Oh, so it's been almost two whole months since I've last written.  Hmm... Not sure what to say other than I've been a bit distracted with other areas of my life.  See, since my last post, I found out that Drew & I are going to experience some monumental changes in our lives, in about 6 more months. 

Yeah, so since the last post, I found out that we're expecting.  Not that I expect this blog to turn into a pregnancy/baby site (come to find out there are thousands I've those) and since a good portion of my friends/readers of this are male, I figured most of you guys would rather remain in ignorant bliss.  However, we're super excited and from time to time I may have to slide in some comments.  The hardest part to date was keeping the darned thing a secret!!

Anyway, for ten days in early April, Drew and I went on our big vacation to Hong Kong & Phuket, Thailand.  I had cashed in a ton of miles to fly us business class from San Fran to HK and then to Phuket and then back to HK, and then home (of course, these miles are on the shaky USAirways, so it made a lot of sense to do it).  We really wanted to make the trip on the fabulous Singapore Airlines but had to settle on Asiana Airlines, which was nicer than our honeymoon trek on Northwest business class, but nowhere near as nice as Singapore.

We headed to Hong Kong first, via Seoul, where we were met at the airport by Drew's brother David's fiancee, Crystal (lovingly referred to normally as the HK Girl).  She & David are planning to marry at Thanksgiving in Hong Kong.  I felt so bad not being able to tell her throughout the trip that I won't be back in November for the wedding, but hopefully Drew will still be able to make the trip.

Hong Kong ROCKS.  I would move there in a heartbeat.  As I've been describing to people, it's a great mix of cultural old-world customs & new urban planning and high-tech planning.  English is everywhere, the subway is clean and super easy to use (it makes the Metro in DC or the NYC subway seem way complicated) - plus, they have this cool subway card that works kind of like a smart card - you can have it in your purse and just wave it over the card reader versus having to stick it in the reader to get on/off the subway.  This "Octopus" card can also be used in 7-11s, most tourist attractions, and some stores - in addition to all of the public transportation modes - buses/ferries/subways.  You can add money as necessary - and because you leave a deposit on it, you can even go into debt on it as long as you add money before you try to use it again.  It was super clever. 

We took the subway to the heart of Kowloon and then took a cab to our hotel, the Sheraton.  Drew & I used points for the hotel, and because we stay at Starwood properties all the time, we were upgraded to a great room overlooking the entire HK harbor (just amazing view) and got free breakfast plus access to the special lounge with free drinks (not that I was drinking anything stronger than a coke) and snacks.  Plus, they had a fruit basket in the room with fruit and cookies when we arrived.  Nicely done.

From there, we all went for some dim sum, and then started our shopping trek.  Hong Kong is a shopper's mecca.  For those of you that know me, you can now begin to understand why I fell in love with the city.  The malls and stores are all open until at least 10 pm every night - and people shop everywhere.  We walked through many a mall and then headed to the Woman's Market - a crazy flea market like environment - packed with people - tourists and locals - and shopping every kind of fake item you could possibly want.  We sat down at a little drink stand where Crystal & I had mango cream drinks and Drew had a coke (of course).  From there, we headed back to the Kowloon waterfront, where we walked by the art museum and saw the nightly laser show right on the water. 

The next day, Crystal met up with us again and brought a friend of hers.  We all headed to Stanley Market to tour around - and to get there we took the bus all around the city - we sat on top (kind of like a British double-decker, but closed in) and I was about car sick as we winded around the mountain tops at some crazy speeds.  From here, we had some amazing views of the waterfront and some amazing homes.  Stanley Market was very touristy, but we managed to go have afternoon tea at this fun little tapas restaurant on the water where they had a great little band going around playing favrorite sing alongs.  Totally fun.  From there, we headed to HK Park and then took the cable car up to the top of the Peak. Then we rode the Star Ferry back to Kowloon.  The views were incredible.  It was the perfect evening. 

The next day, Drew & I headed to Kowloon Park and wandered the city.  We also headed to see the world's largest sitting Buddha.  i was super psyched.  First, we took a very sketchy bus ride on one lane roads quite a long way and then when we arrived, we bought tickets for the "vegetarian lunch" which allowed us to tour inside the Buddha.  We had to climb a ton of stairs to get to the top - but it was well worth the views.  We toured inside the Buddha, bought a few souvenirs, and then toured the monastery grounds.  We didn't burn any incense but did leave some fruit as a gift to the gods.  The bathrooms were similar to Europe - a nice hole in the ground where you squat.  :-).  I was happy that I found some toilet paper that some nice American probably left behind.  We skipped the vegetarian lunch and headed back toward the train on the bus.  Beautiful land, mountains, and beaches, but scary driving conditions.  When we returned, we went into the Peninsula Hotel to see what the fuss was about and did some more shopping.  All in all, we didn't really buy much, but I did buy a new MP3 player that is about an inch and a half long and half an inch wide.  It fits into the inside pocket of my running shorts :-).

The next day we headed to the airport - this time by taxi which was considered expensive (around $40).  We then flew to Phuket via Bangkok.  Phuket is one of the islands hit very hard by the tsunami.  You could see a lot of the devastation in the air in terms of beach erosion.  We landed and a representative from our resort met us.  We were staying at the Amanpuri Resort, a very very very swanky place, and had it not been heavily discounted trying to lure in tourists, normally out of our price range.  We had a beautiful pavilion and the oceanfront was amazing.  I was really all about plopping my butt in a chair and reading a good book - and of course, swimming like a mad woman in the ocean.  Most of the time in Phuket, that's what we did.  Had some amazing meals.

One day during the week, we did head over to Phuket Town, and spent the day looking in the markets and stores "in the city" - some of the old town buildings - but it reminded us a lot of Kuta Beach in Bali - dirty, smelly, and touristy. 

On our last day, we decided to pay the big bucks for a boat tour to head around various islands and most especially to James Bond Island.  This was the best day of the trip.  There were five of us on this huge cruiser - and we sat on the boat and saw some beautiful uninhabited islands, took a little motorboat inside some caves of a deserted island, and of course, saw James Bond island (famous from the movie, "The Man With the Golden Gun").  We also had some time to swim off the side of the boat and they had this huge luncheon spread for us.  It was amazing - an experience we truly could not replicate anywhere.  We also met some other Americans (the first we met in Thailand) who were from NYC (darned Yankee fans are everywhere) but since they had lived in Seattle for a while, we bonded over that.

We headed back to Hong Kong, and spent one last night having dinner with Crystal, and doing a bit more shopping.  Then we flew back to the states.  Of course, I got sick for the first time - as we were landing at SFO.  Why, oh, why, do these huge planes no longer stock vomit bags in the front seat pocket?  As if, you know in advance you might get sick, so are smart enough to grab some of the bags from the bathroom in time?  I also managed to get sick in the cab on the way home, but was prepared by then.  Crazy.

Anyway, here are a ton of photos of our vacation.  Enjoy :-).