Sweat By Genevieve Frew

Hong Kong looks so glamorous in the brochures. They promise you exotic delights, inexpensive shopping and a superb nightlife combined with the history and the mystery of the east.

Nobody mentions the sweat!

I guess it’s difficult to capture sweat in photographs, and who wants to travel eight hours in compressed air to arrive at your destination and… sweat?

I presume that the emphasis on clothes shopping comes from the need to rapidly replace rotting garments and the delight in purchasing duty-free perfumes is to purloin the pong.

Attractive as shopping is, the body acclimatises quickly and soon you are cool, then cooler, then shivering and start trying on coats. Freezing, you push open the vacuum-sealed doors to the outside world.

Back on the steaming streets you are jostled along by the crowd, who don't seem to realise that the quicker you move, the more you sweat.

Sweat is heavy; just like the precariously positioned air-conditioners jutting out from every window, and you look at them longingly. You can’t try on any more clothes and you can forget trying on any shoes with those swollen feet!

Nothing left to do but to go back to the hotel, have another shower, turn on the TV and order room service.

Then snuggle down under the blankets (in the air-conditioned room) and look longingly at the glossy brochures (supplied by the marketers and merchandisers) of people doing what you have been doing all day – without a single, solitary sign of sweat!


in Hong Kong

 2,409

I love travel, but not so much on planes these days - I prefer to cruise and take my hotel with me to each new port. I love reading travel stories and, of course, love writing my own too. Enjoy.

See Genevieve's profile.

Genevieve's website.

Subscribe


  • Share this on...
  • Twitter

Flag this story



You might like: