Status: 2 individuals after a 24-hour journey through 6 time zones

Time: 7 AM the next day (8th August 2019)

Main goal: coffee, sorry – COFFEE!!!

Other goals: get on time for the first day of a new job and find an apartment to live in

he plan was simple. Damian – job. Me – go visit the regions that we picked in Poland. We checked some places beforehand and visited them with google. But to see them in our own eyes – that was different.

The hotel – it was booked for 10 days, it was there, stable… our private oasis of security on this strange land. We decided it was sufficient. Last time it took us less than a week to find a flat. HK was further away, people different… so a bit over a week should be enough.

Before we get to the Lemony Snicket of flat-finding it is vital to say that for a European, HK is another world. Wonderful on one side, but alien on the other. You are charmed by the simplicity of life of these people (yes! Simplicity, regardless of the technology), accessibility to everything, prices that are not that high as they tell, the multitude of everything and the colors – colors everywhere.

I don’t remember all the times that I thought about the similarities to the Poland of the 90s. I was a child then, so I remember something, but the old movies picture those times and relationships quite nicely. People close and far to each other at the same time. Knowing where to go, who to talk to and molesting tomatoes at the street-seller. Maybe it was just a memory. Or maybe this lack of tidiness, or its impression, was just heart-warming. One fact rests the same – the impression and memories pushing themselves into my head were always about the same. It is so funny, how this strange machine works there, but it made me feel better, more… familiar.

On the other hand, this European person gets into the reality where horizontal is vertical, two-storied buildings almost non-existent and trees should be looked for with a treasure map. Concrete jungle – how to describe it… Cars running on one level, and people having their highways next to them – and the fourth level is the metro! You have to survive the lack of orientation, seeing all the buildings the same, not having google maps because of the interference. Nobody walks on the pavement there, you know. It was so funny then to see people using escalators and elevators instead of their own feet. At that was just the beginning of my observations.

You need to experience the feeling of being lost that hides in this shadow of your heart and waits there for the right moment to attack – when the energy and courage fades. Thank Buddha that before that happens we already know a place a bit! But we know, deep down, that IT lurks there… So we walk slowly, look around carefully, drink the knowledge of the surrounding like a thirsty person. Then, in the darkness of our sleep, like a two-year-old child, we try to understand it – the new world around us.

First – I visited the region of Tsuen Wan. We say in Polish that my legs were pushing into a place that never sees light – that is all I can say. Damian was working – trying to understand his new, social surroundings. I was visiting the jungle, pausing every 5 meters and using my phone as a fan and trying to find this bit of data to make the map work… pointless. I always believed that the best in a journey is to get lost… thankfully… so, with pleasure, and a bit of frustration at my GPS I was doing just that – visited getting totally lost. Meeting people, places, strange vertico-zontal levels of car and pedestrian.

With every day something was shaping in my mind and I can tell you what now, after all this time.

It was so easy

– the way of a car – noisy, pollution, hot

– the way of a pedestrian – air-conditioning, no pedestrian crossings = faster, nicer, with some landscape that I could actually see (cause I was above)… and shops – tons of shops! All the paths led through them, through the buildings with AC.

And with each day of August sun and humidity, I appreciated it more and more. Because… why use a pavement?! – 200 m walk and I will be wet as a dog. Instead – more walking but in a “limo”. I stopped laughing at people using escalators. I was learning to appreciate coming in August – if we survive THAT we will survive everything. It cannot be worse. One flight of stairs and I couldn’t catch my breath! At it was not 2500 m above sea level like in Val Thorens! Walking down the stairs – my knees started to hurt, and I am not an old lady! There is no ergonomy in building the stairs in HK – they are not even, can you believe that?

So it was jet lag combined with dragging my body through another climate – crazy combo!

Life was happening in those shopping centers. People coming here regularly in specific periods of their day, mostly to eat, to talk, to work… to learn with a private tutor in a cafeteria! (I can not imagine having maths in a place like that but in HK – not a problem). There was a place where people met to play, do exercises, go play with children inside a galleria. So many things were happening around me that I just couldn’t not-turn another corner and look at what is there – thus, my legs killing me.

The nightmare of living in blocks… unfortunately… as I said, we had some places picked.

My task was simple – go there, look around IF we would like to live there. If there is somewhere to walk close by (we like our promenades). If there is “space” around us – this is how we called it. If there is a place to sit on a bench and drink a coffee (there is not if you wonder. No European cafes or mobile-coffee-seller like on a boulevard in Gdynia).

Slowly, our list was coming to an end. Potentially cool (you should read – cheaper) flats were surrounded by concrete or the park close by was tiny. We concluded that we do not want that. The flat is not important – but breathing is. And there was a problem with this point of view. Even with our hotel – there was no place to go for a walk in the evening… Nothing – concrete, walls, and blackness of the sky…

You couldn’t even see the stars because of all the lights around you…