Our trip to Hong Kong for our first wedding anniversary brought back memories of my first few times there, which had been for business. My long walk with M through the streets of central Hong Kong, for instance, which took us to the world's longest escalator and part of the Peak. To this day, a part of me still cannot believe that I walked the streets of central Hong Kong with a partner from one of the Big Four, carrying on a normal conversation as though she was a relative, perhaps an older cousin I didn't meet very often but nonetheless got along well with. Gawking at the lobby of the Four Seasons Hong Kong, wheedling my way to eating at a cha chaan teng with another partner, who gamely slurped up a bowl of beef brisket noodles at the main Tsui Wah branch. Looking back, he'd wanted to bring ON and me to an atas Japanese restaurant - maybe I should have agreed, but the stress and lack of sleep made me feel that it would be amusing to see whether he would rise to the challenge of eating such plebian fare.
How different the circumstances when I returned almost two years later. Riding the Peak tram with someone, like you're supposed to, actually walking around the Peak, instead of fitting a visit there alone in the hours between the time one woke up and the time one had to catch a flight back to Singapore (to continue working ...) Almost getting lost in the forest whilst on the Bride's Pool walk, spending the night in said forest with only a Snickers bar, four fingers of dark chocolate Kit Kat and a bottle of Watson's water a real possibility (until we met a group of hikers who got us out just as the sun set). The two of us in the middle of nowhere, some way off the Dragon's Back Trail, sitting on a rock, our only intruder an empty can of San Miguel beer left behind by another hiker, feeling the breeze from the South China Sea, able to pretend, almost, that we were the only two people in the world.
What are you thinking of, I'd asked, in that perfect, romance-movie worthy moment. Because I'm thinking I need to pee.
My NS call-up, Jon replied.
And later, sitting on the sand in our jeans, taking off our socks and shoes and paddling in the cold, cold water.
I didn't realise before our trip that it would take a while for me to get used to spending an extended period of time with Jon again, although it shouldn't have been surprising seeing as we usually went almost all 5 weekdays without having more than an hour's conversation, usually about due diligence reports being due, clients who didn't know what they wanted, and other standard junior associate topics.
It was after our hike at the Dragon's Back Trail, when we were walking around Lan Kwai Fung, that the topic of some better left unrehashed in a public forum university happenings cropped up. And in that instant, as we laughed at how young and silly (Jon, not me!) had been, it felt like we were on the holiday we'd never taken when we were still in university, before people started hitting the +852 or the +wherever for the weekend, just to eat and shop and get away from the humidity. I said so to Jon, and he said yes, he was even carrying a backpack (my red Eastpak one, used circa 2001), but the difference was that we had more money now. We subsequently ate what the menu at Tsui Wah called "chilled organic kale", which was really just blanched kai lan on a bed of ice, Jon complaining after every mouthful that some foods weren't meant to be eaten cold.
I remember knowing that something had clicked during our shared laugh about the unmentionable topic - it was the resurfacing of an almost forgotten feeling of oneness, borne of our shared past and what we had gone through together, reminding me at what was on hindsight a fragile time in our relationship, of one of the many reasons we had gotten married.
***
I have said before that for various reasons, chief among them being work, I don't think Jon and I had a very typical or ideal first year of marriage. That's when you're supposed to learn about the hitherto unknown idiosyncrasies of your partner which can be revealed only by a period of living together; it's when you're supposed to be the craziest about each other, when you fight then kiss and make-up with reckless abandon (you know what I mean, this is a PG blog).
Not very much of that happened for us, and so it is only now, on the occasion of our third wedding anniversary and after a trying 2014 and the arrival of FBC, that it finally feels right to share my thoughts from our first. I would have shared them earlier, except that it didn't seem appropriate in light of LKY's passing.
***
The Z-monster and I have finally won Naptime War 10348378 (time to cook tonight's dinner!), and as I haven't been taking many pictures of my cooking of late, I'll leave it to next time to share anything interesting I've made.
How different the circumstances when I returned almost two years later. Riding the Peak tram with someone, like you're supposed to, actually walking around the Peak, instead of fitting a visit there alone in the hours between the time one woke up and the time one had to catch a flight back to Singapore (to continue working ...) Almost getting lost in the forest whilst on the Bride's Pool walk, spending the night in said forest with only a Snickers bar, four fingers of dark chocolate Kit Kat and a bottle of Watson's water a real possibility (until we met a group of hikers who got us out just as the sun set). The two of us in the middle of nowhere, some way off the Dragon's Back Trail, sitting on a rock, our only intruder an empty can of San Miguel beer left behind by another hiker, feeling the breeze from the South China Sea, able to pretend, almost, that we were the only two people in the world.
What are you thinking of, I'd asked, in that perfect, romance-movie worthy moment. Because I'm thinking I need to pee.
My NS call-up, Jon replied.
And later, sitting on the sand in our jeans, taking off our socks and shoes and paddling in the cold, cold water.
I didn't realise before our trip that it would take a while for me to get used to spending an extended period of time with Jon again, although it shouldn't have been surprising seeing as we usually went almost all 5 weekdays without having more than an hour's conversation, usually about due diligence reports being due, clients who didn't know what they wanted, and other standard junior associate topics.
It was after our hike at the Dragon's Back Trail, when we were walking around Lan Kwai Fung, that the topic of some better left unrehashed in a public forum university happenings cropped up. And in that instant, as we laughed at how young and silly (Jon, not me!) had been, it felt like we were on the holiday we'd never taken when we were still in university, before people started hitting the +852 or the +wherever for the weekend, just to eat and shop and get away from the humidity. I said so to Jon, and he said yes, he was even carrying a backpack (my red Eastpak one, used circa 2001), but the difference was that we had more money now. We subsequently ate what the menu at Tsui Wah called "chilled organic kale", which was really just blanched kai lan on a bed of ice, Jon complaining after every mouthful that some foods weren't meant to be eaten cold.
I remember knowing that something had clicked during our shared laugh about the unmentionable topic - it was the resurfacing of an almost forgotten feeling of oneness, borne of our shared past and what we had gone through together, reminding me at what was on hindsight a fragile time in our relationship, of one of the many reasons we had gotten married.
***
I have said before that for various reasons, chief among them being work, I don't think Jon and I had a very typical or ideal first year of marriage. That's when you're supposed to learn about the hitherto unknown idiosyncrasies of your partner which can be revealed only by a period of living together; it's when you're supposed to be the craziest about each other, when you fight then kiss and make-up with reckless abandon (you know what I mean, this is a PG blog).
Not very much of that happened for us, and so it is only now, on the occasion of our third wedding anniversary and after a trying 2014 and the arrival of FBC, that it finally feels right to share my thoughts from our first. I would have shared them earlier, except that it didn't seem appropriate in light of LKY's passing.
***
The Z-monster and I have finally won Naptime War 10348378 (time to cook tonight's dinner!), and as I haven't been taking many pictures of my cooking of late, I'll leave it to next time to share anything interesting I've made.
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