. Olivia got through fine, but my immigration officer was convinced that we'd went the wrong way and should be going to our gate instead. He called a Thai Airlines woman to take us to our gate, but when I told her what we were doing, she explained to the immigration officer that we were allowed to go through. (I was quite bewildered that she seemed to know more about immigration procedures than they did). We did have to pay airport tax again, but it was nice to see John again, if only briefly (last time I saw him was about 5 years ago).

(incidentally, the new airport in Bangkok looks nice, but it's the most inefficient and badly designed modern airport I've ever been to - I'll think twice before changing planes here again)

Then it was a 17 hour flight from Bangkok - JFK, which was actually pretty comfortable. Thai has more leg room than Cathay, and we also had on-demand entertainment, rather than channels that just loop around.

Burma - Ngapali Beach

Bangkok International Airport

At our next stop, we stayed on the lake. Quite literally. In our stilt-house hotel room, we could look down and actually see the water rippling through the floorboards. This was all quite a novelty for us. At least until morning when we woke up to the coldest morning of the trip. We just wanted to hug the blankets and not leave the bed at that point.

The lake in question is Inle Lake, nestled between the mountains in the southeastern corner of Shan State. The lake actually looks quite shallow in many places, as you see grasses and plants growing everywhere right in the middle of the lake, forming their own little islands, complete with farmers roaming them. As it turns out, however, these are artificial islands, all of which would float away with the current if they weren't held down by bamboo poles. Anyone can climb onto one of these islands, into the sludge, but I opted out (some of our group did, however).

Not only are there artificial islands in the lake, however, there are also entire villages right in the middle - all consisting of stilt houses, of course. The lake is quite a vibrant community of villages, farmers, fishermen and pagodas, in fact, and a boat is pretty much a requirement to get anywhere. So for the next day and a half, we were transported around the lake to various places in thin, five-man (single file) riverboats. A lot of the places involved seeing the craftspeople make their wares (such as silk weaving, silver smithing, etc), but we also visited more temples, etc.

One of those temples was the famed "cat jumping monastery", which Olivia had built up in my mind as quite something to see - where the monks have the cats jump through hoops, just for fun. When we arrived, we found someone who was decidedly not a monk coaxing some quite reluctant cats to jump. Evidently it's not quite as impressive as it used to be (I guess the monks got bored), but it was a bit of fun all the same.

Up and down the lake we witnessed the Inle fisherman with their interesting cone-shaped fishing contraptions. Didn't see anyone catch anything, but I'm sure it happens sometimes. We were also blasted by loudspeakers a couple of times, as novice monks were paraded up and down the lake as part of their initiation ceremony.

We also saw a few of the Panaung women - the ones who wear the gold hoops to make their necks incredibly long.

After a day and a half of this, we headed into the hills to the town of Taunggyi, which is where Olivia's dad and his family grew up. The house where he and all his siblings were born still stands, though it's now used mostly as storage. A larger, more recent building is used as the main house - one of Olivia's cousins still lives here. The family members in Yangon, and everyone who'd flown over from America but hadn't joined the full Burma trip, also flew up. It was New Year's Eve, and we had another gathering. It was nice to see everyone again, though Olivia's mom didn't turn up this time - she'd went back to her own hometown to continue with her projects. This time we mostly sat outside, drinking locally-made wine (we bought it right from the Vineyard as we passed it on the way up). The white wine was quite miserable, but the rose was nice (I never got a chance to try the red).

Sometime in the evening, the power went out again, but this house too had a generator, so we were okay. We also saw some fireworks being fired from a plane over here, which was an interesting perspective.

The New Year's Eve gathering ended at 9pm, to my dismay, and we got driven to our new hotel (a golf resort - the worst of the trip, but apparently the best one in the area). Everyone went to sleep, though I stayed awake till midnight with Olivia, because I have a thing about missing midnight on New Year. I wandered outside at midnight, saw some more fireworks, and heard a bustling party nearby.

This section has two photo galleries:

Burma - Inle Lake

Burma - Taunggyi

From Bagan, we flew north to the other former capital, Mandalay. Not that we actually got to see much of Mandalay itself for the first day or so. As soon as we arrived at the airport, we were bussed off to a place called Maimyo, an old colonial hill-town, just to see the area and the botanical gardens. The gardens were actually really nice, but we didn't know it was going to take two hours in each direction, only to see the gardens for a mere 30 minutes. Never even got a change to walk to the lookout tower, let alone climb up it.

