Letting the world in

After a rather blunt reminder that demon summer is on its way, Hong Kong has had a run of rather glorious weather. (Well, at least on the days I’m working. Naturally, it pours on my days off.) Last year at this time, I remember it already being uncomfortably sticky, though not yet blazing hot. But these days? They feel like November.

And so, to celebrate, I turned off the air conditioner and opened the windows wide.

The first few nights, it wasn’t bad. The air was deliciously cool. Perfect sleeping-with-the-windows-open weather.

I’m lucky in that my neighborhood is relatively quiet for Hong Kong. I live directly across from a school, which is dark long before I get home from work. There’s a hospital up the road, and, because of that, there are few apartment buildings on my street. (It’s considered very bad luck to live near a hospital.) There’s a park up the street where several rowdy Chinese teenagers like to play basketball, but they’re long gone by bedtime. Other than the occasional car or delivery truck, there’s very little noise outside.

At least, there’s very little noise outside until I decide to leave the windows open.

The building is surrounded by a pack of feral cats. There are at least nine that I recognize. Normally, I don’t mind them. But three nights ago, a couple get into a roaring fight sometime around 4 a.m. I’m a hard sleeper. Once I’m out, I’m out. I once slept through an earthquake.

These cats woke me up.

After what felt like an hour, I thought about closing the windows, hoping that would cut down on the noise. But that required getting out of bed and stumbling around the apartment, something I’m not generally willing to do before 10 a.m. Instead, I fumbled around for my iPod and shoved the headphones in my ears. Back to sleep I went.

My mom would probably say that the cats sounded better than the music.

The next night, while brushing my teeth, I think about closing the windows and turning on the air conditioning. But it’s cool outside, so I leave them open.

Again, sometime in the wee small hours of the morning, I’m yanked out of sleep by some (presumably drunk) man yelling at a taxi driver on the street in a strange mixture of French and Chinese. This goes on for several minutes. By the time the elevator starts creaking, I’ve brought out the trusty iPod and drifted back to sleep.

Last night, I left nothing to chance. I left the windows open, but I fell asleep with the iPod.

There were no strange noises, but I woke up this morning to discover that Hong Kong mosquitoes find me extra tasty. I am covered in bites. (There were 25 at last count, including one between two toes. How does this happen?)

Hong Kong windows do not have screens, and I don’t live up high enough to escape the bugs. Every once in a while, something will find its way into my apartment – I once woke up to find a bee the size of a small car trying to escape by flying over and over into the unopened windows – but the mosquitoes have pretty much stayed away.

This is what I get for letting the world in? Tonight, I’m closing the freakin’ windows.

Stars and sand

It was one Friday night where I was seriously looking forward to going home and crawling into bed with a book. I’d just finished a six-day week, and I’d gone straight to the office from the airport after a very fun, very exhausting three-day weekend. (More on that trip soon; I’m still toning photos.) Then a coworker announces that she’s heading to Shek O to meet friends and eat Thai food. Did any of us want to join?

I decided to go, and I’m so glad I did. Minus the long cab ride over dark, deserted, winding roads, it was far more relaxing than lying in bed with a book.

After a late meal of great Thai food, the five of us migrated to a bar by the beach. It was the perfect place for sitting outside, nursing a beer and talking. It’s the first place I’ve been in Hong Kong where I can really smell the ocean. (Well, I can smell it in TST, too, but it doesn’t smell like that. In Shek O, it smells like it’s supposed to!)

It was easy to forget we were in Hong Kong. It really felt like we were on an island in the Caribbean somewhere – as far as one could possibly get from skyscrapers and bright lights and noise and crowds.

I think I could even see stars.