Looks like we made it!

Well, since I'm sitting on the 10th floor of the Prudential Hotel in Hong Kong typing this, I guess we made it to Hong Kong. The 15-hour plane ride was just barely tolerable, what with its lack of legroom and overabundance of bad movies ("Elizabethtown"? "Aeon Flux"?) but we arrived at Hong Kong's beautiful airport right on schedule and managed to find our way to the Airport Express and a cab to the hotel with no trouble at all. Everything ran so much smoother than in good ol' O'Hare -- our luggage was even right there, waiting for us.

Here are a couple of shots out the window of our hotel:

The city is pretty amazing -- very congested and tight, full of high-rises as far as the eye can see. At night it's really something -- neon signs everywhere, stretching out over the streets, advertising everything you can imagine. Here's a shot of some of the signs in the daylight, we'll try for a nighttime shot tonight...

Today, we're planning to do a little sightseeing. All we've seen so far (aside from the train and taxi ride in) was the 7-11 down the block, where we bought some water and pop -- and a can of a beverage I've been dying to try since I heard about it years ago, the appetizingly named POCARI SWEAT. Full taste test report to come.

Thanks for all the good wishes and thoughts. Keep those comments and e-mails coming -- we'll show them to Allison years from now when she's a bit more Internet savvy. And speaking of ... only three more days to Allison. We're supposed to meet her at 3:15 p.m. HK time on Sunday. We'll write all about the meeting, of course, with plenty of pictures -- and, if I can master the technology, a sound file.

Keep checking back at the blog -- we'll post as much as we can.

This is a test post for the brand-new Allison blog. And here's her picture!