The challenge of describing something so often described using cliches, without resorting to cliches.

An afternoon by the seaside. 

It could almost be England (except for the weather).

Hong Kong. The beating heart of Asia. Asia's 'world city'. East meets west. Fusion. A city of contrasts. A concrete jungle. A sub-tropical paradise. Western capitalism, chinese-style. There's no place like it on earth. It is hard to avoid the cliches.

We've been in Hong Kong almost three weeks and, whilst I've been in work for 13 of the 18 days we've been here, it still feels a bit like we're on holiday.  Contributing to this feeling is the fact that we've not yet moved into our new flat, nor had all of our air freighted possessions delivered to us, meaning our accommodation feels more hotel than home.  Plus the weather has been glorious (exclusively high twenties, low humidity and blue skies since we got here) which contributes nicely to the holiday feeling. 

I've lived here before, briefly. In early 2003 I completed a six month secondment to the Hong Kong office as part of my training contract with the firm. I was in my early twenties and accordingly that period was largely spent (in descending order of time commitment)  partying, drinking, eating, spending and working.  I ventured beyond the urban sprawl briefly and sporadically. I lived within walking distance of the office and everything I needed (bars, restaurants, gym, ferry terminal) were a short walk away from my apartment.  So I thought I had a vague idea of what Hong Kong could offer even if I knew that this time round I'd be in for a different experience as a mid-thirties married father of two. (That still sounds like I am describing someone else).

So here are some things I didn't appreciate then, but do now. Hong Kong isn't really a city state, but actually a sub-tropical archipelago of over 260 individual islands.  If I want to work in the city but play out in the country, I'm better off in the Hong Kong office than London. Along with Bristol, Hong Kong is tone of only two citied in the world with world-class elite-level outdoor rock-climbing within the city (a 15 minute uphill escalator ride from my office in the case of Hong Kong). There are four separate Patagonia stores in Hong Kong. China may be the world's most populous country (home to around a quarter of the world's population), yet Hong Kong, with a population of over seven million squeezed into little more than 400 square miles, is one of the world's most densely populated countries (16,876 people per square mile - 136 times the global average). Yet the majority of Hong Kong's landmass is national park.

But life in Hong Kong is about more than statistics.  It's about getting the underground to work every day and never arriving at the platform when a train - air conditioned, clean and comfortable - isn't there, or about to appear. Finding a flat on the twenty seventh floor with a balcony and a view of the harbour, and reconciling ourselves to paying over double our London mortgage in rent for a property about half the size. Being unable to find decent skimmed milk and then realising its because there are no commercial dairy farms in Hong Kong. Or China. Or Asia for that matter. Its about the certainty of stepping outside in the morning without worrying about what the weather might do later in the day. Cheap taxis which are everywhere except when it rains and you really need one. Having a choice of world cuisines on our doorstep and then realising that 'chinese' food is actually a mix of hundreds, if not thousands, of individual cuisines.  Drinking martinis on an outdoor roof terrace twenty five floors up yet having to crane our necks upwards to look at the surrounding buildings.  Paying fifteen quid for a cocktail, or 20p for a ferry ride across one of the world's greatest natural harbours.  Enjoying chips by the seaside or dim sum by the seaside, as our mood dictates.  Watching Lara playing with chinese children in the local playground, and dodging chinese pensioners practising Tai Chi in their thousands on my morning run around the park.  Driving round a corner past palm trees and seeing a cricket game in full swing.

Hong Kong is all of these things and more. Its eastern and western, Chinese yet somehow still British, familiar yet alien, easy yet difficult.  It is hard to avoid the cliches, and there is no place like it on earth.  Western capitalism, chinese-style. A concrete jungle. A sub-tropical paradise. A city of contrasts. East meets west. Fusion.

Hong Kong. Home.

Onwards and eastwards.

Preparing to leave london for the East.
We haven't needed the jackets much since then.

