Eight Crazy Years

I know I'm a week late, but I recently celebrated the eighth anniversary of my arrival in Hong Kong. And for the first time in those eight years, I was outside of the Pearl of the Orient on the big day, with this anniversary falling towards the end of my first trip home in more than a year! 

I'm back in Hong Kong now—and I've actually been here for five days already—but I definitely wanted to take a quick moment to reflect on the momentous occasion, while also preserving for posterity some of the top memories of my recent trip, which surely ranks as one of the best ever.

Carving jack-o'-lanterns on Halloween night

As I think is abundantly clear to anybody who knows me well, Halloween is hands down my favorite holiday. So the fact that I'd not been home for a good, old-fashioned American iteration of the celebration in eight years led to my decision long ago to spend 31 October 2017 on the East Coast of the United States. It was, without doubt, a fantastic choice.

With my pal Rusty in Brooklyn

I still can easily recall memories of my last American Halloween, back in 2009, literally my final weekend at home before moving across the world to Hong Kong. Over the seven ensuing Halloweens, I've always had a blast, decorating my apartment with ghoulish embellishments, binging on favorite horror films and partying the night away cloaked in disguises of varying degrees of success. Yes, it's possible to have a near-perfect Halloween in the SAR, but one important element is impossible to recreate: the spectacle of hundreds of impish youngsters traipsing door to door participating in the secular sacrament of trick-or-treating.

Suzy trick-or-treating!

So, to the bewilderment of my poor father, I insisted on inviting ourselves over to Brooklyn to spend the evening in the company of my eight and ten year old cousins, Susan and Julian, as they rang door bells collecting candy along with scores of their neighbors.

Michael Myers, Julian and the Joker!

Dad gamely tagged along, as we strolled the pavements he played on as a child, the beautiful late October breeze gently blowing, listening to the endless giggles as witches, ghosts, mummies and ball players collected their spoils on that gorgeous fall night.

Decorations and trick-or-treaters in Brooklyn

"That was the best suggestion," he later told me. "I can't believe I was so against the idea." 

I had actually landed a few nights before, on the morning of 28 October, which, being the Saturday closest to Halloween itself, was automatically granted the distinction of macabre party night. I wound up dressed in a rather impromptu vampire costume, dancing and drinking with a select crew of friends til the early hours near Williamsburg. It was, quite simply, a perfect first night back.

Halloween crew

My friend Heidi's parents had invited me to brunch in Manhattan that Sunday, so a quick subway ride took me from Williamsburg to the University Club on 5th Avenue. In an ironic stroke of luck and timing, one of Heidi's other good friends also happened to be in town: Carla, who I've mentioned before has moved to Singapore for work with her husband Matt. Obviously, a few post-brunch cocktails at the legendary Sardi's were in order before I made it to Penn Station to catch the NJ Transit home to Matawan. 

One of my favorite things about any trip back to Jersey is just doing nothing at home. Well, not quite nothing, but, you know what I mean: those little things that almost seem too minor to write about. Thumbing through family photo albums or old coffee table books, lounging on the couch flicking through thousands of cable channels yet finding nothing to watch, toying around on the piano or sipping a coffee on our back deck admiring the colors of the autumn leaves, without a care in the world. I did a lot of nothing that week. 

And sometimes, there was something good to watch on television, like the World Series, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, classic episodes of What's My Line?, Match Game and Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, or reruns of beloved sitcoms like Friends or Seinfeld. I even managed to catch Woody Allen's Radio Days, a movie I've wanted to see for ages and that so blew me away that I now rank it as one of my all-time favorites. Yes, it was quite a perfect week of nothing and everything.

It was a blur of candy corn and caramel apples and apple cider donuts and pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin beer and pumpkin Cheerios and a pumpkin napoleon, every bite worth all the calories! And there were scallops and shrimp and bagels and cannoli and pizza and deep fried mozzarella. Let's be honest, it's never a healthy trip home, but it's always a delicious one.

Enjoying a caramel apple on our back deck

And, oh, the leaves! Those beautiful autumn leaves! The trees don't really change color in Hong Kong. We get a switch of seasons, of course, but nothing as dramatic as what happens on the East Coast of the United States.

Autumn leaves in Cheesequake State Park

So I relished the sight of the vibrant shades of reds, auburns, golds, oranges and yellows. My dad and I even drove to the nearby state park, Cheesequake, on one particularly temperate afternoon to wander around admiring the colorful hues on display all around us. And another pair of afternoons were spent strolling along the Perth Amboy and Laurence Harbor waterfronts, soaking in the glories of a New Jersey fall.

