First week in Hong Kong

I woke at 5:30 this morning, a signal that despite having slept normally for the last two nights, the jetlag isn’t finished with me yet. in the dim light, i got up and made some espresso (yes, I brought an espresso maker and beans from home), stretched and did my morning exercises. tried to reach nikki but couldn’t get through.

I ran down to the promenade along Victoria harbour, following it east toward Causeway Bay. The temperature was bearable, so long as I kept to shaded areas that hugged the buildings. no rain this morning so the air wasn’t as heavy with humidity. i’ve been weaning myself of a/c so that i don’t overheat so easily when i leave the apt.

Along the parklets that dot the promenade, elderly folks practice their tai chi maneuvers with mesmerizing grace, reminding me of the aurora borealis, or the motions of clouds- constant, gentle fluctuations. a very slight wind blew off the water, not enough to cool us, but the scent of the bay was refreshing.

Not much in the way of green space here, most of the surfaces are paved with asphalt, stones or tiles, but there are a lot of “sitting parks” and playgrounds. the city is surprisingly sleepy at 6:30 in the morning. i expected that with so many people, the population would occupy its small space in shifts. a few million during the day, a few million at night and the rest in the early morning.

My run lasted for about 30 minutes, and i walked the rest of the way. the promenade abruptly ended at some sort of pumping station, so i headed toward the center of town, facing the rising hills and the Mid-levels poking up through the trees. those apartments must have spectacular views of the harbour. Victoria Peak stood naked in the sunlight, my first time seeing it without its usual dressing of fog.

Shops began to raise their metal doors, and soon wafts of freshly baked rolls and pastries displaced the stale night air that collects on urban streets. by cutting back toward town, i also avoided the sun, which by this time was strong enough to shatter bones. already, i had soaked my shirt and hair through and through—must have made quite a picture, a lumbering “gweilo” unshaven, wild hair, and breathing heavily. (one’s experience in hong kong could be accurately described as a string of bad hair days. even stubble doesn’t know in which direction to grow)

My wandering led to the Wan Chai Market, which is a large complex containing two stories of fresh fruit, meat and fish stalls. the smell of durien was overpowering at first. i wish more Americans were better connected to the food we eat–more of us would become vegetarians, I suspect. I passed a woman picking out live frogs from a writhing pile. A fish stall had live specimens on display atop a metal counter, flapping a few feet into the air, before being grabbed and scaled alive. Above one meat stall hung a poster with a picture of a dog, but everything was written in chinese. The chunks of meat hanging beneath it were chopped too small for me to mentally reconstruct the poor animal from which they came. but i don’t think it was a dog—i remember reading that dogmeat was outlawed in HK a few years back. I walked out of the market with two oranges and a strange looking apple. I haven’t eaten much since arriving. I suppose jetlag numbs our hunger, and other longings.

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