No, really.

Perhaps I am having too much faith in the universality of Internet access, and also in the lasting prowess of my cellphone battery. I am hoping that I could continue to overshare while traveling to/in Asia. I said Asia because I am going to be in Shanghai and then Taipei, and you know, I cannot say China because then we are getting into the realm of political messiness… We certainly can’t have that, can we?

I am very excited because I connected with my second brother finally over the phone. It’s a long story. Anyway, my brother the Japanese chef (is this the right way of describing him? If I say “French chef”, am I saying the chef is French or the chef masters in French cuisine? But “a chef in a French restaurant” sounds so cumbersome and so much less cool…) is in Suzhou right now which is about an hour away from Shanghai, and he is going to pick us up at the airport and put us up in the fancy hotel he works at.

I chuckle at the thought that I will be the FIRST person from my family to visit this hotel, considering how Taipei is only a 2-hour flight away from Shanghai, and in contrast, I am flying from the other side of the globe…

I am getting more and more excited about seeing my brother whom I have not seen for many years. He’s going to be so surprised when he sees my oldest son who is now 6 feet tall. He is probably going to be surprised to see how much I have aged. I know he still sees me in his mind as this snotty-nosed girl who’s 11 years younger, baby of the family.

It’s kind of funny how we tend to remember our siblings the way they looked when we were all much younger. When you see them after many years being apart, you’re caught off guard by the reality of it all, that many years have gone by, what has happened that they now look so old, and the grand finale of your thought process, “Hell, no. That means I am old now too!” Fortunately, things start to look up as soon as you start reminiscing, making fun of the dorky things your parents said or did (including how they beat you with a belt. Ha ha. That’s funny now looking back decades later…)

I am just rambling now. I need to go finish packing and actually work on the projects that I’ve promised to wrap up before I leave for vacation. I am thinking: Well, I will have 12 hours on my flight from SFO to PVG to be devoted to work… (Yeah, right. We all know how that usually turns out…)

Technology. Don’t fail me now!

xxoo