Musings in the Dark: January 2015

1/21/2015

The Expat Diaries: Hong Kong

Circumstances allowed me to spend the past weekend in Hong Kong.  I flew out Friday night on HK Airlines and returned Sunday night via the same carrier. Ideally, I would have spent four days, but this trip wasn’t planned until the last minute.

I hit up TripAdvisor and a couple of other travel websites to find out what I could do in 36 hours.  The answer is plenty.  Hong Kong is a walking city that is very clean and very easy to navigate.  I grabbed a city map at the airport and the travel websites advised getting an Octopus Card, which is basically a travel pass you load money onto.  You can use it for transportation and a lot of restaurants, shops, and stores also accept it.  It saves you from carrying loose coins, which gets tiresome real quick.

My hotel was, fortunately for me, near the central train hub and in walking distance.  With map and Octopus Card in hand, I walked down to the ENORMOUS station and stared at the maps, trying to figure out which way was up and how the trains worked.  The city is tourist-friendly and there are a lot of British “leftovers.”  There are signs literally pointing you in the direction you want to go, labeled with the sights you want to see.  I rode the Peak Tram up the mountain so that I could get a view of the stunning skyline with the mountains in the distance.  The mountains are called the Nine Dragons, and behind them is Mainland China.

1/01/2015

2014: It's A Wrap!!!

I've been blogging for five years.  Noob reminded me of this recently and I had to take a step back and reflect.  Five years ago, I was an undiagnosed mess of turmoil, grief and rage.

Two years ago, I was sitting in my Atlanta home, infuriated with the lack of progress I was making towards completing my degree.  I didn’t have a job and was battling a bout of tendonitis in my right hand after spending six weeks entering numeric data into Excel.  I’d actively taken steps to move abroad but nothing was panning out and I was unbelievably frustrated.  I was unhappy, unhealthy, lonely, and I felt like everything was against me.

Fast forward to now.  I live in Shanghai; a city of 26 million people.  My educational pursuits are now directly related to professional development.  I have a job that I love, and the absolute freedom to do whatever the hell I want.  I don't think I've ever been as happy or as content as I am right now. Sometimes I can’t believe it; that I really am back in my little house and dreaming about being an expat instead of actually being an expat.