Pacific Coffee (The Peak Tower) — Hong Kong, China
Hong Kong, China 🇭🇰🇨🇳
I visited Hong Kong twice in my life. One was for leisure and another for business. Both visits were very short and condensed to a degree I didn’t get to explore the city much. I actually have very vague idea about my two visits. I don’t remember much about where I stayed and what places I visited. This gives you an indication that both of my trips were a bit boring, or not so memorable at best.
My first visit was for my honeymoon. I took a trip using Cathay Pacific which was meant to have a short stopover (a couple of hours) in Hong Kong in our trip from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to Auckland, New Zealand. Unfortunately, due to delays from the airlines, and later missing out on the gate from our side, the two-hour stopover turned into a two-day stay. We decided to stay at the airport hotel, and didn’t have much to plan for or visit. I remember circling aimlessly around the airport and taking simple trips outside of it. I consider that time as a total waste indeed.
My second visit was for a business trip from my company. I was chosen as an Ambassador for a product line, and they planned for us a regional gathering in the Hong Kong offices. I hardly remember anything from that stay except the fact that we wandered a lot with the local team, aimlessly around the city. We visited The Peak briefly, but didn’t stay there for some reason. It was another wasted trip to a city that I consider a great destination worth an experience to remember.
Hence, this post is dedicated as a virtual compensation for missing on my previous trips!
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China. With over 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a 1,104 square-kilometre territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Hong Kong is also one of the most developed cities in the world, with the most expensive housing.
— Wikipedia
Pacific Coffee (The Peak Tower) — Pin📍
This is a place I want to go to and possibly spend a whole day at. High on the mountains, in a place called The Peak. It gives you a great panoramic view of the skyscrapers down in the city.
Pacific Coffee looks very modern and stylish. It has this panoramic views from the top. I can see people enjoying the view especially in a cloudy and beautiful weather. The indoors of the coffee is also great and appealing. I can consider it a great spot for a whole day of remote-work. I can imagine myself staying possibly at a hotel near the peak, going to the coffee shop from the morning until the afternoon, working and enjoying the coffee and the spectacular views.
Spontaneity
I am largely a person who is comfortable with predictability and stability. I find surprises, disruptions, and changes very annoying because of my personal tendency to appreciate disciple, order, clear expectations, and planning. This is why my travels, for instance, are usually planned ahead with itineraries and activities cleared out to a good level of details. If things change like a sudden delay, a missed flight, or when I have a very short notice to travel without much time for planning and scheduling, I find myself paralyzed or panicking.
My above trips were largely so, and that is maybe why I didn’t enjoy them much. One trip was turned from a 2-hour to a whole 2-day stopover. The other was rushed without much time for planning. That is why I am thinking to revisit and spend more time exploring this beautiful city once more, with amble time for planning and organizing what I plan to do. Or not?!
Looking back to what happened, I could have just accepted the changes and became more comfortable with spontaneity. I remember doing that with one of my trips, along with the family, where I decided to book the flight and lodging, but nothing else was planned. It was a lot of fun to a large degree, being spontaneous every day of the trip for almost 9 days. I kind of prepared myself to go with the flow, and try things as we go.
Who Are You, Really?
The personality types and temptations are part of who we are. Knowing oneself, who you are, and how you act, and why you act and behave in specific ways, help you to understand your own stressors and how to handle or adapt to them. A great book that will give you a primer on the topic of personality in a fun and engaging way is “Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality” by Brian Little. It is based on The Big Five personality traits.
Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality
This fun, smart read for anyone eager to better understand (and improve) themselves argues that personality is driven not by nature nor nurture—but instead by the projects we pursue, which ultimately shape the people we become.
What I most love about this book is the three dimensions that shape our personality. We are defined as persons by our genes (nature), by our upbringing (nurture), and most importantly by our own decisions to pursue specific personal projects in our lives. In other words, we are not at the mercy of nature vs. nurture influence on our personality. We can take charge in shaping ourselves in specific ways with the projects that we can actively pursue and engage in.
Here are a couple of quotes from the book that might get you excited to grab a copy and read it.
“In short, when it comes to well-being, projects can trump traits. This should give you some hope that you are not the victim of the traits with which you entered this world. Your deeds speak louder than your dispositions.”
― Brian Little, Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality
“grumpy, taciturn, impatient flight attendant isn’t going to last, nor is a sweet, engaging, and forgiving bill collector. But a person who is not biogenically suited to a certain role may still desire to fill it. So to survive in their fields, they become site-specific free-trait adopters.”
― Brian Little, Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality
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