It was the final night of our stay in Hong Kong. Six months had passed since I first stepped off the plane, in a haze of sleep deprivation and mild drunkenness exacerbated by prolonged altitude. And now, somehow, my stay here had reached its natural end.
At 5 in the evening, I was interrupted from the time-consuming task of staring at my still-unpacked bags by a group of friends who wanted to go and search for food. Why not, I told myself. It was the last night, and I could always get up early tomorrow and pack then. Our group of five headed to an unremarkable restaurant for some forgettable food; the focus of our attention was on each other, the friendships we had formed and the experiences we had shared, which were coming to an end all too soon.
On the way back, we paused at the entrance to our accommodation, our home of the last few months. It was ten o’clock, and we were due to fly early the following day, but when would we next get the chance to explore Hong Kong? So, on a whim, we turned around and headed back into the city. Eventually, we ended up on the waterfront, that iconic sprawl of skyscrapers, restaurants and banks. A patchwork of neon and fibreglass; vaguely yet perfectly mirrored in the wide and still expanse of water that lay between us.
At that moment, I somehow knew with absolute conviction that I would not be going back to the UK permanently. With utter certainty, the epiphany washed over me: something had changed within me during my time here. The heady mix of cultures, the narrow streets and towering buildings, the cramped nightclubs and bands of people drinking in the open air – it had pulled me in and held me so tightly that I hadn’t even been aware of it. But now, watching the myriad illuminated signs and uneven buildings across the bay, my brain began to realign itself, slotting my experiences into place like some kind of cerebral Rubix cube, cementing within me the knowledge that, to some extent, I would be travelling for the rest of my life.
There was never a more perfect metaphor for Hong Kong than that skyline. The eclectic combination of enormous and miniscule, tiny laundrettes squeezed in next to multinational banking giants, the flickering logos of various companies competing to outshine one another in the smallest of spaces. And all of this, arranged so haphazardly and illogically, in perfect contradiction to the peaceful and placid water beneath and the brooding mountains above.
Louis Moran 