4th April, 9:30am HKT, Causeway Bay.

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We step from the MTR station onto the street and I stop to catch breath, my senses assaulted by the scene. I can see high-rise buildings festooned in a little paint and a lot of clothes hanging from every balcony. From every direction gaily-painted advertisements beg for my attention and I can smell an odd mixture of the fragrant, the exotic, the spicy, and drains. The sound of traffic and shouting is nearly drowned out by raucous birdsong. Meanwhile, I suddenly realise what 25°C and 80% humidity feels like. Its like being hot normally, so you sweat, but since you’re still the driest thing in the vicinity the moisture from the air has been condensing on you from the very beginning. It feels like a wet slap with a warm and slippery fish, but the slap continues, becomes a rub and before you know it you’re damp from head to toe. Needless to say, it’s not pleasant.

Recovering from my first non-airconditioned step on Chinese soil, I brace myself for the second and third but it doesn’t get worse. I might live through this yet. My flat (above a gravestone shop, it appears) is well appointed with a gorgeous marble floor (no stray engravings, so they’re not offcuts from downstairs), a fridge and an airconditioner. This is immediately turned up to 11 (well, “test”, but it’s the setting past 10 and the coldest) and the room temperature starts to fall towards unbearable. By the time Barbara and I have inspected everything in the flat its merely tropical so we step out to buy a telephone SIM card for the HK networks for use during my stay. Needless to say, I’m in heatshock again after the cool flat - it’s genuinely cracking the flags outside although none of the locals seem to have noticed. I head back for an hour’s sleep before my meeting with Kenny So at the bus depot at “1 to 2pm”.

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