The Bureau

How do people survive in this city without air conditioning? It's almost the end of October and still it's too hot to sleep without the chugging lurching air conditioning unit on all night. In the end I turned mine off around 2am as the noise was so loud I couldn't sleep anyway, but then I just lay there in the horrible stinky heat, scratching mosquito bites and yearning for some lovely European fresh air.


View from the 23rd floor, Times Square

Now I'm in the Hong Kong office of the company I work for, staring out over the water to Kowloon. Everyone here spends so much time indoors in air conditioned buildings, working ridiculous hours and then partying really hard. Last night was Monday night and the bars were doing the kind of brisk trade that British publicans can only dream of. It's going to be an exhausting few weeks.