Saturday, January 1, 2011

Arrival



Where you are, it's 5 a.m.--or 4 or 6, maybe 7. Where I am, it's 9 p.m., and I can see taxis and buses flowing past in a steady, patient stream just down the alley. Today hasn't really been a day, rather, two or three, smeared and streaked together in a jumble of airport terminals, reading lamps and rounds of dozing off in movies or audiobooks. Barring all the technology, I feel a bit like a shaman of old, crossing through a secret gateway from one world and into another with entirely different rules. The fact that Hong Kong prints all its signs in English? My one saving grace.

When I got on the bus at the airport, I quickly realized that the bus driver had neither the language nor the patience to help me navigate the city. Luckily, a young girl on vacation from her studies in Vancouver took pity on me. She and her family passed the address of my hostel back and forth between them, each making comments together until they decided that I would get off the bus with them, where they would find me a taxi. Once inside the car, I felt a calm settle over me I couldn't explain. The streets were dingy and dismally foreign, but none of that stopped me from feeling at home.

My hostel is in perfect Engrish. Signs are all missing 'a' and 'the' and 's', as charming as the man who meets me at the front desk. Older, Chinese, he nearly breaks my heart with his bent-over, crooked-walk hospitality. “You are my guest,” he tells me, flashing a grin so bright I think of a grey old fish with stripes of wild neon down its back. There's barely room for my suitcases in the elevator, and my room is decorated in period IKEA with chartreuse accents.

It's adorable. I could definitely live here.

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