Manic Bookstore Cafe

Hong Kong has been amazing, as is made obvious by the fact that Olivia hasn't had time to really blog about it. We've been sweating more than we thought possible, walking and hiking everywhere, taking all kinds of public and other transportation, even been out to the New Territories. But I won't spoil the surprise; we will all read about it from her point of view. The purpose of this blog for me (Angela) is not just travel -- though we have been doing plenty of that lately and will be travelling even more in future -- but also, of course, books and recipes. So I wanted to write a little about a novel I've just read called The Weird Sisters , by Eleanor Brown. This is an airport novel that I picked up on my way to Ukraine last month (figuring I might get stuck somewhere along the way and need something to do), but instead of reading it I simply brought the book with me through Istanbul to Alushta, Crimea, and back again. On the plane on the way to Hong Kong I decided ...

Olivia has been dying to blog ... but I'm staying in control. Not much she can do about it -- it's my computer, and I'm her mom. I will check her posts and make sure she's at least using proper grammar and punctuation ... though I won't necessarily censor her! The name of our JOINT blog is "Manic Bookstore Cafe," after my long-cherished idea to open a bookstore/cafe where sometimes there will be LOTS of yummy baked goods (scones, muffins, cookies, pie, cake...) -- the result of a manic baking phase -- and sometimes ... there will be nothing. Nada. Go next door if you're hungry. The bookstore/cafe may never happen -- do I really want to get into retail? and if Olivia goes on to other, more interesting occupations, why would I want to do it by myself? But at least we'll have this joint project for now ... until she gets old enough to have her own computer with unlimited access and her own blog. So that's the story of the blog's name. I...

    Today I went to the Dayton airport at 9:15 a.m. After getting our plane tickets, we embarked on our journey.  We flew to Chicago where we waited for two hours, negotiating our tickets to change our flight to a direct flight to Hong Kong. Eating bagels, tomato/mozarella/pesto sandwiches, and deep dish pizza with butter crust for lunch. Zack, infatuated by his new gadget, an iPod touch given to him as a goodbye gift from Tina, spent most of the time trying to recharge it.     Our airplane, a Boeing 747, was huge; it had a top deck and a lower one. The food was not good. They gave us Pop Chips, which the first time I tasted them I didn't like them, and other snacks. They also had nasty meals. The movies playing on the plane (they didn't have personal screens) were Journey 2: the Mysterious Island, Man on a Ledge, Big Miracle, and My Week With Marilyn. They also showed TV shows. The funniest one was How I Met Your Mother. My friend was ri...