Saturday, December 5, 2015

This is Where I Came In



It's raining this morning, the day that I will leave Ascension House, the same sort of heavy drizzle that soaked through my suitcases when I came here almost a month ago. I'm drinking my second cup of strong coffee and trying to make out the silhouettes of hills through the fog, without any success. It should be good and muddy when I take my suitcases back up the hill to the Christian Center and call a taxi to take me to the MTR station. That's terrific--the mud on my suitcase wheels has just begun to flake away and I would hate to travel without it.

I am not a jungle-dweller, I've discovered. When faced with a monkey the size of an adult border collie, I turn back and take an alternate (longer) route. And then I book an urban hotel--I'm just that kind of girl.

Maybe because my formative years were filled with mud and mosquitos, I have a real aversion to those things. The hotel I'm going to later in the day will have small rooms, smaller bathrooms, and quite possibly noise from other occupants. Been there, done that, and I know it well. I like that.

And I did life in the wild kingdom for almost a month, a feat that I would be proud of if a large monkey, taking up the entire pathway hadn't cut my visit short by five days. On the other hand, there is sanity to be considered, and I treasure my tenuous grasp on mine. Five days in the midst of Kowloon, with excursions back to Shatin, Tai Po, and Sai Kung is just fine with me.


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