A beautiful afternoon in the park

Initially, this trip was meant to have ended right there. And I would have been perfectly pleased had that happened. You see, I had planned on simply spending a week back home, taking in the joys of Halloween and a perhaps a few side trips into the city to spend time with friends. But when my boss found out I planned to be in the region, he suggested extending things for a second week and incorporating a trio of work meetings, with the added bonus of the firm paying for my flights! Obviously I took him up on the offer.

So that next Monday morning, I caught the Acela Express from Newark Penn Station and was Boston-bound. It had been over a decade since I last laid eyes on Beantown, and, boy, was it beautiful in the fall. I had only one meeting, but it was safer to arrive the day before so I didn't have to chance running late. After settling in to my hotel on Copley Square, I met my friends Amanda and Bea for a lovely French dinner before an evening stroll around the charming cobbled streets.

Outside my hotel in Boston after a great dinner with Bea and Amanda

From the window of my room, I looked right out onto the noble façade of the Boston Public Library. And so many gorgeous buildings studded the quaint quarter. Although it was very, very cold, I indulged in an early morning wander around the neighborhood that next day. And to celebrate a successful meeting before catching the train back to New York, I also fit in a memorable lunch of clam chowder and a lobster roll at the Chart House. 

Lunch at the Chart House in Boston

The two other meetings, both in Manhattan, also went well, and were mixed in with a series of unforgettable encounters with friends, like a late afternoon reunion with Kristen on Irving Street, a big night out afterwards in the Flatiron District with a whole horde of fellow Villanovans and a cozy coffee catch-up with my friend Abby, with whom I studied abroad in Paris a decade ago!

The Knickerbocker Hotel

And I just loved walking around the city, soaking up autumn in New York. The crisp air, the leaves, the classic stone façades of many of the towering skyscrapers. There's something especially endearing about New York at the height of fall, and I think I did a good job of savoring as much of it as possible. I guess I love every season in its own way, but if I had to pick my favorite, fall wins.

A crisp fall day in Manhattan

For the auspicious occasion of the eighth anniversary of my arrival in Hong Kong, I wanted to do something that would remind me how grateful I am to have serendipitously found my way to the former British colony upon graduation in 2009. The two elements that could most easily accomplish this wish, I theorized, would be Hong Kong friends and Hong Kong food. And it could not have been a more appropriate day!

My friends Edouard and Ines, who you may recall were married in Bali earlier this summer, moved from Hong Kong to New York about two years ago. We decided to meet up for lunch that day, and Heidi joined us for a very memorable repast. 21 is surely one of my favorite Manhattan watering holes, though I rarely find the occasion to visit. With its painted jockeys and hushed elegance, the place just exudes an air of stature and history. I actually celebrated my own twenty-first birthday there with my family back in November 2007, complete with Dover sole and Champagne, so—with my thirty-first birthday fast approaching—it seemed like an appropriate occasion to return, and to introduce Heidi, Edouard and Ines to such a classic New York institution.

The painted jockeys outside 21

Let's just say, it was one of those lunches that lingers in your memory for a long time, the kind that I know we'll look back on fondly as the years fly by. I don't know anywhere quite as special as 21. I like to think if I ever moved back, I'd become a regular here, feasting on the iconic chicken hash and quaffing Manhattans and Gibsons every chance I could get. As it is, I'm surely going to make the effort to return each time I find myself home. The dark, clubby bar room—with its celebrated treasury of toys suspended from the ceiling—was the perfect spot to catch up with Edouard and Ines, reminiscing about the good old days when we were all in Hong Kong together.

From the bar at 21

Hong Kong friends: check! Now onto to Hong Kong food. Later that night, Heidi, our friend Jimmy and I feasted on delicious Chinese fare at a Sichuan place called Han Dynasty on the Upper West Side, a last minute replacement for my first choice, Shun Lee, the iconic Lincoln Center Asian favorite that was shuttered by the Health Department a day earlier for significant hygiene violations! Oh, well. I suppose that's slightly better than if it had been shut down for the same reason the day after! The meal was absolutely stellar, and we toasted to my anniversary with one or two Tsingtaos!

Cheers to eight years!

Back in Jersey after an unforgettable five days, I again basked in the quiet pleasures of suburban life before the inevitable moment when I had to pack my bags and fly off again. It was one of the hardest goodbyes I've ever had to say, and had the previously-beautiful weather not precipitously dropped to the mid-thirties just in time, I might have angled for ways to stick around longer! 

The flights back were long, but I made it. The reunion with Fredric was pure bliss. And almost instantly, Hong Kong started reminding me why I love it here so much, from gorgeous views of the skyline from the ferry, to tasty wok-fried noodle lunches and a lovely reunion with my old roommate Véro over dim sum yesterday morning. Yes, eight years in, I'm still in a committed and loving relationship with Hong Kong, though my brief autumn fling with the Northeast was surely an affair to remember!

Sunset over the Hong Kong skyline, on the ferry from Hung Hom to North Point my first day back