Bussed back down and into Mandalay itself for lunch before heading away again, this time by boat. We sailed up the river once again, this time on a somewhat larger and more comfortable boat, to Mingun, the site of an ancient stone pagoda that would have been the biggest in the world, had a huge earthquake not halted construction just a third of the way into it. It's a shame, because being there and seeing the big lump of rock and the bases of what would have been huge stone lions gives you an impressive sense of just how big it would have been. It was pretty impressive.

We climbed up the pagoda and walked around the top, followed once again by self-appointed guides who told us the history of the place. I had a guide with good English, and he was pretty helpful, even carrying my water bottle all the way up (at his insistence, not mine). At one point, he held my camera while I put my shoes back on (we hadn't checked into our hotel yet, so I was wearing my trainers rather than the much more convenient flip flops I usually wore in Burma), and then disappeared around the corner. But when I turned the corner, he was still waiting for me, with camera. The Burmese, thankfully, are a very honest people. We also visited the world's biggest strikable bell, which I of course struck. It was already dark by the time we got back to our boat. I gave my guide a nice tip, and he gave me a jade bracelet as a gift in thanks, which was nice.

We got to see our first real glimpse of Mandalay itself the next day, when we visited the Mahamuni Paya, a temple which features as its centrepiece a bronze Buddha covered in layer after layer of gold leaf. I had the opportunity to put some gold leaf on it myself, and the idea is you put it over the part of the body you want to be healed. As only men are allowed into this section to do this, you can also take requests from the women - so I put a few on for Olivia as well as myself.

Following this, we headed out of town again and into Amarapura, in the outskirts of Mandalay. Our first stop here was a school run by Buddhist monks, for any children who couldn't afford regular school. We donated some money to the school, and some of our group had brought things like pens and calculators to hand out. Uncle Stan in particular seemed very enthused and happy to be helping out here, but it really was great to see the kids so happy, despite their small, crowded classrooms. We also handed out sweets and chocolates here, in a much more orderly fashion. We went around giving one to each kid, who politely received it and did not grab. On one occasion, an extra sweet fell out one of the bags and landed by a kid's feet. He picked it up and handed it back.

After our good deed, we went a few more minutes down the road to U Bein's Bridge, allegedly the longest teak bridge in the world, stretching all the way across a lake. Most of us just walked halfway across it. We all ended up with personal guides yet again, though my one this time didn't speak such good English, though he tried. One man at the start of the bridge had a cage full of owls. You could buy one and set it free, though apparently they've all been trained to fly right back again!

It was at this bridge, waiting for those who'd walked the whole length of it, that we had the best food of our trip - corn fritters, with the freshest corn. I could just munch on them for weeks - I'll have to make it myself sometime. This was before lunch, so when we did go to lunch, some of us weren't all that hungry. I wandered off down the street with Olivia, and we discovered a little temple complex - very bright and colourful, and very different from all the other places we'd seen on our trip - this is where we found the Buddha in this entry's icon.

The rest of the day was a bit of a rush around. We nearly skipped Mandalay Palace, but went at my insistence. The centre of Mandalay is dominated by old city walls, surrounded by a moat, and we'd passed by this so many times that I wanted to see. Inside the walls is actually a military complex, with many signs saying "foreigners allowed to take photos at palace area only" and such, and the even more ominous "Tatmaday (the army) and the people, cooperate and crush all those harming the union." The palace itself (which is just a replica of the ancient palace) was pretty nice, however, and it had a tower, which I climbed at the first opportunity, having missed out back at Maimyo.

One more pagoda after this, and then we headed up Mandalay Hill in a couple of rickety old bus/vans. We missed the sunset, but did get a decent view of the whole area.

For this entry, I have four photo albums:

Burma - Maimyo

Burma - Mingun

Burma - Amarapura

Burma - Mandalay

In ancient times (several periods ranging from roughly 850 - 1370 A.D.), Bagan was the capital city of various Burmese kingdoms, and it's one of those places you can go to and really feel the sense of history around you.

Back in those days, the people were a little temple-crazy, and pretty much filled the area with temples. Even now, the plains of Bagan are filled with the ruins of these stone temples (most of them intact, though some have been given a bad reconstruction job using oversized bricks and cement, unfortunately). You can climb up one of many temples and look out across the plains in all directions - you will see these temples sprouting up everywhere like trees, all the way to the horizon, and it seems that no matter where you go in the area, you're still surrounded by them. Some are big, imposing structures, but others are tiny, unassuming things that wouldn't impress you on their own but are still nice to come across.

