A Birthday, Mental Relief, and Ooops, I did it again!

Actually, a sunny break in the grayness ;-)

December 11. It's Denise's birthday today.  Hans cooked up a 5-course storm and Dr. J and family came over for dinner.  And even though frequent verbal skirmishes with Hans might give another impression, I'm really just flattered pink to be welcome to be here in this setting of friends and family.

The obligatory beach walk with Denise & Max

 I am fortunate to have friends like this.   

On another front:
Frantic wiggling in trying to speed up the renewal of my PR card and passport has not shown ANY sign of being helpful or successful. SIGH !

I'm STILL looking at another 3 months before I will have a new passport with enough empty pages to allow me to travel to Asia and actually travel through more than one country.  

For a brief moment I actually thought I would be able to meet U&W in Sri Lanka at the end of January because that country would let me in with the limited amount of empty space that my passport has, but then I had to realize that I don't have the space that I would need for the stamps required for the two 20-hour lay-overs in China.

Sri Lanka (NOT my picture)

Yes, Dear Korbachers, I ALMOST made it to Sri Lanka, but it hasn't worked out yet.  But I will still inquire with the German consulate whether I can get a temporary document that will allow me to be in Columbo at the correct time; all is NOT lost yet ;-)

In the meantime I realized that I theoretically could go for 2 weeks to Vietnam with my present passport (No Visa required) or even 4 weeks to Cambodia  (with an advanced e-Visa, I'd only need the space for a simple arrival stamp).   

A group photo, LOL

OOOOH, the temptation !

THEN, when I 'just for fun' (Yeah, right) checked availability in Sok San Village, all that temptation finally got too much.  

Julian had (Note past tense) one single beach bungalow available.  And Booking.com offered free cancellation until January 9th.   They know what they're doing, because .....

HOW could I NOT book that Hut in Heaven (TM)???? 

So I did.