Asia Bound

 “Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.” -L. Frank Baum

The last week and a half has been a whirlwind. Guiding, packing, cleaning, guiding, packing, cleaning, that has been my mantra. My last day of work was today and now here I sit in the Anchorage airport about to catch my first flight to Hong Kong. I left Seward a mere four hours earlier, but it already feels like forever ago. It’s all a blur. I dragged my feet for the last two weeks knowing that this day would soon arrive. I didn’t want to leave. I love Seward. I love this beautiful state Alaska. I love the kayak family I just said good-bye to. After three seasons of guiding there, I was brought to tears as I signed my end of season evaluation because of all the memories I was leaving behind me. It had been a good season. It had handed me a few ups and downs, but overall, amazing. It’s hard to walk away from all that and that’s not normally something I struggle with.

I arrive in Hong Kong on Sept 4^th at 6:50pm Hong Kong time and I start work at 08:00am Sept 5^th. I have sixteen hours of sitting on a plane to get my game face in order. Sixteen hours to put behind me four months of kayak guiding and to prepare for the experience of teaching ex-patriot children outdoor education in Hong Kong.  

Am I ready for this? I didn’t quite think I would find myself asking this question, but here I am asking it. I have no idea. For the past week as I have frantically guided, packed, cleaned, guided, packed, and cleaned many have asked: “Are you excited??” When I simply stared at them with a blank face because that was the only response I could muster, they just said, “Well, I’m excited for you!” 

Excited, yes, overwhelmed, yes, nervous, YES!!

I am about to set down into the epicenter of one of the largest cities in the world. This little country bumpkin of a novice world traveler is about to face some major culture shock in a mere few hours and the reality of that is just now hitting. 

The past year has been spent in some of the more remote locations a body could find. Four and a half months at the bottom of the world in Antarctica and four months at the top of the world in tiny Seward, AK with the majority of those four months spent with the simple peaceful crack and bang of a mile wide tide water glacier called Aialik. I have become a hermit.

McMurdo Station had a population of 1,100 people this past fall when I was down there. Seward, AK boasts a healthy 6,000 on a good day during the busy summer season. 6,000 versus 7 million people, I can feel my eyes crossing as I sit here on the floor in the Anchorage airport writing this staring at these numbers.

My customary excitement for the adventure and the unknown has abandoned me for once. I felt like I was on top of the world when it came to traveling to Antarctica. Eager, excited…ready…but not terrified. Not once was I terrified. 

I will openly admit I am terrified right now.  That’s not easy to say. I don’t feel ready for this venture and that is not exactly how I like to start a new journey. My thoughts are scattered, my belongings are scattered between here and the bottom of the world and now will soon be across the Pacific. I am still sans work visa for Hong Kong and I am not sure what that will mean when I go thru customs in Hong Kong. I am leaving 40 degree weather and about to drop into hot and humid sub tropical 80 degree weather. I have been living in an arctic climate since 2009. I own one tank top which I haven’t worn in years and one pair of shorts which also have barely seen the outside of my dresser drawer since moving to Alaska. I broke down and bought “summery clothing” but I am still concerned that I haven’t quite shaken off the cobwebs that living in Alaska’s cold environment has created. I have completely forgotten how to function in a warm climate. This was one of the questions in the job interview: how would I handle a warm climate after living in a cold climate for so long? I shrugged it off and said no big deal man! I used to live in the barren Sonoran Desert, heat and sweat is like an old friend, an old friend that has now forgotten that we once had something we called friendship.

All of this is not exactly how I had expected it to pan out as the summer season in Alaska wrapped up and I prepared myself for Hong Kong. I had hoped to have a little more time to just sit and decompress after a busy season here in the field and to mentally prepare myself for this adventure. That didn’t happen, so this is me decompressing at high speed.

My age is catching up to me and I do not like this revelation. I might look like a baby faced twenty-one year old, but the two white hairs I found in the last week are screaming something different at me full force. Two white hairs in one week?! Where did they come from? Not grey, but white…we skipped the middle ground and went straight for the end result of what we call: old age. No offense anyone, but that is just how I see it.

A few years back I could do this lightening speed transition from one thing to the next without a second’s hesitation.  I used to come straight out of the field from one contract job, take a shower, throw all my belongings into a backpack and catch the next flight for the next contract job with a different organization and go right into the field the next day and be out there for weeks on end to only come out and do it all over again. It never used to faze me. The stumbling transition that I have been faced with as I prep for Hong Kong is evidence that I am slowing down. My body is trying to tell me something that my brain and need for wanderlust are ignoring. I need to slow down, but how do I do that? I don’t know how…

On the other hand of things, I am sitting here mentally convincing myself that it is good for me to be a little impulsive. I mean, making the decision to go somewhere to work or to travel has always been spontaneous for me, anyone that knows me can attest to that. But the planning that has entailed after that impromptu decision has been anything but unplanned. That has always been thoroughly thought out and developed so I knew exactly where I was headed and what I was doing. This time around the control is not exactly there and that is what I don’t like about it. I have a plane ticket and the journey is half way over, but I do not know much beyond that. I do not know how many people I am working with. I do not know where I will be located in Hong Kong since it is comprised of several different islands. I do not know who my supervisor will be or what age group I will be working with. I do not even know the exact details of my job description. There has been little information provided. All I know is that I was hired as a Senior Instructor with the possibility of becoming a Program Coordinator and that is why I need to be in Hong Kong by Sept 5^th.

I am sitting here processing this and I am telling myself that I just need to sit back and let it all fall together. Let go of the control and see where it takes me. I took the train from Seward into Anchorage and ended up catching a cab with another individual who also needed to get to the airport so we agreed to split the cab fare. We settled into the cab and the young man sitting next to me asked me where I was flying. I said, “Hong Kong.” “Oh, wow,” was his response. I kind of laughed and just said, “Yeah…” I returned the small talk and his response was, “Bahrain.” “Oh, wow,” I said, echoing his own sentiments. Sitting in this cab were two individuals flying to extreme different locations of the world for very different reasons; I to Asia to teach children to be comfortable with sitting on the ground in the dirt and calling it outdoor education, he to Bahrain to serve a term of duty for our country. We rode the rest of the way to the airport in silence and when the cab pulled up the kid said, “I’ve got the cab fare.” I shook my head. “No, no…I can split it.” “Nah…I got it. It’s on me. I’m on government per diem and it’s just going to get reimbursed to me. I got it. Have a great flight.”

I sat there for a second staring at this kid. I finally smiled and nodded. “Thanks. That just made my night. Safe travels.” 

Sometimes you just gotta relinquish the control and let something happen. 

So Hong Kong, I’m relinquishing the control. I am nervous and intimidated by the massiveness that you present as a major world city, but I am entrusting my care into your loving arms. Please be kind to me as I attempt to get my wilderness savvy feet beneath me to explore your concrete urban jungle.