Singapore - Getting ready for the New Year too...and nighttime on high

Preparations are in full force here as well for the upcoming New Year's Celebration.

A beautiful warm and windy night so we ventured up to the top of the Marina Bay Towers - amazing views and worth the price from time to time.

Hong Kong - Adam's Birthday....to be 27 again. And a night of it being a small world for me!

Okay, so Adam K, like most everyone walking the streets of Hong Kong is looking at his screen and typing all the time.  He finds it interesting how often they are all looking - I am not sure why hehe.

Being an online guy, he put out a note on an online site that it was going to be his birthday and wondered if anyone wanted to celebrate with him - smart guy to know I was not his best party buddy!

He got a couple guys that said they were in.  And it turned out a college friend of his fiancee was in town as well for the birthday evening.

We started with dinner and then met up with "new friends".

Then it got interesting.......

Three gentlemen joined us for the evening.

Adam, another one, is a great friend a Haiti Outreach - the group Eric Lecy supports in a very big way and no doubt Eric knows this guys connections to the group.  Hit one.

Steve, the fiancee's friend.  In the UST MBA program, lives in White Bear, and of course knows Jim Hansen, a great friend of mine for 30+ years from the program.  Hit two.

Taylor, from Chicago, he sits twenty feet and works everyday in HK with a great mate of mine from Sydney that I worked with on my last stint back there in the late 90s.  Scott and I got together on one of my recent trips to HK - haven't told him I am grounded here for awhile.  Won't he be surprised on Monday.  Hit three.

Who needs six degrees of separation when I can do it in one or worst case two - WOW what a crazy night of connections it turned out to be for me last night.

Hong Kong - the apartment

Settled in to an apartment late last week.  A couple nights there and then off to Singapore - will probably always be more like a hotel than an apartment this year with traveling I will need to do.

Hong Kong - Preparing for New Year Celebrations

The red and gold keeps popping up all over Hong Kong.  Everyone is getting ready to celebrate Chinese New Year.  It kicks off February 9th and runs for a week.

Hong Kong - The walk to the Peak

Once we hit the ground we had to take our plans from the day we lost and get those activities completed as well.  So day one on the ground was very full and active.  Day One was a long day of wandering up and down the side of the mountain but we got back on track.
The City is getting decorated up for the New Year and all the activities that go with it.
Saturday turned out to be a trek to The Peak.  We took the travelators up to the top and then kept wandering up further and further.  And then we got to the final path - another 30 minutes.  We didn't appreciate the distance or the steepness until we were committed to get there.
We learned as we came around the corner on our last turn towards the top that there is a tram that brings you up from another angle in central Hong Kong.  We chose the tram to get back down.
The views were tremendous - even with a bit of haze in the air.

Osaka Japan - not on the itinerary and then it snowed in Tokyo

The Hong Kong adventure has begun with it own adventure.
We had a 20 hour trip to Hong Kong via Tokyo.  As we got near Tokyo they put us in the circle pattern due to snow coming down.  The longer we circled, after flying for 13 hours already, I knew that things were not looking good for this trip.
The pilot finally chose to divert us to Osaka before we ran out of fuel.  So off we went.  We were not the only plane that dropped in there for the evening - creating chaos and confusion around the airport.  So we sat.  And we sat.  About 3 hours later we got off the plane and went through immigration and customs and gathered our luggage.  After 18 hours on the plane anything seemed better.
They loaded us in buses and then off we went to a hotel about 45 minutes down the road.  They very efficiently got us keys to rooms but no it is midnight local time and no information or idea of where we might get information regarding the plan to get us to Hong Kong.
Got on the phone and got it sorted out for myself.  Delta's idea of sorting it out was to get us back to Tokyo today and then another 24 hours later get us in a plane to fly 6 hours to Hong Kong,  Why not make a 20 hour trip a 72 hour trip if you can......
Fortunately someone got us sorted and we are now hanging out in Tokyo waiting for the once a day flight to Hong Kong......and they just announced it would be late.
So we will be at least 48 hours in, and probably longer, by the time we hit the ground.
Wouldn't have surprised me to say snow got in the way of my trip to HK - just didn't expect that problem to be in Tokyo.
So a few quick shots of Osaka, or where ever we were, from around the hotel this morning.