We went to the Bay Area first, Alan for his PayPal "Leaders Day Conference"
while
Kyle
started his summer vacation with his cousins. Then, my
sabbatical officially kicked off in Seattle, where we stayed with our best
friends, the Yens, in their amazing custom-built house. Afterwards, we
went to Irvine and stayed with my cousin Cheryl,
allowing Kyle to play with his cousins Emme and Aiden.
From LAX, we flew to Naples, and the following day, took the
commuter train to the Amalfi Coast, where we
tried to get over jetlag before meeting up with our friend JonMichael, who
brought his girlfriend Jen. We had an amazing few days there, traveling up and
down the coast, visiting the picturesque towns. Time flew by, and we just
as we were getting to know Jen, it was time for us to move on.
We eventually made it
up the whole boot of Italy, from the Southwest coast (the "shin" part) to the
Northern tip, to our little apartment in
Lake Como. After not having
electricity for 24 hours, we finally settled in to another great week around the
absolutely amazing European tourist spot made famous by George
Clooney. We
spent a night in a super-quaint little house with our friends Lee & Mel.
Then, our best friends Felita and Chantal came, with their super-nanny Sandy
who, among numerous other skills, knew how to handle a boat. Our 3 hour
boat ride around Lake Como was one of our best experiences!
Our magical time at Lake Como came to a close, and we took the
train back down to Florence, where our
National Geographic tour began.
All in all, an amazing trip. We had our normal travel
mishaps, like being separated at Naples, having no electricity in Varenna, and
Alan's asthma acting up in Lake Como to the point where we went to a local
clinic to get antibiotics. We loved meeting all of our friends in various
parts of Italy. We enjoyed trying out the local cuisine, though to be
honest, we had to get our Chinese food fix when we got to Florence. We
were pampered on the National Geographic tour, where we especially appreciated
the luggage pickup from and drop off to our hotel rooms. I got what I
wanted / needed - an extended time off period to clear the brain, start work in
Singapore fresh, with quality time with the family, especially after the 6
months of commuting between Singapore and Shanghai.
We split ways at Frankfurt, I flying directly to Singapore,
while ML and Kyle finished summer vacation in California. We moved into
our superb service apartment, Ascott at Raffles place, while we started our
search for our apartment. We have finally moved into an awesome new unit
off Orchard, starting our new life here in sunny Singapore.
our lives in Shanghai, saying goodbye to our great friends, and in
parallel, attending the farewell parties of a lot of other friends leaving the
"Paris of the East" at the same time. Alan had his guys' outing (first pic
is from their go-karting adventure where alcohol was served upstairs of the
track - typical of "only in China" experience); ML had many smaller,
more intimate goodbyes;
and our awesome friends surprised us with a farewell party at the Horizen Lounge
(which closed shortly after our party, typical of Shanghai).