The Hangover

I woke up with difficulty and plenty of things to do. I left our hotel and checked my backpack at the in-town airport terminal in Central. You may remember my gripe about the Shanghai Maglev airport train, which could have been brilliant but isn't, because its city terminal lies smack in the middle of nowhere. Hong Kong got that right: they're not using magnetic levitation, or any fancy technology (beyond that needed for building a high-speed rail line between a highly developed city center and an artificial island in a region plagued by earthquakes and typhoons) but the in-city airport terminal really is in the middle of the city, and that makes it head-smackingly convenient.

Unencumbered by my backpack, which shall find its own way to the luggage carousel at Luxembourg Airport, I met Rolando at Tom Lee music. There I spent a good chunk of my last waking hours in China, walking through the huge shop, checking out new and exciting amps and effects, trying out guitars. I wasn't really shopping for anything, except a really good sunburst Strat, (I've been looking for a really good sunburst strat for the last 5 years.) which I didn't find. I had fun trying a very nice Taylor archtop, a model I didn't even know existed, and had I been even slightly wealthier I'd have bought it right there and then. Eventually we left, and I spent most of the afternoon alone, shopping for postcards, souvenirs, clothes, and mostly trying to get as much of Hong Kong as I could before joining Sayu, Nico and the others for dinner and the best roasted duck in town.

On my way to them, gazing along the seemingly endless subway train speeding deep below Victoria Harbour, I felt immensely sad at the idea of leaving China in a couple of hours. Hong Kong is one of the greatest cities in the world, I like it immensely, and I'd only just got there. Also, I wasn't only facing the harsh return to reality that follows any four week trip, but was also at the end of nearly two years of almost incessant travel. In sixteen months I'd been on a hundred airplanes, more than in all my years before, discovering dozens of places I'd previously only dreamed about. This trip was the last, at least for the foreseeable future. I was heading back to Brussels for good, with a lot of work to do in the coming months. Given my fare, I could have easily stayed one more day: all I had to do was purposefully miss the flight and board 24h later. I was never going to do that, though: I'd decided to leave a day before everybody else in order to meet very close friends in Luxembourg, and I was eager to see them again. I'd be lying, though, if I said it didn't sting a little. So I roamed the streets of Hong Kong, listening to "Life in Technicolor II" (a perfect soundtrack for this city), bathing in gleaming spires, neon signs and glass shield walls rising all the way up to the clouds.

I finally came to a stop on the fifth-floor terrace of the IFC mall, a gorgeous waterfront location next to the 400m+ façade of IFC tower 2, and took a good look around. At the bustle in the streets below. At Victoria peak disappearing in the mist above. At the surreal high-rises that form the greatest skyline in the world. At the incessant traffic in Victoria harbour lying at my feet, and gritty Nathan Road stretching lazily yonder. In the middle of it all, an old junk glided softly, seemingly oblivious to the screams of modernity all around it. I made a mental photograph, imprinting the scene on my brain, all its sights and sounds and movements and smells. I then took a deep breath, and turned back to rejoin my friends, for the last time in China.

We had drinks, we had pickled eggplant, we had roasted duck. I said goodbye and took a cab and an express train. I made my way to the gate, through the impossible-to-believe Chek Lap Kok airport, cleaner than a hospital, calmly efficient. And then it really ended. Just as I'd done exactly four weeks earlier, I sat in a random seat in a huge airliner, it took off, I had a drink and a small meal, watched a couple TV shows, closed my eyes and fell asleep.

I will be back.