WHERE IN THE WORLD IS THAT SLORR EP. 13
Whaaatttt extra bonus chapter?!
That’s right. Remote Year might have ended for Cousteau (it’s 3rd group ever) but that doesn’t mean the journey’s done.
We had a pretty emotional goodbye party on Friday the 24th. My flight was booked months and months ago for pretty early in the morning on the 25th, so I was one of the first to leave after that experience. However, I was flying into a mix of cool reunions that were the absolute best possible way to forget that Remote Year was ending.
I found out a few weeks ago that a former co-worker who grew to be an incredibly great friend would be in Hong Kong with her boyfriend the week before me, and we’d have one night of overlap — my first night. I found out the week I was flying to HK that a good friend from college would be in town that night too and playing a festival. So me, my RY best bud Casey, my old co-worker, and her boyfriend all decided to go. (Thanks for the tickets Gabe!).
So I land in Hong Kong, check into our Air BnB, go to the festival to get the passes, meet the co-worker and her bf for a drink, then pause to let Casey into our Air BnB, drag Casey out at the speed of light, the four of us head to the festival, and end up in the VVIP (what it was literally called) at a Zedd show which was right on the bay in Central. Thankfully, we arrived just in time to watch Steve Aoki throw a cake on the audience. What an insane and amazing way to completely forget that Remote Year ended that same day.
The next day Casey and I ate at “The Cheapest Michelin Star Restaurant In The World” (if you go to Hong Kong and don’t Instagram your Tim Ho Wan meal, did you really go at all?) and explored Ladies’ Market. That night I showed Casey Lan Kwai Fong.
Now, Lan Kwai Fong is in fact one of the most hilarious places I’ve ever been. It’s a square block of pseudo-outdoor bars that expats and tourists party at. The 7–11’s are poppin’ because there’s no open container policy in HK and the drinks there are cheaper. We also ran into Gabe and Zedd on the mid-level escalators on our way back to Soho which was one of the coolest run-ins I’ve ever experienced.
The rest of the week consisted of sight-seeing and working from cafes around Hong Kong Island. We made it to Victoria Peak and the Giant Buddha, with some delicious dinners in-between, but we had to work and saw less of the city than we wanted.
I’d planned this week to Hong Kong and the following two to Japan months and months and months ago. I thought that having solid next steps post RY would keep me from spiraling as we came to the end. It helped, but as a wise, wonderful old man once said, “Numbing the pain for awhile will make it worse when you finally feel it.” Thank goodness I have more travel planned to continue the numbing!
