What's in a name?

When starting to plan for our journey to Hong Kong, of most importance to us was picking out a blog name.  We sat down and brainstormed for a while, coming up with what we thought were clever options and sent these options to friends and family for them to vote for their favorite.  The overwhelming favorite was Year of the Yat, which is how this blog came into being.  However, we did have a few notable runners up (ie: Hold that Rickshaw, Sweet and Sour Melchers, Dim Sum Melchers, etc.).  As only people who are from or have connections with New Orleans can truly appreciate our blog name, we thought it best to explain:


According to urbandictionary.com, a "Yat" is:  

A native New Orleanian. Uses the Word Darlin' alot, loves Pinchin the Heads and Sucking the Tails (That's Crawfish Yall), NEVER runs out of Tony's, always ax's bout Ya mom and dem', makes groceries, drinks Community Coffee, knows how to dodge pot holes, Loves Snowballs, has thousands of Beads in the attic from Mardi Gras Pasts, knows how to eat a Beignet while wearing Black, Cannot sit still when hearing Mardi Gras Mambo!!!!

or:

New Orleans native. From the local greeting, "Where ya at."

And as we wanted our blog name to symbolize the mixing of two distinct cultures (the Melchers and Asia), we agreed with our New Orleans friends that this was truly the best name for our blog.  

Hope you enjoy and for now, here are some pictures from our first day in Hong Kong.  More to come...

Views from our hotel:

Look closely - we had to walk all the way up this hill to get from our hotel to the University.  At some point (a low point for me really), a 92 year old woman passed me...

Who needs a Stair Master when you have Hong Kong?!