Up in the Air, and Between Acts

First step in any magical journey is a big one.

And our long direct flight west to the Far East was one long distortion of space and time ... Leaving the house very early on Sunday morning, so early that the morning was still a Saturday night to the rest of Waterloo's sleeping residents, we set out in a limo for Pearson and a direct flight to Hong Kong.

By 'we' I mean the four of us: two Fongs and two Fordes, laden with a stretch limo-filling load of luggage (an array of carry-on bags plus 5 giant suit cases, including one for Maeve oh-so-carefully-and-fully packed by a project managerial mother-to-be with clothes, bottles, medicines, teething toys, and a stuffed mandrill for Maeve to cuddle!) By the time we boarded and our fully packed Airbus took off, it was 10 in the morning in Toronto. But flying west toward the east brought us back into night again by early afternoon. Or should I say brought us ahead into night ...?

By early Sunday evening we'd flown ahead of night into day. A strange sensation that may be familiar to those of you who've flown over the North Pole then down over Russia and into China ... But for me it was certainly a first. A time-travelling forward to a new day over the land where our daughter awaits us, no doubt with little notion that we're coming for her.

Maeve is ahead of us in time, and she has always been so for Kath and I---the possibility of a child to cherish and to share our future with was something we discussed dangerously early in the dating process---and now this mysterious magical daughter-to-be has pulled us ahead by a day to catch up to her. Of course, she will always be ahead of us, even when we do finally catch hold of her on February 5th. She'll always be leading us into the future, ours and especially hers, just as my neices and nephews have led my siblings into the happiest of futures ...

The flight was long, and it was hard to sleep, not just because 15 hours in a chair at 38,000 feet is not the best formula for rest but because our lives feel up in the air at this moment; between acts, to be more exact. The long flight was part of our passage to the next stage. Parenthood!

We crossed into China's airspace at 11 AM Monday, and landed at last in our daughter's homeland, feeling closer to her, and to our future. We are in the future, by more than a mere day. We are in Hong Kong, China's gateway city, and Kath's dad Marcus's old stomping grounds. And after a quick trip to our hotel, the Baden-Powell International, we are in Kowloon, which is just as Bladerunnerish in reality as Ridley Scott and William Gibson ever cast it in fiction! The view from our room is surreal.

Last night, meeting up with Marcus's cousin-brother Kent, his wife Shirley, and their son Peter, we had a marvelous dinner looking out over the famous harbour toward the Hong Kong side of the island. The dazzling dense skyline across the water provided a laser lightshow, silhouetting the famous architectures (was easy to spot the Mission Impossible 3 tower). We even managed to wander out to a night market Marcus knew about down a back alley before jet lag dragged us by to the Baden-Powell.

Today was a terrific day. We spent a good part of our time compulsively videotaping and photographically recording Kowloon's hyperdense shopping district (yeah, this is Kathleen's kind of town, an eclectic shopper's paradise) and recording the view of HK from the ferry that took us across the harbour and recording the view afforded from the top of Victoria Peak, after the steep tram ride up the mountain. We even managed to cause a major conjestion on one of HK's pedestrian skyways by stopping to video the spectactular condos perched precariously above the financial towers; the fast-walking HK business lunchers glanced impatiently upward to see what these geeky Canadian tourists were bothering to tape ... And then stopped themselves, because the first condo tower I pointed my camera at abruptly burst into flame on one of it's highest floors.

Fortunately, that tower was still under construction, so no residents were endangered, nor workers from what we could see. But a crowd gathered round Kath and I, and when we slipped out to catch op to Marcus and Lucilla, we left a big gawking group of financiers on the skyway ... Between recordings, we managed to get in a fair amount of first day shopping. Mainly gifts for family members, as we know that once Maeve is in our arms, opportunity to share her country's many beautiful wares and wears will slip away.

And yes, after another wonderful dinner with Kath's second cousin Peter and his family, we did end up buying a gift for ourselves: a beautiful traditional dress for our beautiful Maeve in the night market on the famous Nathan Road (HK's version of London's Oxford Street). ...Tomorrow we depart early for Singapore, and another step closer to our Gotcha Day with Maeve on China's mainland!