Fri Oct 22: Shabbat shalom!

The long dreamy sleep from last night continues this morning. Mmmm. Soft. The feather pillows, the blackout blinds. Quiet. Zzzzzzz…

What?!?! 9:15! The alarm didn’t go off! Hurry, hurry, shower, dress, go! A family emergency on the phone further delays departure, so I just grab a pastry from the mall downstairs (turns out to be a great pain au chocolat, in fact) and jump into a taxi. I get to the office a little after 10:30, amazing!

My hosts are great with the gastronomic ventures. We take the shuttle to the Hollywood Plaza mall above Diamond Hill MTR station, and go to an upscale dim sum lunch. Attentive but discreet service, beautiful linens, great tea. Along with the delicious shrimp dumplings and other familiar items, we have some more adventurous selections like shredded pickled jellyfish, fish cheeks, and a sort of soup made with thinly-sliced tofu and something like yellow garbanzo squash berries.

Back at my desk, I finally get all the different build scripts to play nice, get my checkin ready to commit, and wrap up the week’s work.

It’s almost 4:30, and sunset isn’t until 5:53. I figure I just have time to make it back to the hotel and on to the synagogue in time for services. I say goodbye and thank you to everybody, and grab a Taxi back to the hotel. I drop off the laptop, hop on the MTR over to Hong Kong station, and head straight to the mid-levels escalator. This is the coolest thing ever. Going up the steep hill about as fast as jogging up the stairways, if you stand still. Faster if you walk.

Leaving central, the escalator passes through Soho, a zone of very groovy restaurants: tapas bars, wine bars, multi-asian trendy, fusion… I half expect to see Rick’s Café Americain… And up to the mid levels. I step off at Robinson Road.

I find myself walking behind a guy wearing a kippah (yarmulke) so I figure I’m headed to the right place. And there it is — I head down Castle Steps from Robinson Road, and find the security door leading to the sanctuary. The other fellow headed off in another direction, to the Orthodox service apparently.

Huh? There’s no one here but a few Hong Kong kids from the university. They’re here on a class assignment, and a nice young lady (a medical student) begins interviewing me about being a Jew, what’s a Rabbi, what do you do on Shabbat, and so on. A nice couple from New York also shows up and we share confusion about what’s going on, and being interviewed.

It turns out that the Orthodox service upstairs starts before sunset, but the progressive service will start at 7:00. OK, so I say Shabbat shalom to all and wander off for an hour or so.

I roam the mid-levels for a bit — well-to-do folks walking their dogs, coming home from work, heading out for nightlife — and find myself in a funny multicultural picture: watching an NFL game (the Saints are thrashing Tampa Bay) sipping an Australian beer in an Irish pub in Hong Kong before Shabbat services. Beautiful!

Back at the synagogue, everybody is very warm and welcoming, though there’s one guy asking me for ID and scoping me out in with an eagle eye… He’s very fit and his accent is possibly South African? Or is he Israeli? Anyway, he seems to be the security guy, and on pretty high alert…

It’s a special night at this shul. A long-time family of the congregation is moving away. Very nice service, touching moments — this seems like a great community. They invite me to stay for dinner, and I do. Interesting bunch of people. The fellow I’m seated next to is a lawyer designing trading processes for emerging Asian economies (or something like that), but before becoming a lawyer he was a nuclear arms control negotiator. (!) Which comes up because of the “oh, you speak Russian too?” business.

I like these people … but I may never see them again. Funny how these things go. And now it’s the taxi to Hong Kong station, MTR to Kowloon station, up through the mall to the hotel room tango. And into bed. This time it doesn’t matter when I wake up — it’s the weekend! Though I should try and catch up on some other work. Maybe in a few minutes. I’ll just lie down for a second… Zzzzz…