Hong Kong

This wasn't a trip. I moved to Hong Kong in July 2019 to build out an Asia-Pacific security role at work. The plan was three years. I lasted eight months. In that time I touched eleven countries and probably packed more living into 35 weekends than most people fit into a decade.

I found an apartment on the 41st floor in Causeway Bay and settled in. The city was electric — bamboo scaffolding on skyscrapers, $300 business class flights to Taipei, $57 a month for gigabit fiber with HBO. I got my first bespoke suits fitted. I walked to and from work every day, about twenty minutes each way, with an evening walk at 8pm. The view from the 41st floor was the kind of city skyline you fly to other cities to see.

Then the protests started getting serious. One night on my evening walk I turned a corner and walked straight into a wall of riot police who'd just deployed tear gas. From the apartment window I could watch crowds take over the main roads below. The weekends became unpredictable. So I started flying somewhere nearby every weekend instead.

**August — Taiwan, Macau, Shanghai.** Lantau Island and the sky100 observation deck the first weekend. Then Taipei for a long weekend at the Grand Hyatt — $300 round-trip business class because that's what HK life looks like. Macau was a $50 ferry away. Shanghai by overnight train, then Suzhou for the gardens.

**September — China + Qatar + UAE + Oman.** Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changsha. Then a wild week through the Middle East: Dubai, Muscat, Doha, Abu Dhabi. The Macau Tower bungee jump in early September — at the time, the highest commercial bungee in the world. I did it four times. Then Qatar for the desert: Zekreet, Musfer Sink Hole, Mystery Village, Umm Bab Clay Quarries, Film City, the inland sea. Did a desert safari in Qatar where it was me and twelve US soldiers in the same Land Cruiser. Ran into Jayson Tatum at my hotel in Doha — he was as tall in person as you'd think.

**October — Philippines + Beijing.** Manila, Pagsanjan Falls, the Taal volcano. Manila Ocean Park. Then Beijing for a week, including the suburbs out in Shunyi. October 1 was the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China and also the day the largest HK protest in months happened. Conveniently I was in Beijing for one of those.

**November — Macau (again) + Cebu skydive.** Macau Tower. The Cebu skydive — jumped over Bantayan Island in the Philippines. The HK protests on November 2 hit a new intensity right after I got back.

**December — Vietnam (the long one).** Three weeks across Vietnam. Hanoi, Ha Long Bay (multiple cruises), Tam Cốc and Ninh Bình, Hue (Minh Mạng tomb), Hoi An, Da Nang, Phu Quoc Island, Ho Chi Minh City. Christmas in Hanoi. The Vietnam leg alone is its own trip.

**January 2020 — Seoul + the DMZ.** I flew Hanoi back to HK, then HK to Seoul on January 17. Lotte Hotel World, Korean BBQ, the Han River. On January 19 I went to the DMZ. Two days later, the first COVID case was reported in South Korea.

**February — last weeks in HK.** The full moon over Victoria Harbour on February 12. Photography lesson on the Fuji X-T20. Then on March 5 my company told me to come home. I packed up the apartment and flew Boston via Seoul on a half-empty plane. Sat in a bubble bath at the Grand Hyatt Taipei one last time on the way out trying to figure out where else in the world to go.

Eight months. Ten countries. Hundreds of bespoke suits in my closet that no longer fit my Boston life. The world got smaller after that.