Well now I'm really Excited!

I leave Denver the day after tomorrow, and I just now clicked the purchase button on a flight out of Hong Kong-- on  Singapore Airlines, non stop to San Francisco!      I've been dithering about the way home--hoping really to find a way to stay on in the orient or at least to stop off somewhere en route home.    The QM2 arrives in Hong Kong Feb 12,  she'll spend the night,  and in the morning  I'll disembark [much to my dismay].       I'm going to spend 4 nights at the Salisbury YMCA [which my cousin Michele recommended].  It's next door to the Peninsula Hotel--great location.       My friend Arturo from here in Denver is currently teaching English in central China and he will come down to HK to meet me--it'll be great to have a friend there after all the comradery on board the ship.        Chinese New year starts that evening so I bet they'll be great fireworks!        The fact that it's New Years though really complicates any travel in China.    I had been thinking of taking the train to Beijing where I could board the trans Siberian all the way to Moscow and then on to London  [wow],  or a flight to another country or?    Today I clicked on Singapore Airlines and up came a fare of 480 USD one way to San Francisco!     Done deal--I've always wanted to fly SA.    Yay!