This part of the trip also involved a river cruise - and sure enough, all the way down the river, more temples appearing behind every bend and at the top of every cliff face. It really is quite a feeling just being in the middle of all this.

Some of them are still active temples, with plenty of pilgrims coming to pray, though they're not nearly as busy as the ones we visited in Yangon or Mandalay.

Bagan was also the first place we really got pestered by hawkers and beggars. Most of the little temples were fine, though occasionally you'd find people inside the temples selling paintings of the murals inside their corresponding temple, which was kind of nice.

One place we visited got rather crazy, however. After being sold some gold leaf to place over an image one of the pagoda walls, we then found ourselves being given butterfly badges. Not just given, but pinned onto our shirts. I ended up with three of them. Each time, of course, they expect a bit of money for the gift, but at the end we were a bit sick of it. We were also inundated with children, each of whom chose a person and began telling them all the stories of the pagoda in Burmese. They didn't speak much English at this place, so I myself was left alone, but most of the group, being Burmese (by ethnicity if not by birth) got significantly more pestered here (and they too expect some cash for their stories). I made the mistake of handing out chocolates to a couple of the kids here - it turned into a mad scramble, with some of the older kids even going as far as to snatch them out of my hand when I was handing them to younger kids.

Thankfully, that was the very worst of those experiences, and at most places the kids were much, much better. In my Mandalay entry (whenever I get to it), I'll mention our incredibly satisfying "helping the kids of Burma" experience.

Our hotel in Bagan also deserves a mention. It had a great outdoorsy setting, with interesting rooms and a fun little poolside bar (which I've certainly experienced in other places but wasn't really expecting here). The pool itself was freezing, even at 2 in the afternoon, despite the fact that it was pretty hot outside, but it was nice to lounge around for a bit. The only problem was there was a festival going on outside the hotel during our stay. The first night we didn't hear anything, but we were woken at 5am by the sounds of Buddhist chanting coming over the loudspeakers - had to listen to my mp3 player to get back to sleep. When we returned again in the evening, extremely loud music was blasting over the area (from just one little restaurant, as it turned out), giving us Burmese hip-hop, and amusing covers of the Beatles and such - not quite so amusing when it was still going at 11pm, however. The mp3 player emerged once again (there are certain types of music I can go to sleep with, but "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in Burmese is not one of them).

Again, three photo albums for this part of the trip:

Burma - Bagan - Temples

Burma - Bagan - General

Burma - Bagan - Ayeyarwady River Trip

Arriving in Burma reminded me, to some degree, of arriving in Nepal. Small airport, and the distinct smell of smoke in the air. After you get through immigration and customs, you are inundated by touts trying to give you a ride. The touts weren't nearly as bad here, admittedly, but it didn't matter anyway, because we were met by Olivia's dad (who'd arrived in Burma a few days earlier) and her cousin who still lives in Burma.

Despite the initial resemblance, Yangon is not very much like Kathmandu at all. Yangon may have the busy unpaved streets, crazy traffic and crumbling buildings, but it is nothing compared to the insane mess that is Kathmandu. The city (in particularly the downtown area) is filled with old colonial-style buildings of many colours, which gives Yangon a quite interesting and fascinating look. It's also, of course, dotted with many fine temples and pagodas, which add a lot of nice shiny gold to the city.

Yangon also has some nice parks and lakes, all in much better shape than I was expecting - the lake in particular was filled with young lovebirds in their trendy clothes just hanging out. Some of them seemed quite bewildered to see me walking by in a paso (traditional Burmese man-skirt), which you see people wear everywhere in Burma, with the exception of that particular place :)

I've spoken of the Shwe Dagon in a previous entry, and I still stand by those remarks. I wish I could see it again now. Though I got some great photos of it, they still don't do it justice.

The main reason we were all coming over, of course, was that Olivia's oldest aunt, Aunty Pene, was turning 70, and so we came over for a combined Christmas/Birthday celebration (her actual birthday is in January, but we needed a date that everyone could make).

Aunty Pene's house is in a narrow little street, but the house itself and its grounds are actually bigger than I expected. The house itself was apparently built by Olivia's grandad. It's a little dark inside, and perhaps a little austere, with loads of dark wood everywhere. Power is not consistent in Burma, so outages are quite common (but they have their own generator, which they turned on for Christmas day). Some of the family were staying here, but most of us who were going on to do the full Burma trip (myself, Olivia, some of her cousins, two cousins' boyfriends, two aunts and two uncles) stayed at the nice downtown hotel.

