1998-05-10: Address change (Life change?)

Hi my friends,

As you may be already know, my family is going to move from Japan to the San Francisco bay area.

Please notice our new address and phone number.

  |  Peter & Shona Thoeny-Lai
  |  895 Sharmon Palms Lane #C
  |  Campbell, CA 95008, USA
  |  Phone: +1-408-871-0777  (UTC -8h)
  |  mailto:peter.thoeny@bitsmart.com

I give you a small update on our side.

My wife Shona and our two kids Ladina and Alexis are living in Hong Kong for already about two years now. I went to visit them many times, last year I was there about 5 or 6 times. The flight from Nagoya to Hong Kong takes only about 4 hours.

I stopped working for Denso Create in Nagoya at the end of March. I worked there for 6 years, at the same time it seems to be a long and a short time.

In April I went to Hong Kong to see my family, who is living with Shona's sister's family. The 3 year old Ladina is very cute, she is now fluent in Cantonese and English. Soon I will start to talk in Swiss German to her. Alexis is now 1 year old, besides crying for attention, he is discovering new things in his small world.

On May 1st I started to work for a software company called TakeFive Software in Cupertino, a city in the Silicon Valley. Our office is very closed by Sun JavaSoft and Apple. The company is making a software development tool called SNiFF+. I stayed only for about one week.

Now I am writing this email in an airplane, bound for Frankfurt, Germany. The company is sending me for a one month training to Salzburg, Austria. I have never been in Salzburg, I am looking forward to visit this historical town.

Salzburg by night

On June 14 I will be in my home town Schuders, Switzerland. My family is coming too from Hong Kong. There is a festival in the small mountain village of Schuders. Well the festival is not in the village, but on top of a mountain above Schuders. Spring time is very beautiful there, the grass fields are full of flowers. In themorning there will be a church service under open air, then there is open air dance with traditional Swiss music. We will baptise our baby boy Alexis at this occation. Some friends from China and Japan will join too. Do you want to join us too? You are very welcome to.

We will finally move to California in mid/end June. It will be a big change from Japan. We didn't have a car in Nagoya, but in the Silicon Valley we need probably two. I like the Valley because it is so multi-cultural. Our neighbor is a funny but decent person from Iran, his wife is American. At work there is a person from Russia, Austria, German. There are many Chinese here too, so Shona should feel at home soon. Also Japanese, I already got to know Kimiko and Takahashi, nice people too.

I found a nice little apartment in Campbell in the Silicon Valley. It is very green here, and there is so much more space here than in a city in Japan. One day I went up on a mountain. I could see the whole Valley, all cities are connected to build one big city, but still, it looks totally different then a "normal" city because it is so green. There are parks, between the houses there is lots of green with lots of trees. The houses are small, usually just one to 3 stories tall.

The house we will stay in has two stories. There are nice palm trees along the street where we live. Do you want to visit us sometime in the sunny valley?

Best regards, hope to see you sometimes soon, Peter & Shona & Ladina & Alexis