Wednesday, 8:20 am

I woke up this morning at 6:00 - exactly 8 hours after I fell asleep last night. Perfectly timed, we should have no more trouble with jet lag this week. Dave was still sleeping, so I creeped down to the fitness center and jumped on an elliptical for about 30 minutes. With my ipod running, I worked up a sweat watching through the floor to ceiling windows as the city sleepily began to move. Hong Kong is definitely a night-time town. At 8:00 last night, it looked like a big city. At 6:00 this morning, it looked like a small town with hardly anyone moving about. The sun was not exactly rising - its really hilly and both cloudy and polluted - but beginning to brighten the view and burn off the haze. And I was glad to feel excited about the view in front of me. What an interesting city, and cities are such interesting places.

I began focusing on the question that stumps me right now. My words of comfort are that I'll be able to find people who are like me, and things that I recognize. But if I surround myself with a recreated version of home, then why am I moving to China in the first place? I didn't come up with a good answer, but I did realize that I don't have to become an entirely different person just because we're moving, and that is okay to ease into such a change.

Our approach today is different from yesterday. Rather than doing new-life-research, we're going to be tourists today. The sun is peeking through the clouds, which is already better than the constant drizzle we faced yesterday. I'm excited about seeing the city today, and I think that'll make the prospect of living here much more palatable. I plan to take this approach with us to Shanghai as well, and get excited about the city before digging in and getting intimidated. A good idea I hope, because we're being constantly told that Shanghai will be much more difficult for foreigners.

No word from Dave, I know. My quick update for him - he's really excited about the work prospects so far, and I'm sure that'll only increase. He really liked everyone in the office. But not having any idea what our living situation will be makes this more scary than productive - we're looking at a lot of places thinking - are we going to have to live someplace like that? He's also worried about the pollution, and we're beginning to think that close-to-the-office might be something we sacrifice for not-so-dirty.