The island, the missed stop, the tree
Everyone else took a photo and left. I stayed forty minutes, in front of a dead tree.
It was on Lugard Road, high above the city, and the branches framed the harbour like a window — the whole glittering skyline reduced to a background. The light kept moving through the leaves. The towers went gold, then the lights came on, and I watched all of it standing still. I don't know how to explain it better than this: the tree was the view.
The day that led me there hadn't gone to plan at all, and that was the point. In the morning I'd changed direction on a whim and taken a ferry out to Po Toi Island, to the southernmost tip of Hong Kong. Rocks, sea, wind — and a quiet so complete the city felt like something I'd imagined. Standing at the far edge of the map, with nothing past me but water, I felt further from my normal life than the distance could explain.
On the way back I missed my stop, and instead of being annoyed I just kept going. The day didn't break. It bent, and bent somewhere interesting.
Then the climb — up to the Peak on foot, through the reservoir trail, the city noise falling away behind me with every turn, until there was only the path and the shade and my own breathing. That's how I arrived at the tree: tired, quiet, and ready to actually look.
Something to think about: the best parts of the day were the ones nobody planned — the island, the missed stop, the tree. I stood in the quiet part looking at the noisy part, and I stayed. So how many of my days are spent rushing through the noisy part, past the tree? And what would it take to stop more often?