Having completed our journey with Air France, it’s good to be ‘home’. It’s 2 years since we last visited and I must say, I’m seeing a new side to the city this time round already. Before, it was always ‘family holidays’ where we were pulled one family dinner to the next, or – during 2003-04 – it was for work, which meant I saw even less of the city and more of a desk due to the working hours. Or maybe it’s just that this is my first official holiday from my full-time IA career. I must say, I did need a break, and you can’t get any further away from it all than sitting in a rural village in Hong Kong surrounded by mountains.

Just on the taxi back to our village – the taxi ride was a comparative luxury compared to the flight – the scenery was a refreshing change to the UK. With mountains, bridges, harbour-side dwellings, inner-city suburbs, marvelous urban engineering and architecture, Hong Kong really is a photographer’s dream. I sometimes wonder why I left. Something to do with ‘getting a proper job’, and getting a better work-life balance. The things I do miss though is the food, the sunshine (ok in small doses), the ability to use it as a base to explore other parts of Asia, the quirky almost-Japan-like culture, and the different types of activities you can do here: from nice beaches, shopping, trendy bars, original restaurants, a cosmopolitan community, island-hopping, hiking, and so on. If only I could read / write Chinese, maybe I’d be able to build a career for myself here. Oh well.

On a bad note, they’ve managed to build yet another house directly infront of my bedroom so what view I did have (admittedly it was a view of the carpark) is now someone’s window. That’s the rate they build things here!