A River Brought Us Here

What an amazing journey to look back on. This year, 2021, it will be 16 years since we've arrived in Hong Kong, our, not so new, home.

It all started on the 12th of November 2005, the day before we got married. An email invitation for a job interview that would give us the opportunity to live and work in one of the worlds most vibrant cities, Hong Kong. We jumped into this river, ready to flow wherever it would take us, and the rest is history!

From landing in Hong Kong, in the dead of winter in December 2005, losing our shadows for a couple of months due to the dreary sunless days, that was so typical of our first Hong Kong winters, to bringing over our two Jack Russels, having our three most amazing kids, to only mention a few highlights. One thing is for sure, our lives have been an unreal journey, and trusting this journey and everything it throws at us has given our choice to move away from everything we knew, the people we love, the country we cherish, meaning.

And then 2020 hit, and instead of our shadows, we lost the lives that we grew so accustomed to and always took for granted. Traveling the world, picking up the things we love whenever we want, jumping on an airplane to spend time with our families when the need became too strong, and then, with the sweep of one tiny proverbial "broom", it all changed.

But (and I know this is not a word to start any sentence with), with a clean slate, why could we not reinvent what we had, where we were at and how we would deal with our new norm? A norm that has been rudely forced upon us, no matter what...

And this is where the black bag promise started. In a plastic container with computer fans and coriander, to big wooden boxes with more computer fans and coriander, to an actual licensed food factory, with dehydrators, walk-in fridges and still more coriander.