Flying high and feeling at home in Hong Kong

I was sitting on the pier by the harbor, a bottle of bad white wine in my hand and a rush of happiness in my head, when the feeling struck me. I shook my head, took a sip of wine, gazed at the skyscrapers in front and behind of me and returned my attention to the discussion we we’re having about life and politics somewhere in the world, but it didn’t help. It was still there.

I felt at home.

It came as a surprise to me, but then most good things do. It was way past midnight and I was sitting in a a foreign city on a distant continent with no idea how to get home, surrounded by four brilliant young people, all of whom had been strangers to me just a couple of days ago. Yet still I felt more in place than I’ve ever done in Denmark. The itch of wanderlust had stopped scratching.

We’d been walking, laughing and drinking or way through town, from a cocktail bar in a colonial building in Wan Chai to the noisy streets of Lan Kwai Fong, before deciding on escaping the crazy bar scene. We bought some beer and wine in the closest 7/11 and headed down to the waterside.

The night may have been fueled by wine and beers and cocktails, but what drove us through town that night, last night, was the sweet and sudden surprise of stumbling over the kindred spirits we’d all given up on finding. But there they were, discussing international affairs and House of Cards and what the world should do in Syria, with a zealous dedication that reverberated with me and my silly love for all things global.

“This is cool”, Daniel, a Norwegian guy with a focus on Asian affairs but a secret crush on the Middle East, said.

“I can talk about Syria for hours and you don’t even yawn or tell me to shut up”.

We all laughed and silently agreed. As we walked back to the city centre to catch a cab and some much needed hours of sleep, I noticed that foreign feeling of belonging once again. The second revelation was even more shocking than the first. I feel at home, and I might just have to get used to it.