The marathon is almost over… only a few more days of regional meetings and I’ll have a short break to catch my breath. You know things are nutty when you wake-up on Saturday morning looking forward to the NEXT weekend. The big crest of the week’s activities finished yesterday and last night all the regional visitors headed off to their favourite haunts for dinner. We had some HR visitors in town who we took to dinner at a Japanese restaurant on the far side of the island. Four of us in total: two of us based in Hong Kong (one from Canada, one from US and a long time friend); one HR Manager from Japan who has lived half his life in Japan and the US; the final HR Manager from China who spent several years in the US, too. A real global mix.

Typically, these evenings are a great cross-cultural and bonding session as we talk about life in the Asia Pacific region, how long we’ve all been where we are, where else we’ve been and where we might be going. We had a lot of laughs that kept me going despite my fatigue and a few thought provoking moments, too.

I have been in Hong Kong over nine years. HK is a fluid, transitory place. While here, Tess and I have had many friends come and go, we’ve even had friends leave and return. We are often asked, "how long will you stay in ?" We say to ourselves and anyone who asks "three to four more years." This answer also affects all decisions we make. Even when buying large items we stop to ask ourselves (1) do we want to keep this item for a lifetime and (2) if yes, will it fit into a shipping container. Another example: for a long time we have wanted to buy real estate, but the temporary nature of our existence in Hong Kong always has us deliberating on the right purchase.

When the Terrific Trio was born all bets were off. For six months we had no idea what direction their health might take. Had there been serious, long term issues (which could still surface, too) we probably would have promptly returned to Canada where a wider variety of long term preemie therapies is available. As life slowly returned to normal and the triplets’ health became more certain and predictable, the "three to four more years" time frame returned.

Having lived outside of the "three to four more years" paradigm for six to twelve months, returning to it made us very aware how temporary we always considered our lives in Hong Kong. Where is home? For Sebastian and the Terrific Trio, home is Hong Kong. They know no other place as home. (Sebastian is even developing a British accent!) Tess and I started thinking that maybe we have been fooling ourselves. Perhaps Hong Kong IS home and we should make that commitment now. Doing so open the doors to decisiveness, long term plans with family, investment plans and real estate purchases. We often encounter people who have lived in HK for twenty years by accident! We don’t want to be those people – if we end up being in Hong Kong for twenty years or more, it should be a choice not an accident.

Being alone in Hong Kong while Tess and the team are back in Canada amplifies the introspection that swirls around these issues. