Day 15: The Voyage Home

It’s been a hell of a journey. 2 countries, 8 cities, 77 walking miles, 388 scooter miles, 16,706 flight miles, and 23,476 banh mi’s. Asia, I will miss you.

We got up late, not really in a hurry to get anywhere. I went down and got Starbucks. One iced americano and one hot. It takes real effort to order a hot coffee drink here. I don’t think anyone believes me the first time. There’s also no such thing as half and half. There’s milk but you have to ask the barista for it.

We didn’t have to be at the airport until 3:30 so we took our time packing our bags with our dirty clothes and frivolous purchases. We took the hotel pens and waters. We ignored the Metropark café in protest of their no free breakfast policy, checked our bags at the front desk, and set out on our last restaurant wander. This is where I follow Joe for a half hour as he walks past 30 places I would happily eat at until he finds just the right one. I call it the Joe Paradox. Given the number of habitable restaurants in the known universe, why hasn’t Joe attempted to contact one? No big deal, we had time.

Eventually we found one called Kung Fu Dim Sum. It was bustling and we sat side by side at a table across from an older Chinese couple. A group of ladies sat at the table next to us and when their tea came, one of them used the tea to rinse off all of the chopsticks and all of her dishes. The restaurant even provided a glass bowl to catch the wash tea, which they came and collected after the process was complete. Hadn’t seen that before. I looked at my own tea and dishes. Can’t do it. Let’s just eat fast and hope no one notices our bad manners.

After lunch we collected our bags and headed to the subway. We took the train to Central/Hong Kong station and boarded the Airport Express.

We got to the airport four hours early. There was nowhere to sit in the food court so we found some empty chairs by an unused gate and put our bags down. We passed the time quietly in our little corner of terminal 1. I exchanged my HK dollars for US dollars and got McDonalds. We ate big macs and split a 9 piece nugget with teriyaki and curry sauce. It’s a crazy world.

Finally, it was time to board. We walked together as far as we could then we hugged around our enormous backpacks.

“I’ll see you at Christmas, but come to New York!” Joe said.

“I will.” I said.

Then, for the first time in two weeks, we went our separate ways.

***

Thank you to everyone who read along with us, it was great hearing from you guys. You kept this going. Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers. None of this would have been possible without your support. Thank you to Rachael and all of her excellent friends for showing us around Hong Kong. Thank you to Kelly and the entire sisterhood of the traveling backpack for loaning me this amazing pack preloaded with good luck and good energy.

And of course, many, many, many thanks to my travel partner, Joe LaMonica. Thanks for making me go somewhere I didn’t want to go. Thanks for making me eat foods I didn’t want to eat. Thanks for going along with the original crazy plan even though you didn’t really want to. Thanks for being in a positive mood 95% of the time. Thanks for helping me with this blog. Thanks for letting me write potentially embarrassing things about you. Thanks for being a good sport. Thanks for being you. Thanks for being my friend.

Thanks Joe.

Until next time.