I'm off to Hong Kong
The cold radiates from the large panel window behind me. The light absconding with it like thieves into my apartment show a rainy foggy day in the Marina. It's a Lando's cloud city like day. Beyond the edge of the park the world disappears into the shroud. A bus announces its identity as the 30 Stockton, wheels parting the treading water on Chestnut Street. I'm at home.
It's been two years since my last writings to you. I'm overdue for an escape to ports foreign. Even the medium of delivery has been given an overhaul. Despite the fracas of change, the content's soul is the same. See a part of the world as I see it. Read what random vignettes escape from my hands. Most importantly, let me make you laugh - cuz the world's a funny place.
I leave tomorrow morning for Hong Kong, India, and Thailand. This trip, I have a companion, my girlfriend C (name changed to protect the relatively innocent). C's parents will pick me up tomorrow morning and whisk us off to SFO. So the time has come to prepare for a 15 hour flight. I wish I could convey to you the helpless surrender one must embrace to sit calmly in a chair for the better part of a day. Fantasies of epic resistance in the face of storms or great pain often grace the manly mind. Alas to ridicule like broken cookies these fantasies fall all in the face of a never ending drone of a 747 engine and a day's worth of water. My best preparation are books, movies, snacks, light sleeping drugs. After that's all done, and there's still 8 hours left - well now maybe you understand. At least the seats(prison) will be comfy.
I'm really looking forward to visiting Hong Kong. Unlike my visit to France, this time I have a better mind that I KNOW my Chinese won't be sufficient, but that I'm excited anyway. Seeing yesterday the beautiful map of Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor and islands opened my eyes. We're going to be staying with C's grandmother - her pohh. Every Chinese member of the family has their own name, no two cousins or grandmothers are alike, organized oldest to youngest - a charming if not taxidermic system of family position. I've been informed to wear warm socks, as I'll likely stick out past the end of the bed. :) For C, it's another trip to Hong Kong on the way to greater adventures, for me I can't help but think of Enter the Dragon, and a young Bruce Lee sitting in a lotus plowing his way through the wooden ships of the harbor.
I humbly invite you to follow me through my trips to Asia.
