Day 70: One Red Paperclip

Listening: Got no deeds to do, no promises to keep. I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep. Let the morning time drop all its petals on me. Life, I love you. All is groovy.

What's my problem? Queen's Pier has been demolished.

It's seven in the evening here in Hong Kong. I've been in the same place for the past three and a half hours, curled into an easy chair at Pacific Coffee Company in The Peak Tower at Victoria Peak staring out the window over the skyline of Hong Kong reading Kyle Macdonald's One Red Paperclip.

The rest of the day, I wandered around Hong Kong Island, not really finding what I wanted to find. I yearned to just sort of chill out, but I felt like I had to keep on moving.

I heard of a junk ship that I could get on for free from my Fodor's which kind of struck my fancy. It took off from Queen's Pier at three and five o'clock according to my Fodor's, and would take me back to Kowloon which is where my room is. When I read this, I was in a Shanghaiese restaurant in Times Square eating soup dumplings and "hot pockets" as my pal Jon calls them. Originally, I was looking for the best dim sum in Hong Kong Island, but I found out that it was too far from the subway to walk to, so I scrapped it.

Anyhow, I was psyched to go on this junk ship until I got to Queen's Pier. Well, until I got to what was Queen's Pier, an endless construction site. I ended up going to the Star Ferry ticketing place, because that's where you could catch the junk on the other side. They hadn't even heard of this junk ship. By teh way, this junk ship is called "Duk Ling." I laughed.

So, I decided to head to the closest Tourist Information Center, which happened to be at The Peak Piazza, between The Peak Tower and The Peak Gallery on Victoria Peak. I didn't know that the said Peak stuff was actually on the Peak itself. I thought that it was at the base where the funicular brought you up to the peak. I was wrong.

I figure that since I was there anyways, I'd go up and check it out. And when I got here, I found out that the Duk Ling was now sailing out of Pier 9 and you needed advanced reservations. BASTARDS! Oh well. So I went back into the tower and briefly entertained the idea of going to the top where you had to pay twenty HKD ($3) to get there. I opted out. Instead, I felt like I needed to have a coffee fix, which was when I permanently affixed my ass to the bright red velvet armchair and read One Red Paperclip.

I started the book two days ago, but didn't read it one of those days (yesterday, obviously). Now, I'm a mere twenty pages from the end and I am absolutely loving it. The book makes me so happy. When I get home, I'm going to give this book to my best friend, Carlos, because I think he needs to read it. I'm not only going to give him this book, but I'm going to give him this copy of this book.

I have found that I like giving and receiving read books. The books are loved. I think I really realized that I liked reading and giving read books when I got Chloe's copy of Eat, Pray, Love. It really tuned me into it. And it also made it important that I didn't just leave it on a hostel bookshelf. I needed to pass it onto someone, so that they would read it, and maybe pass it on. That's why I handed it off to Clover before she left Bangkok for Australia.

I realized that for a collector such as myself, it's hard to let go of objects. I figure if I like the book enough, I'll buy myself another copy and I'll read it again. I'll probably do that with both of the two afore-mentioned books.

But that's how I've chosen to spend my afternoon in Hong Kong, I realize that it's like my little airlock before I hit the States, just like L.A. will be an airlock before I reach home. I love being on vacation and traveling, because I can do what the fuck I want, when I want. Even read a book in a cafe for three and a half hours.