When I Reminisce: 22.352663, 114.184248

Amazing how a smell, sound, or sight of a person or object can pause time.  Literally.  

You find the world slows as the sensory inputs fire across the steam of your brain.  A lightning display of chemical and electrical reactions occur, streaming a biochemical message across meters of neurons, between neurotransmitters across the expanse to the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex to awaken the neocortex.   

It is here, where many scientist hypothesize your long term memories are stored.  It is here where the projector of life fires up to provide a glimpse of a fragmented past to temporarily relive.  

Set off by a simple sensory input.  Simply astonishing.

A quick glance at the time during a meeting I noticed the scratch.  Instantly firing up the process to momentarily transport me across space and time.  

Garmin Fenix 5

In what seemed an eternity, only a few seconds eclipsed in actuality, I was there.  

A misty and foggy morning on the trail, high above the city.  Having just recently experienced seeing monkeys in the wild on the same trail, I was climbing yet higher to an unknown destination half way across the globe from home.  

The trail was unlike any trail I had experienced before.  As I got closer to the destination, the single track became even more claustrophobic due to the encroaching rock formations.  

Obscured from view due to early morning low lying clouds, the density of the city below was hidden and I was in my own world occasionally shared by a smile of elderly locals getting their exercise and adventure in.  

One such gentleman smiled and audibly laughed as I struggled up the steep accent.  Shirtless and in excellent form, the senior citizen was both amused at my breathlessness and my very bad attempt at saying “Neih hou” 你好  in Cantonese with a heavy southern American tongue and dripped in a mandarin accent from the prior week in Mainland China.  

In my mind he was teasing me for being so out of shape.  So young, yet struggling up the accent.  He wishfully and gleefully continued his decent, obviously having made the peak long before me.   If it wasn’t for Oreos and my desire for sleep, maybe I could be in similar shape.  

This was Hong Kong.  ShaTin Pass Trail.  Destination; Lion’s Rock peak.  1,624’ / 495m above sea level.  

Having to traverse the MTR (HK subway system) north from Tsimshian Sha Tsui, where I was staying, to nearby Wang Tau Hom via bus.  A short walk of the streets I would find myself at the foot of Lion’s Hill. 

It would be a twist along the rocks near the peak my watch face would graze the side of a the granite and leave a mark for me to reminisce for days, months, and obviously years to come.

It would be on the backside of Lion’s Rock, where I would learn many of these trails were forged in war and occupation.  Discrete historical markers on the backside many tourist will never see.  I felt honored to have ventured off the beaten path and forge through the cautiously dangerous single tracks on this beautiful morning.  

Finding myself at the other end of the trail at Jong Temple at the start of the pass, back in the bustling residential area of Tsz Wan Shan in Kowloon of Hong Kong.

To being passed by little old women with single poles, to that ominous eerie feeling of being watched, and ultimately climbing above the low laying clouds where I earned this sacred scratch on the face of my watch.  

This is a memory I hope will stay with me all my days.  And if they don’t stay with me, maybe with some of you.

…and that feeling of being watched along the base of this adventure?  I was being watched.  By the wildlife.  Long Tailed Macaques. 

Amazing how one can get caught up when reminiscing.  Especially that one time trail running in the Hong Kong mountains.  zoi gin 再見