Starting Life Over Again in Hong Kong – Day 1

It seems blissfully fitting that today is now officially the first day of the rest of my life because today is the day that the greatest joy in my life arrived 19 years ago when my daughter was born. While she has been enjoying her very first house party in her own apartment in the UK tonight, I relocated to Hong Kong! She is simply the best thing that ever happened to me and I’ve really missed her since she went off to uni a year ago, leaving me empty nested. So it feels ‘right’ for lack of a better term that this new chapter of my life should begin on the same day that the best part of my life began back in 1995.

Life in Hong Kong

So I woke up insanely early today and was out exploring the city just after breakfast and I was so excited to learn a few little unexpected facts about life here compared to Beijing (which was my only real point of reference for eastern Asia):

1. Most people speak English! It feels much more like India in that regard, and that is 100% awesome sauce! Beijing was HARD in part because almost no one spoke English. I do realise that I am the outsider here and that my native language shouldn’t be adopted by the rest of the world but … it does make it nice when it happens. Everyone here who I interacted with today – from the guy who sold me my Oyster Card and shop keepers to someone I asked for directions from – spoke English.
2. People are really friendly! Again, sorry to slam Beijing but that wasn’t really the case there all the time. Maybe it had something to do with the language barrier, which would make sense, but Hong Kongers are lovely so far.
3. No spitting! Well, to be fair I was only out for several hours today but I didn’t see a single person spit! Spitting in Beijing was sort of the nasty brother to all the pee’ing in India…it was everywhere. But so far, it’s all sunshine and rainbows here.

And as my first day in my new life officially comes to an end, Asian fusion chillout music is playing, the sun is setting over Hong Kong and I am fortunate to have a bird’s eye view on the harbour as I’m sat in the bay window of my hotel room on the 22nd floor typing out this first blog post. A man massaging my feet right now would really round out the day nicely but I don’t see that happening!