Our blog is on the brink of death, but we have just returned from an epic SE Asian vacation, and it only makes sense to record it for posterity here. So, Hamish was born in Singapore, as you may recall, 7 short years ago. We have been trying now for 3-4 years to figure out how we could go back and let her see her birthplace and for us to visit old friends and hangouts. Finally, September of last year we got a bite on a home exchange opportunity and began to plan a trip for this summer. We could only have about a week in Singapore, not long enough in my mind to fly in and back out and be worth it, and we liked the idea of adding on some cheap flights to other nearby favorite destinations, thinking of places we could really chill, so we began to build a trip. As it turned out, the best flights (on Singapore Air!) went through San Francisco, then Hong Kong, en route to Singapore. So we decided we’d get off the plane in Hong Kong. Then we started to look at direct easy flights to other locations we’d like to visit again— Bali, Chiang Mai, Siem Reap, and after climbing several decision trees, we planned a Hong Kong -> Hoi An, Vietnam -> Siem Reap, Cambodia -> Singapore -> home trip. Three weeks, 4 countries, 7 individual flights, ~45 hours of flight time, and a 4-year old and a 7-year old in tow.
Suspected insanity.

We planned for months. Luckily, no new equivalent yellow fever vaccinations were necessary, just new backpacks, travel pillows, headphones, things like that. Finally, just two days after Hamish turned 7, we started our journey back to Singapore. We considered many approaches regarding flights and time zone acclimation, but when it comes down to it, our international travel plan is to let them have screens as much as they want. Which is for the entirety of the flights. We left Nashville at 7 in the evening for our first leg to SF. We had hopes, this crossing right into bedtime, that we’d at least get some sleep on this first flight, then be mostly awake for our 3 hour layover in SF, and then get a “night’s sleep” on the first half of the flight to HK. But the first flight came with big TV screens and child content, and nobody was napping and missing this excitement. The flight went by relatively quickly. Once in SF, Manimal decided travel was not so fun. He was way overtired, it now being midnight his body clock time. He proceeded to throw up in the airport. Uh oh. But, we had little option but to keep going. We proceeded to the international terminal, got our boarding passes, back through security, found our gate, and laid the kids on the floor, where they promptly passed out.
Alli and I tried to rest too, with little success. Finally at 1 a.m. SF time (3 a.m. in our bodies) our flight took off. We carried sleeping babes onto the plane.
They each slept for the first 4-5 hours of the flight and were wide awake after, glued to screens. We tried to make them rest again later in the flight, turning off all the screens, but neither was able to fall asleep, and we gave up. Alli and I both tried to sleep, but she was between the kids who gave little respite, and I just couldn’t sleep much, despite those new travel pillows. After many hours, we finally reached HK, 6 a.m. local time (time to give up on what our internal body clocks are telling us). Our plan had been for us to visit an international lounge in the airport, so we could shower, get a bite to eat, recover from the flight a little, and make a plan. However, the airport design spits us right through immigration, customs, and out of the terminal. Our only choice was to proceed to our hotel, where at worst we’d be able to leave bags and try to make a plan. Surprisingly, we weren’t sick tired, I guess some excitement of being in a new place and the rising sun gave us a second (or third) wind. Mercy on mercy, we were able to get into our hotel room at 8 a.m. Still, it didn’t seem wise, if we could avoid it, to sleep. We dropped bags and headed out to find coffee, stopping at a cafe across the street. Coffee, tea, and french fries for breakfast.
From here, Alli and the kids decided to venture down to a park by the water, but I felt like I had to go back and at least take a shower, which felt wonderful. Then I made my way to the water to meet them.
In an unplanned surprise, it turned out our Singapore-based friends Amanda and Reuben and kids were in HK at the same time as us, returning to SG that day. We arranged to meet at the Star Ferry and rode back and forth to Hong Kong Island together. 
They made fast friends
We then had dim sum before they headed to the airport and we finally returned to our room for a nap.
This little piggy had bbq innards.
We slept from 1 until a little after 3 p.m. It was incredibly painful, but we got ourselves, and then the kids, out of bed. There was much protesting, but we persevered and pretty much dragged them from the room. Unfortunately we didn’t have a great plan, and we also weren’t exactly excited to be awake and active. We went back to the ferry, rode over to Hong Kong Island and got off with the idea of making our way to the multi-level escalators. Ice cream helped to encourage the children, but its effect was short-lived. 
We did not make much progress toward the MLM, before we gave up and went to the subway headed back home. Maybe surprisingly, *this* got our Manimal excited enough to walk on his own again. We returned to our hotel, had our free drinks in the hotel bar and a meat and cheese plate to share for dinner. 
In our state, nobody was actually very hungry, and we headed to the room for showers and bed. The kids were passed out by 7:30. 
Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, this was followed by the Manimal waking up at 1:30 ready to start his day. Alli coaxed him into staying mostly quiet and still while we all tried to sleep longer. Then he was bribed into stillness with an audiobook on his travel phone at about 4 a.m. Hamish followed at 5 and we gave up on sleep and all engaged our devices. We hit the included buffet breakfast at 6:30. Kind of a highlight of the trip as it had the full range of local and continental offerings, pancakes, bacon, omelette, yakult, muesli, fruit, cappuccino, etc. In hindsight, we would have liked another day of this cozy hotel and easy breakfast while we defeated jetlag. We briefly returned to the room to get ready and then we were out. We went to the MTR and headed back to Hong Kong Island, to the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, where we walked around, played on some playgrounds, and saw some neat plants and tiny frogs.
A little rain shower was a welcome respite from our first real brush with SE Asian humidity.
Then we headed back toward the midlevels. 
Ice cream bribes were doled out again, because somebody's legs hurt...
We happened to walk right by the department of justice, a hot spot of recent protest activity. Luckily all was calm while we were in town, though a police presence was felt.
We made it this time, and went way way up looking for our dining room picture spot. The kids had never seen so many escalators and were excited for each level of ascent. We couldn’t find our previous picturesque spot though, gave up, meandered through a street market and picked up some mangosteen.

Then we proceeded to lunch at Thyme. We had a yummy quinoa beet salad and a crunchy chicken and rice and egg kinda bento box-ish thing. Chrysanthemum pear tea for me, coke for Alli. We returned to the midlevels for one final try at finding our old spot (it just felt important to us, since the kids have seen this picture hanging in our dining room for years). And we found it! 
What it looked like in 2010:
It was heavily changed by construction but identifiable by comparison to our old photo. Having accomplished our goal, we took the MTR back to our hotel to pack up, change a little more $, and grab a taxi to the airport. The kids danced and played deliriously in the large, open, cooled airport
But then they crashed quickly. Manimal fell deeply asleep on the flight to Vietnam and was unwakable thereafter.
Hamish was a camper and roused herself to walk through immigration. Manimal was dead weight. Hamish fell asleep in the transfer to Hoi An (a 45 minute car ride), and we put both straight into bed at our resort, looking forward to a full night's sleep...