Olivia's family are Christians, and Aunty Pene is the most religious of the lot, so Christmas Day was a little more religious than I was used to (but it just amounted to a song and a prayer, and then the rest was just the usual eating and talking). I also got to meet some of Olivia's cousins from her mom's side of the family (usually it's her dad's side we meet), which was nice. Admittedly, it did get a bit tiring after a while having to keep standing up to greet people whenever someone new wandered into the house (mostly because I was still wearing my paso, which is difficult enough to keep on when you're just sitting still.

Click the pictures below to see the photo albums for this section:

Burma - Yangon - Shwe Dagon Pagoda

Burma - Yangon - General

Burma - Yangon - Aunty Pene's House

The day before we left for Burma, we took a train up to the HK/China border and visited Shenzhen for a day.

Crossing the river into Shenzhen is like stepping into a different world. If we'd travelled two hours north to Guangzhou (or even to the towns a shorter distance away north of Shenzhen), it wouldn't have been nearly as disorienting, because in Guangzhou, despite the fact that everyone can speak Mandarin fluently, what you overwhelmingly hear is Cantonese, just like in Hong Kong. Shenzhen is a whole different story, and Mandarin was pretty much the only thing we heard whlie we were there.

This is because Shenzhen is entirely made up of immigrants from all parts of China. As the richest city in China, people are really quite keen to move there. So it's established its own identity quite removed from the rest of Guangdong province and Hong Kong. So Shenzhen is, in many ways, a microcosm of Modern China as a whole. If you want to see modern China without being encumbered by things such as history, Shenzhen's the place to see it.

It's quite a huge place now, bigger than HK, and full of modern buildings and a nice, new subway. Unfortunately, the countryside has been sacrificed to make way for all this. There are still some hills in the north of Shenzhen, but they're gradually being pulled down to make way for more housing developments, as there doesn't seem to be any environmental protection whatsoever. (Contrast to Hong Kong, which is still such a green place precisely because it has so many protected areas). The other problem is, because of the rate of construction (30 years ago, Shenzhen wasn't much to speak of at all), the city doesn't have a whole lot of character beyond "modern building here, modern building there". Some of the buildings are nice, but on the whole they don't really seem to be build to be striking or interesting in the way the buildings of HK or Shanghai are, so despite the size of the place, there aren't really many sites of interest beyond the theme parks, beaches, etc.

We actually spent half our day visiting Window on the World, a theme park containing miniature constructions of famous buildings around the world. They were all built in different scales, unfortunately, so while you can go up the Eiffel Tower and get a great view of the western part of the city, you could pretty much stomp on Manhattan and crush it to the ground (though doing that is frowned upon). The strangest thing, of course, was wandering around these pretty well-made miniatures of places such as Angkor Wat and Borobodur, with an even more upbeat than usual version of "Jingle Bells" blasting through the speakers. This sort of cultural contrast is another quite strong characteristic of Modern China.

We then took a monorail around the area near the park. There's another park nearby, this time with miniatures of famous Chinese sites, and recreations of Chinese Folk Villages. We didn't have time for that one, though from what we saw it looked like it might be a bit better than Window on the World.

I was actually quite pleasantly surprised to discover that people didn't stare at me as I walked around Shenzhen. Again, this is a huge contrast to Guangzhou and most places I've been to in mainland China, where pretty much everyone did (Shanghai was the only previous exception to that). Well, no-one stared, that is, until one old man got up while we were waiting for the monorail, and paced in front of me, back and forth, staring constantly as though he wasn't sure what a foreigner was. In other places, I might have been amused, but as I hadn't received any other attention like that around here, I screamed at him. He silently slinked away and I wasn't bothered by him again.

Once we were done there, we met up with Alan and Helen & their two kids. Alan is a Glaswegian that used to run my dad's factory in Shenzhen, and we used to see them quite frequently for Christmas and various gatherings. He's no longer with the company, but still lives in Shenzhen, so we went round for a visit. They live in this nice penthouse apartment with private roof, and the roof has been converted into a really nice garden area with another nice city view. The kids are growing up quite nicely, though only the older one can really speak any English right now (they mostly speak Mandarin, Helen being from Tianjin). They took us to our only Chinese meal of this part of the trip (seems like in HK we ate everything but Chinese, strangely), then we headed back to the more familiar city to the south.

