All posts tagged: seasonal migration

Seasonal Migration Chapter 3: London

There were about 12 days in the middle of August that honestly felt like pure bliss. It’s funny, because if you had caught me at the moment I was thigh-deep in mud pushing my kayak downstream, you might think otherwise. Or the moment I raced home to meet someone who was buying a piece of furniture and then didn’t show. Or the moment I was awake at 3am worrying that I had upset a friend. My baseline was so positively buoyant that those types of moments couldn’t detract from my overall mood. It felt like I had finally unlocked how to live well in the UK. I guess absence does really make the heart grow fonder :p.Below are reflections from the third chapter of my seasonal migration experiment and my first time returning to a place in the seasonal migration rotation.ReflectionsThis summer I really fell in love with the UK. I can’t say that it was ‘again’, as my relationship with the UK didn’t begin with love at first sight like Hong Kong. It also didn’t get serious …

Seasonal Migration chapter 2: Mexico City

My ‘Hasta Entonces’ party was almost a slow motion train wreck. At 5:30pm it started to pour, which brought everything in CDMX to a standstill. It also caused a power outage at the bar, so we had no electricity for lights, music, or air conditioning. We gathered as many candles as we could find and set up a fully-charged laptop to play music. Then the electricity pole outside the bar caught on fire, dropping burning ash onto the sidewalk. When the fire department came to put out the fire, it provided entertainment to the handful of guests who braved the rain. Eventually the skies cleared, the electricity came back on, the bar filled with guests, and we found the bottom of a bottle of bacanora ;p. For the last act, an adorable ringtail appeared in a tree outside the bar and then darted across the street in front of a passing car. Thankfully it reached the far side unscathed. Let’s just say it’s a party I won’t soon forget! Below are reflections from the second chapter of my seasonal migration experiment. If you want more …

Seasonal Migration Chapter 1: Hong Kong

Was hoping to finish writing this before I arrived in Mexico City, but the jellyfish that stung me had other plans :p. Mercifully, it happened after my last morning of kayaking in the Sea of Cortés and as of now the burning and itching sensations have mostly subsided. Below are some reflections about this first chapter of my seasonal migration experiment. ReflectionsOverall, I feel like my time in Hong Kong was a huge success! Since moving to London in 2015, I have travelled back to HK 5 times, usually for a week or two at a time. As a result, the city remained very familiar even though there have been plenty of changes, both good and bad. Unsurprisingly, a number of my close friends have left over the years. Thankfully, a handful still remain and many of them have started to raise families in HK. In general, it was easy to reintegrate with most of my old friends and start to build relationships with their children. It was harder to reconnect with previous weak ties where I …