Update: Hong Kong has grown on me somewhat since I wrote this piece.

Don’t sleep on the flight. Land in Hong Kong. Wait in the airport. Buy a SIM card. Wait some more. Get on a train. Fit your luggage onto the comically small luggage rack. Find a seat. Squeeze into said seat. Watch the dots between stations on the map disappear. Get off the train. Take in the smell. Look for your ride. Look some more. Gape at the amount of neon. Miss someone you shouldn’t. Look at the decrepit high rises. Gaze at the brand new ones next door. Feel the city’s claustrophobia. Try to sleep. Wonder if Hong Kong is on a fault line. Debate whether it’s better to Google and risk lots of anxiety, or not know and have a constant hum of worry. Wake up at 5:00. Scroll through twitter. Read. Feel bad. Try to explore. Get stuck. Take a taxi. Pass a tent village, then immediately after a Ritz-Carlton. Notice a dog in the street. Force your taxi to change lanes. Hope the other cars do to. See the dog’s owner trying to fix her blanket house. Get to a new hotel. Stand by the window. See aluminum lean-to’s in the alley across the street. Get stuck in a glass box. Eat noodles. Walk by a flipped taxi. Gawk. Hail a different one. Fasten your seatbelt. Send a text you’ll regret. Throw up. Try to sleep. Fail. Read. Take Ambien. Wake up at 6:00. Feel sick. Go for a walk. Get rained on. Realize you forgot a raincoat. Compulsively check for a read receipt. Put in earphones. Can’t escape the city noise. Try to explain the city’s simultaneous over- and under-saturation. Walk through an empty museum. Breathe. Drink coffee. Fall into a half-sleep. Hail taxi. Overpay. Try to film. Realize it won’t work. Walk through mall. Worry you left part of camera. Don’t go back. Worry more. Let the worry consume your body. Get in a taxi. Get out of the taxi. Get into a new taxi. Open up twitter. See election news. Close twitter. Agree to wingman. Pontificate. Leave bar at first opportunity. Stare at passing Maserati. Smile at homeless man next to you. Take in the neon. Get into a taxi. Try to tell the cabbie your address. Sigh. Get out of taxi. Hail another taxi. Try again. Pay and get out a block early. Stumble into your room. Watch Road to El Dorado. Hear sirens outside. Complain. Yell. Fall mostly asleep. Wake up. Try to go back to sleep. Get up. Drink coffee. Walk to a park. Trip over someone’s heel. Fall into the street. Get berated. Shudder at the number of people in the park. Realize it’s a workday. Walk to the garden. Put in earphones; still no silence. Look around; see ugly high-rises on all sides. Get claustrophobic. Be overwhelmed by the stickiness of the air. Don’t stop scratching yourself. Refuse to use the front of your hands because they touched the street. Think there are spiders on your legs. Check. Get rained on. Stare at yourself in a window. Stare more. Loathe everything. Wish you could throw up again. Check your read receipts. Debate going to a museum. Move to a new hotel. Sit in the new hotel’s lounge. Smile at the sun nearly shining through the clouds. See a group of six police officers approach a fruit stand. Furrow your brow. Observe a long discussion between the police and the three women running the stand. Remember the staggering number of police vans on a single street in the commercial district. Wonder why the police travel in large packs here. Get nervous. Think about why you are nervous. Think some more. Believe the superstition your travel buddy made up is widely believed. Consider if you’re racist. Consider more. Get out of a taxi. Get into a taxi. Close your eyes as it nearly hits a bus. Pray. Think of ways to convey the overwhelming nature of the city. Worry you’re abandoning your few strengths. Order an Uber. Debate whether using Uber makes you a bad person. Settle on yes. Get into the Uber. Call your sister. Talk about the disparity here. Turn down the AC. Watch shirtless construction worker outside shake his water bottle. Fall half-asleep. Dream about checking your read receipts. Try to run from the noise. Try to pull the sticky air off your skin. Wish you could throw up. Pass a homeless man. Learn your hotel has an espresso machine free to use.