Bread and Lucozade

Just about half-way through the planned six months, Hong Kong was perfect for a half-time break. The city is a mish-mash of eastern and western values, but it has enough of the western elements to feel somewhat closer to home than, say, Beijing.



Lucozade, a drink to which I have a mild addiction, is one such just-like-home comforting treat available. So too is decent bread (impossible to find in India, Nepal and China). In the plethora of supermarkets dotted all over Hong Kong many other items could be found that I had not seen since leaving Irish soil.



I was surprised at just how delighted I felt at seeing these little links to home. I didn’t feel particularly homesick before Hong Kong, but now there was a tingle of that feeling inside me. I had read that three months is often the time when most travellers hit a homesickness barrier, when they start to reconnect with their own cultural values after the novelty of new ones wear off. Seeing links to the life I left behind sparked this in me. Funnily enough, having these western comforts around also helped reduce the homesickness, the cause also being a good cure. This is why I (and maybe John too - John fill us in with a comment) ended up staying in budget-damaging Hong Kong longer than initially planned - a week’s break from alien cultures.