7.September.2001 -- Bangkok
Dazed and Confused
Bangkok International Airport. So I'm enroute to Vietnam, though just barely. I was wandering about Hong Kong last night, planning out my next day's activities (a trip to Lamma island, perhaps a stroll through the Night Market, etc) when a strange thought popped into my mind. I was thinking that I should find an internet terminal and write to Colleen to see if there were any last requests of items she'd like from the developed world. Thinking about that, for some reason reminded me that I had at some point written her an email explaining that I'd be arriving on Friday night. Friday night. Now that was strange, here it was, Thursday night, and I was figuring what I was going to do before I left for Vietnam on Saturday. Wait a minute. Surely I'm in Hong Kong til Saturday morning, after all, I have a hotel room reserved and paid for until Saturday. I have plans for Friday, forchrissakes!
Well, after a few minutes of frantically pacing about trying to get the various parts of my brain to work together, and searching for someone I could discuss this with (I ending up calling Mom, on the pretext of discussing something about health insurance) I concluded that in fact Thursday would be my last night in Hong Kong. Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed that, to my mind, my visit to Hong Kong was unceremoniously cut short, but I'm also relieved that I finally remembered this. Our minds work in weird ways. One side of me is convinced that it was sheer luck that I remembered this -- there wasn't any doubt in my mind that Saturday was the day -- while another side reassures that one way or another, our minds are fairly good at working out these kinds of conflicts just about the time they become critical (I knew all along that I was leaving on the 7th, for example, but had never reconciled my two perceptions).
Anyway, I made it. Hong Kong was pretty amazing, and when I have a chance, I have a couple of pictures to post here. As for Bangkok, I'll have to reserve judgement until I return here in about a month's time.
Since I have a lot of time kill here, I've added an email form to the site. I'm looking forward to hearing from you: Click here to email me