The Hong Kong Life

A long time ago, I went to visit my cousin when she was studying at McGill in Montreal. My cousin and I grew up together and we were pretty much like sisters. I stayed with her and her roommates for a couple of days, and in that time, I remember being very surprised about what my cousin was really like outside of our family environment. It was essentially an eye-opening experience.

At this stage in the game, I don't think there is anything that my brother could do that would surprise me. He's been playing in an Ultimate Frisbee league since he arrived in Hong Kong, and although I did visit him here a couple of years ago, I didn't meet any of his friends until now. I went out to meet a few of them and I'm glad that they are a diverse group of really nice people. Nice people who drink a lot. And I knew that my brother drinks a lot too, but it's been some time since I've gone drinking with him. I also have to admit, it's been a long time since I've been classified as completely drunk. Perhaps my body realized it too and did not appreciate it as much as it used to. I was in pretty poor shape the next day.

My brother's apartment is nice.  Recently renovated, clean, bright, sparsely furnished.  There are some things to get used to, like how you have to go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom, and how you have to turn on the water heater ten minutes before you take a shower. There is a washing machine but no dryer, and in this climate nothing ever really dries properly. All you can do is keep the air conditioner on and hope that it will remove most of the moisture from your clothes. The building itself is a little scary when you first look at it. The hallway is dark and dingy, there are tiles missing on the floor, and the elevator is claustrophobic (although that's not really uncommon here). I guess that's mostly how Hong Kong is – a bit worn out on the outside, shiny and new on the inside.

That's all from HK for now.  Happy New Year!

"Say, we can go where we want to, a place that they will never find, and we can act like we come from out of this world, leave the real one far behind"