a.k.a. that time I was wondering where all the tourists were (like an idiot).
If you know me, you know I hate crowds. Imagine my delight (which eventually turned to dread) as I spent the week of January 19-25, 2020 in Hong Kong. Why was I delighted? Well, for some odd reason – at the time I thought maybe just some insane swing of good luck – a lot of the restaurants had last minute tables. A lot of the tourist sites, like the Giant Buddha or Tai O Fishing Village, were completely desolate aside from locals. It felt like I had the whole city to myself as I rode the glass cable car on my own, climbed 268 steps to Big Buddha without a soul in site, and road the bus to Tai O with two other elderly folks that definitely didn’t read as tourists. I reveled in it. Why couldn’t travel always be like this?
The answer? Because I was in the middle of Hong Kong during the first confirmed cases of COVID-19. Hong Kong (or ‘Honkers’ as some of the locals called it) had its first recorded case of COVID-19 on January 23, 2020. Exactly halfway through my trip the entire city got the memo about staying home and taking precautionary measures to avoid this virus. I just ate more duck and drank more Vitasoy with my friends. While the entire structure of Hong Kong slowed down to a near pause I merrily (and stupidly, my friends, ignorance truly is bliss!) had one of the best impromptu vacations of my life.
As I departed back for the States on Jan. 25, I had no idea why I was asked to remove my hat and let an attendant check my forehead. It wasn’t until I got home and saw news sent from my friends back in Hong Kong that I knew I had dodged a potentially sticky travel situation. About a year later a documentary came out about the cruise ship that was docked in Hong Kong (everyone on board was forced to quarantine in their rooms, mostly every passenger ended up getting the virus anyway) that really helped me understand just how much trouble I had managed to avoid. In retrospect I now view the entirety of that trip as me haplessly bouncing from point to point narrowly evading disasters a la Mr. Bean or Mr. Magoo. Once again, ignorance is bliss.
Anyway, here are some of the photos I grabbed while in Hong Kong, 2020.
