A comprehensive understanding of the physical conditions of gas within and surrounding galaxies is of paramount importance to understand the
physical processes that regulate galaxy formation and evolution. However, the detection of the gas in emission pose measure challenges
and little is known about how galaxies are fed by gas at high redshift. One of the powerful tools to study the circum- and inter-galactic medium is offered by
absorption lines observed in background quasar spectra which trace the neutral gas reservoir for star formation. In principle, they encode
clues regarding the early stages of galaxy formation. I will discuss our recent efforts to detect this absorbing gas in emission to understand the
absorber-galaxy connection at both high- (i.e, z gt 2) and low-redshift (z lt 2), and prospects for identifying the host galaxies of metal absorbers.