And here is the photo album:

It already seems like ages since we were in Hong Kong. As I mentioned previously, it was a great feeling being back there, and I definitely want to move back again whenever I can. It was a big game of "see what's changed, see what hasn't", and there was a fair bit of both. My favourite Mongolian BBQ, Kublai's, seems to have disappeared some time ago, unfortunately, but other old favourites such as the Smuggler's Inn in Stanley were still there, as unchanged as ever.

I've divided the HK photos into eight sections (just click on the pics to go to the corresponding directory on Picasaweb:

Hong Kong - Tsim Sha Tsui	Hong Kong - At Home in Sai Kung	Hong Kong - Central & Admiralty	Hong Kong - Wan Chai
Hong Kong - Repulse Bay	Hong Kong - Stanley	Hong Kong - Sha Tin	Hong Kong - Mong Kok

Special mention should go to the Sha Tin section. Last time we visited the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, there were indeed many Buddhas (more than ten thousand incidentally), but it was still a pretty plain monastery on a hill. This time, it was swarming with golden statues of monks, gods and bodhisattvas - the entire path up the hillside is lined with these monks from the very beginning, in fact, some with quite lifelike and some with bizarre features. If ever I've felt a statue's gaze was following me, it was there. Definitely worth a visit, if you ever go to Hong Kong.

The Burma photos are going to take a bit longer to put up. There are about three times as many of those, and I'm still trying to decide how best to organise them.

Well, I'm finally back. It was an amazing trip, and I think it ranks right up there with my Nepal trips at the top of my "best trips" list.

Right now I'm still knackered, and need time to recover. I have many many photos to sort through and upload. Then I'll get to reading everyone's LJs, responding to emails again, etc :)

For now, I'll leave you with this little photo from one of the Reclining Buddha temples in Yangon, where restrictions go a little beyond the usual "no shoes or socks" thing:




Hope you all had a great New Year!

From the hotel here, we have the most amazing view. Our room looks directly on to the Shwe Dagon pagoda, the huge golden stupa that dominates the city. It's quite impressive in the daytime, but at night, it's all lit up and can be seen for miles. I think the nighttime view is quite possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I keep peering out my window at night even now just to glimpse it again, because I can't get enough and I can't take it home with me (they do a pretty thorough search for that sort of thing through customs around here).

Burma itself is a fascinating place. Unlike anywhere else I've visited, it really is like a pocket of another time (largely because of its relative isolation and current lack of development - so it's not all good). People wear their traditional dress, and Buddhist monks and nuns are everywhere. Often you'll just see them standing at the bus stop just chatting away to someone. On the other hand, most of the buildings are quite old and look like they could do with a fair bit of maintenance. Everyone is very friendly and nice.

The weather is also tremendous - very warm and comfortable.

That's all for now. I will of course have loads of photos to post when I'm back.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas is wonderful in Hong Kong. It feels so much more festive here than it does in New York (or indeed anywhere else I've been in America during the Christmas season).

Part of this is the extensive Christmas lights and decorations found throughout the territory. Many skyscrapers are in fact covered in lights depicting Christmas scenes and greetings, on both sides of the harbour.

Another part of it is that people (and businesses) in Hong Kong are not afraid to use the word "Christmas". "Merry Christmas" can be seen wherever you go, and there's none of this "holiday" nonsense which, though not offensive, is just incredibly dull and generic.

I am in Hong Kong. In fact, I can see most of the buildings in my default LJ icon from my window right now, though from a different angle. I am extremely happy.

I was sort of expecting to feel a huge amount of nostalgia and a touch or two of regret upon my return here. Instead, what I'm really feeling is an overwhelming sense of comfort and rightness. Everything just feels right.

I haven't been here for four years, and the changes are quite distinct. Some of my old favourites are gone forever, while other new things have taken their places. But this is how it's always been in Hong Kong - it's the dynamic nature of the place. Things wouldn't seem right if it was all the same. If I want to go somewhere where things are more or less as I left them, I'll go to Tokyo.

What has become clear in my mind is that I must work to move back here within the next 3-5 years. I am certain this can be done.

Heading off to the airport in just a few hours.

I might have the chance to show my face around here once or twice while I'm in HK, but I think it's very unlikely I'll get online at all while I'm in Burma.

Have a fantastic Christmas and a tremendous New Year! 

Don' t break LJ while I'm gone.