Update from Hong Kong

Still in Hong Kong! Summer is closing in on September, and we’re very much looking forward to returning back home, seeing the shops, seeing the animals. 

Hong Kong has been hot and humid when it has not been thundering or typhooning, and we have been enjoying exploring the city. Exploring in a foreign country without Jon is a bit different than our travels before he left. Our plans are not as ambitious: we don’t go quite as far, or out for quite as long, but we wander through the occasional park or try out some new noodles. Uniquely, it’s been a challenging time, this summer, for Hong Kong, and it’s been a lesson for us, to see what it means to show up for what you believe in. 

But here we are in our final week. 

My dad arranged for me and the kids to stay in a hotel for the last week of our trip. He travels a lot and has some very nice perks, and while at first I resisted, insisting that anything at all would already be an upgrade for us, let me tell you: I could get used to this sort of hotel life. Caleb has turned the extremely spacious bathroom into a zoo, with different watering holes at in various sinks and nooks for groups of animals. It’s treacherous.  

It has been one crazy summer. I’m always contemplating what it means to slow down a little: the pace of life always seems breakneck with shop hours, events, kids lessons—and here we are roaming around in Hong Kong. 

And yet it has been a transformative summer for us as a shop family, as well as for us personally to see and live in another part of the world for a bit, and to watch Caleb and Naomi in new situations, trying new food, meeting new people. Travelling—not just the fly by night sort, although that has its thrills as well—and being able to soak in a little more of the daily life of a city, can be such a tremendous part of what it means to be curious and to find inspiration, and we are also tremendously grateful that we’re in a position to have had this opportunity. A lot of unexpected stars have lined up for us over the last six years, for sure. 

I had big plans (as always) for all the blogging I was going to do, but in some ways I’m also looking forward to coming home and processing it all: looking through my notebooks and inserts, scrolling through photos, organizing it all again to share some of it without rushing or missing anything. I’m excited to work on new projects that have come out of this trip, and to see relationships growing and new fruit. 

In any case, we’re winding down to the last days of our whirlwind trip. While we lounge around in luxurious white sheets, the supplies are being rationed to last out our remaining days (diapers, bug spray) so I don’t need to schlep home entire new packages, passports and documents being organized for our journey home—hopefully a journey without any unexpected delays. Most importantly, I’m contemplating how much room is left in the luggage for some hard-to-find-in-Toronto snacks. (Not much.)

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Current location: Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong
Days left in Hong Kong: 4
Currently reading: Brothers by Yu Hua
Currently eating: Jagabee Salt & Vinegar Chips
Current favourite shop: The Giving Tree bookshop in Shatin
Current analogue organizational system: everything jammed into a bursting mesh bag