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It had been three months since my husband, Carl, left southern California for Thailand for a research assignment and I stayed behind with our three-year-old daughter and six-month-old son to close up our Whittier apartment.  It was 1967, international mail was slow and I had only received two letters during Carl’s absence.  The children and I were finally on our way to join him in Hong Kong where we planned to live as he established an Asia Research Centre.  I was hoping he’d had time to find an apartment for us. 

It was dark and drizzly when I got off the plane at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport with Shannon holding one hand and Sean in an infant seat hanging from the other. 

“Daddy!  Daddy!” Shannon broke loose of my grip and ran across the wet tarmac into Carl’s outstretched arms.  The tarmac was not the only thing glistening.

Carl looked thin to me, but hugely happy to have his family together again.  I was shocked when I learned Carl had been close to death with dengue fever the week before; but he seemed his normal self.  Obviously we had a lot of catching up to do.

First we needed sleep.  Fortunately, he had found an apartment – and beds.

The large nearly empty rooms with high ceilings echoed, in the fifth floor apartment on McDonnell Road, as we explored it that night.  Tall windows faced the Victoria Peak tram running up the steep hill on which we were anchored.  The clack-clack of the cable car was the last thing we heard as we fell into exhausted sleep.

The next morning Carl was eager to show us Hong Kong. What a relief to have him back in charge.  We set off by taxi to shop for some essentials but came back with only a tiny folding round table with 4 stools, and 4 plates, cups, forks, knives, and spoons.  However, that short excursion was the last Carl took for six weeks. 

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