We have arrived back in Asia. Hong Kong airport at the moment, but we'll be boarding a plane for Kaohsiung in an hour or so. We've been to this airport a number of times, but never been to Hong Kong itself, although I was there for about 24 hours back in 2001. Anyway, the airport is beautiful. Out one side of the terminal are mountains and out the other is the ocean. There's a gondola going up one of the ridges that I'd like to visit some day. It's such a short trip to here from Kaohsiung - less than an hour and a half plane ride - that it's really quite easy to do for a quick weekend out of Taiwan. We've got ten months of weekends to plan.

I'm really excited to be back on this side of the globe. First, there's the excellent free wifi so I can be sitting in the airport terminal typing this. But mostly I'm excited to be heading home - to my own bed, my own stuff, even my job. I've had a really wonderful time spending seven weeks travelling around New England to visit friends and family. We probably saw more people than we ever would have in a normal summer. But it's also hard to be untethered for so long. We had more offers than we could ever use to stay with people (thank you all!) but it's a long time to be away from your own space.

But now we'll be getting back to that space. I wonder what our apartment will look like, smell like, feel like after being unlived in for two months. It's such a different feeling than twelve months ago when we were arriving for the first time. I like this feeling much better than last year's. I have the excitement without quite so much uncertainty. That's a good feeling.