I didn't sleep the night before, since the flight was so early, and since I hadn't done a scrap of packing, although I certainly had scary amounts of stuff to pack. Perhaps that was a small display of my resistance to leave. Well, I was ready to go back home again, and I wanted to see my family, but the past few days of doing everything "for the LAST TIME" [cue dramatic music] in HK had made me feel very wistful.

On the night of our last dinner all together, we five interns hopped on a bus to Repulse Bay and ate at the eponymous resort hotel there. It was Cantonese food at its best; even the jasmine tea seemed especially fragrant that night. Afterwards, we all walked... er, waddled... down to the beach to look out at the water.

A few stars were actually visible from Repulse Bay, but even more striking than that was a display of heat lightning off a little way to the northeast. We watched mostly in silence, perhaps with a bit of awe. The lights of Repulse Bay surrounded us in a arc on both sides; the waves hissed and rolled; the sand shifted beneath our toes. I remember deciding then, at that moment, that I'd have to come back to Hong Kong. To think that this night, or the night of the 14th, was truly "the last time" would be unbearable otherwise.

When morning came on the 15th, and Meara and I watched the sun pour light over the city as we rode the Airport Express train out to Lantau, we agreed on this. It was necessary to come back. What would this place look like in five years, in ten? Would English still be so widely spoken, with the changes to high school curricula recently made? Would many of the best young students continue to leave HK to attend college abroad? Would the pollution levels be bearable, or would they have begun to drive people and businesses elsewhere? Would Christine Loh's work help make changes for the better for residents of bedspace apartments? Would people still remember June 4 with sorrow, with intensity, with determination? There would be no way of knowing unless we returned.

And no way of wandering through the vendor-lined streets of Mong Kok, of laughing at the names of bars like "Club Hot Lips" in Wanchai, of gazing skyward at the endless shimmering facade of the Bank of China building in Central, of hearing the eternally pleasant voice in Cantonese and English thank us "for traveling on the MTR" each time we disembarked in Central, of eating real egg tarts, of listening to a stereo blast "Su-su-sugar in the marmalade!" while we sucked on lemon tea drink boxes and watched the trendy people pass by in Causeway Bay with Hello Kitty toys dangling from their shoulder bags.