As ever, its been ages since I last posted on this blog. I don't know why that continues to surprise me; its becoming a habit.  In the six or so weeks since I last wrote I've had time to reflect: on what I've achieved so far, and what I might achieve in the months and years ahead. Anyone who knows me will already know that forward planning is not my strong suit.  The thought of partnership in a law firm really started to frighten me when I was asked to formulate a plan for what the next five years would look like. Five years! I struggle to imagine what I'll be doing five months - or even five weeks - ahead.  

The one exception to this is climbing.  For some reason when it comes to climbing training I become a planning fiend. Spreadsheets, programmes, planned workouts, grade targets - I can't get enough of it.  I first started planning my climbing training in earnest a couple of years ago and have been following periodised training cycles of one sort or another ever since.  A cycle might be a few weeks long, or a few months; it might focus on strength, endurance, power, rehab from injury, aerobic fitness or a combination of all these things.  In the three months leading up to my trip to the Dolomites in September, I followed a pretty rigorous programme of cardio fitness, core strength and climbing endurance.  Having laid down a foundation of bouldering strength, two months before departure I did my first routes session at a climbing wall, managing eight 10m routes of moderate difficulty in three hours.  With two weeks to go and after a few more sessions I could comfortably climb 29 such routes in around two and a half hours. There is something strangely satisfying about seeing incremental improvement through numbers. 

The training paid off - Dave and I climbed The Comici Dimai route, 500m, E3 5c on the North face of Cima Grande in a continuous 17 hour round trip. Waking at 2.30am and leaving the car at 3am, we walked to the base through thick mist and total darkness (via several unintentional detours) and started climbing at 6am.  We topped out at 4pm, 17 pitches and several unintentional route-finding detours later and then spent another 4 hours descending via a lot of scrambling, numerous abseils and several unintentional detours. (There's a theme here - the drive home through Italy, Austria, Germany and France took 16 hours and several unintentional etc and so on).  Cima Grande felt like a turning point in my climbing career; way harder than anything I had ever attempted before, I genuinely did not know whether I was good enough, strong enough and fit enough to climb it.  Although considered a moderate climb by today's elite standards it felt right at the edge of what I was capable of at that moment: even though I have redpointed F7a, the 7th pitch on the Comici - 40m of overhanging F6b+ climbing at 2700m altitude - was probably the hardest and most sustained  pitch of climbing I have ever done.  Pitch 15, which we named "the unprotectable traverse" was definitely the most frightening pitch I've ever seconded - goodness knows how it felt for Dave to lead it - when I joined him at the belay he'd gone very quiet.  All in all though it felt like we belonged on the route. We completed it within guidebook time; we were up to the challenge rather than in over our heads.  The endless cycles of training, the running, stretching, dead-hanging, sweating in a climbing wall on a thursday night, cycling, resting, the not drinking, the endless planning, counting calories to hit my 70kg performance weight - it had all been worthwhile. 

As I write this in a small temporary flat in Hong Kong I am feeling very lazy indeed. Aside form a couple of valedictory pre-work bouldering sessions in London I've climbed nothing hard since - Cima Grande marked the definite end of one period of my climbing career.  Within a few weeks I had left the UK and moved 6,000 miles across the world to start my new job in Hong Kong. I am currently - and have been for some weeks - in what is known in technical training circles as a "transition period" - the time between ending one performance phase and starting the next major training cycle.  Or as my friend Ted the cyclist would call it, the "cake eating phase". In my case it is Dim Sum, rather than cake, and lots of it. My climbing gear is packed away in a crate that has hopefully cleared customs and is waiting for me in a warehouse somewhere. I probably won't unpack it until mid November, by which point I'll have had over a month off - the longest non-injury related climbing break I can remember. 

It's not like I've got nothing else to do - we've only been here a week and Hong Kong already seems like a place of limitless possibilities and opportunities. I'll have to write a separate post about our life here so far as there is simply too much to report in a post which is ostensibly about climbing and which - lets be honest - is so boring you've probably stopped reading altogether. Unless you're one of my hardcore pre-work arch session climbing buddies.  Nick, Jon and Dave: I salute you all. Nee-hau!