Call it female intuition, but I knew that Dubai would not be home. Looks like we are out of here very soon. It wasn’t love at first sight, and it wasn’t love at second sight, but I am grown up enough to know that it was partly my own fault that prevented Dubai from taking a place in my heart.
Most people here don’t see it as their home, and that is part of the problem. It is a place to make money. It is a transient place. Most people don’t care enough to make it a better place. To those who do, you have my utmost respect, and I wish you success.
Here is what I loved about Dubai:
1) M., the cat. I will try to bring you to HK. It will not be easy. It will be expensive. But you meowed into our heart, and I will try to make sure that your bowl will always be full to the end of your days.
2) My garden. I wish I could bring all my plants to HK. I know it’s folly to water a garden in this kind of climate, but to care for paradise for a year was heaven.
3) The friends little man found. Little man wants to return to HK, because it’s his home. But he wants to take his two best friends from Dubai with him. I am trying to convince their parents that HK is the place to be.
4) The Indian bread baker in Satwa. Sir, I can taste that you love what you do, and in the queue in front of your tiny store, I could see that we are all one people.
5) It’s shallow, I know, but I fell in love with a Bavarian beauty. There were a lot of dicey situations on Dubai roads, but you always brought us home safe. I hope you will bring the same kind of luck to the people who will drive you next.
6) The Thai fast food restaurant in Ibn Battuta Mall. Your spicy shrimp-bean stir-fry made my stomach leap with joy. Little man loves your shrimp balls. Thank you!
7) Ms. J, I know that you went through hell, being a mum myself. Loosing your child is the worst you can experience. Please know that you made a difference to those who you cared for. You are a marvelous teacher, and I wish you happiness.
I don’t know if you will understand, but I am afraid of returning home. Paradise is were you imagine it to be, and I hope HK will come close.
For the New Year, I wish you all much love, happiness, health, and many smiles :)
This year will not have it easy with all the doom and gloom that professional naysayers predict, but I have a thing for underdogs and think that 2009 has great potential. I hope that many people will stop, think, and reassess their lives and make small and big changes for the better.
I am not a person that is good at keeping New Year resolutions, but I will try to walk more consciously through life. Enjoying more what I have, pursuing what is important to me, and changing things here and there. For the better, I hope.
I am very thankful for the past year. I was very happy, I loved and was loved back, and I mastered all the challenges that the year threw at me, and maybe grew a little wiser because of them.
Here is to a wonderful New Year and many new adventures!
Little Man and I said goodbye to Hong Kong this week. Seeing your previous life packed up wasn’t easy, but luckily we were too busy to get sentimental. The packers needed a whole day to pack our belongings into boxes, and afterwards I was surprised how small the apartment looked. The furniture and clutter made it look big and full of life, after it was gone, it was a tiny, empty, worn-out shell.
This is for you astronaut and for me:
It can hold a pregnant woman in labour.
Yesterday, little man and I woke at 2 am local German time. We used the early hour to craft “Cutie the Beauty” for Oma and Opa’s Christmas tree.
She is made out of scrap paper, has wonderful blue wings, and little man is especially proud of her goldie locks.
Santa Claus visited us already, and I hope he arrives at your home in time :). I wish you all a Peaceful and Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy 2009!
This evening, little man asked me to pull the blinds up before going to sleep.
“Mama, I want to see Hong Kong.”
“The lights are beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Yes. I am going to miss Hong Kong, and I am going to miss my friends at school.”
“I am going to miss Hong Kong too.”
Little man and I are going to move to Dubai at the end of the year. It is not something that I do light-heartedly, but there was really no other alternative. There are personal aspects that I won’t go into, but let’s just say it’s not going to be easy.
Hong Kong has become my home over the last thirteen years, it is the place where little man was born, and where I had so many other wonderful experiences.
I am going to miss the sidewalks packed with people. I am going to miss the wet markets, noisy and colorful. I am going to miss that there is at least one dingy alleyway next to every glitzy skyscraper. I am going to miss hiking in the green mountains behind my house. I am going to miss having dim sum with friends or a quick noodle soup in a tiny cafe. I am going to miss strolling around old neighborhoods, and always discovering something new. I am going to miss riding on the tram to Causeway Bay, and the Star Ferry across the harbor.
I will miss silly things like the towel rail in my bathroom. I hung on it when the hard labor contractions began. I am going to miss the wonderful view from my bedroom. I will never forget the sunrise on the morning little man was born.
I had written another blog post about our move. It was angry, full of self-pity, and quite pathetic. I deleted it.
Dubai is not a place where I desire to live, but I really have no other choice, and I intend to make the best of it. For little man. I hope that there will be new and interesting experiences.
Before closing his eyes little man said “I love you, mama”. I really have no reason to be grumpy. Next week, we will say a long goodbye to everything and everyone here, then the moving company will pack up our belongings, and we will board a plane. First to Germany to spend Christmas there, then to Dubai.
That’s me. Sometimes I wonder if I am a perverse thrill seeker, always waiting to the last minute to get that extra spout of adrenaline and stress.
I have so much to do, and had plenty of time to do it. Then it didn’t seem so important, it wasn’t urgent, it could wait. Not anymore. Or maybe it can? Another day or two? Because accounting is one of the most tedious tasks around, especially if no one gives you a pay check for it.
In more uplifting news…
I just sent off a handmade Christmas present, and it felt good.
“When was the last time you could say”
“I made it myself!”
