Celebrating a 10-month anniversary with my smoggy city of dreams. Ah yes, time for my monthly sickening summary of “new life in HK omgz” because I have an odd and unrelenting affinity for measuring time. Timehop is basically the greatest thing that’s ever happened to people like me. And, you know what, for someone that loves to measure time and all that jazz, I do a pretty good job at managing to be fashionably early or late to everything. I’m never on time. Once I was an hour early.
Things I’ve learnt so far:
- Hong Kong is really sticky and hot. Uncomfortably so. I mean, I knew this from summering here every year but when you live here? It’s so hot it hurts.
- This year I’ve outdone myself for getting ill. And I miss the NHS so much when I have to pay $500 for a consultation and prescription. I even had to pay when someone else called me an ambulance.
- Only good things can come from trying things outside of your comfort zone.
- Don’t bother curling your hair between the months of May and September. “It’s the humidity!”
- I learn something new every day, whether that’s how to perfect my nighttime A/C game, how to catch minibuses from unmarked stops, telling the minibus driver to ‘turn around’ in order to get off the bus or just how satisfying it is to achieve the perfect assemblage of cushions.
- Secret underground bars are ideal hiding places. They will also play your Taylor Swift song requests unlike anywhere else in LKF.
- A scientific study shows that 73% of the new people I’ve met just have a fetish for British accents or for British-born Chinese girls. Potentially 5% of those are people I still speak to. Sigh.
- Etude House’s marketing strategy is so strong – I own half of their offerings, maybe.
- Yoga is so much more fun that you remembered.
- Boys are not worth arguing with every day for 4 months.
- They’re not worth looking for when they’ve disappeared for no reason.
- Dating is even more of a minefield when you’re a BBC girl here. When will I ever feel like I fit in please?
- You’re probably not going to do that dating thing again for a while. At least not consciously.
- The best restaurants are always found in shady alleys where it looks like questionable things happen down.
- It is insanely difficult to find avocados.
- Sometimes it’s okay to have weekends so solitary that your doorman finds you for a chinwag to see if you’re okay.
- Hiking is the ultimate in pain for beauty. Those views!
- Never being very far from the sea is the best hold on happiness.
- Daily gratitude. Having an awesome opportunity like living on the other side of the world means I’m grateful for so much more nowadays.
- Instagram timing. You know, I had an amazing breakfast/brunch but couldn’t post it until 5pm my time because the majority of my friends won’t be awake to enjoy it.
- Nothing lasts forever except from your cutie houseplant that is somehow still going strong.
- Nothing is lost until your Mum can’t find it. (PS. She has superpowers and can find things for you even across the globe.)
- It’s alright to have a really dramatic crying session on Skype for half an hour when nothing will go to plan.
- Boys come and go but I’ve always known that. Friends come and go too. It’s okay to let go of people who are no good for you.
- I’ve never seen my neighbor dressed in real clothes. 7am, 1pm, 5pm and 10pm sightings: all in pajamas and a superb pineapple hair-bun.
- Jaffa Cakes
- Fresh, crisp air
- Wearing jackets
- Bertle and Eric
- Going for drives
- Walks at the lake
- Caffeine-fuelled gossip dates with my best pals
- Nando’s
- F&F tights
- London lunch breaks at Regent’s Park
- Late summer evenings
- British barbeque attempts
