Hong Kong - Part One

My friend Beth worked in Hong Kong after college; I meant to visit her but with only two weeks’ vacation, I didn’t think I could manage it. And it seemed so far away! I feel I was close to going, but then she left. I was younger then and the world was bigger. Hey, I lived in Boston for almost two and a half years and never made it to the Garden or the Marathon – I had to make special return trips for both of those!

Fast forward to 2002 - I was pretty miserable at work. I had a conversation with my friend Vincent, who grew up in Hong Kong and was living there again. He asked what I would do if I could do anything, and I told him I’d travel – to Asia, to see him in Hong Kong. He asked if I could just quit my job and do it and I said I couldn’t. He looked at me and said, “but can’t you?” and that was a life-changing moment. It took me another year to be ready to quit, but that conversation started the ball rolling that eventually led me to where I am now.

Given Beth and Vincent, I did feel I would get to Hong Kong at some point. I tried to get there on my way home from Southeast Asia last winter, but I couldn’t find a flight that went from Bali to Honolulu through Hong Kong without other stops. However, once I knew I was coming back to Asia this year I knew I had another chance. It’s actually quite close to Manila – a two-hour flight! It was time to use some vacation days anyway (weekend travel in-country doesn’t use up vacation days, but any travel outside the country does) – two months have gone by since I arrived in the Philippines!

It was a good time to leave the country. Given the recent tropical storm and all the flood damage, I feel that my problems pale, but as I write this, a line of ants is crawling from outside to a spot under the light switch – I’m not sure what to do about that. I thought if I interrupted the line that would do it, but they keep finding a new line. Last week the refrigerator stopped working – I’d say it was a storage closet with a light, except that ants were crawling on the food inside (I suppose that if they are swarming on the shell of a hard-boiled egg, you can still eat the egg if you just rinse them off, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it) so it isn’t even a good storage closet. We’ve since decided that the freezer keeps things cold enough (without actually freezing them) so that’s not as dire as it seemed before I left. The toilet stopped working, too – that seems fixed now. But what made me really ready to leave was seeing what I hope was one but may have been two (in which case, one may still be at large) giant cockroaches in my room. I’d seen them outside, so I knew it was only a matter of time before I saw them inside, but I still jumped and screamed. I also don’t think I have to mention how much I was looking forward to hot showers. And it occurred to me that this may be the hardest place I have ever lived – Chicago in the winter? I still loved my apartment. King of Prussia? All right, maybe a tie.

Hong Kong is great – if you like architecture, history, nature, eating, drinking, traditions, temples, markets, museums, views, crowds, luxury, walking, swimming, the feel of a big city. I had a wonderful three days there! I had thought that if I didn’t make it by the 1997 British handover that it would be too late, but I think that as a Special Administrative Region it hasn’t missed a beat – it’s still a city of business and an interesting mix of cultures. I was happy to walk, walk, walk – and Vincent did a good job of showing me and/or directing me to a variety of places so I could get a good taste.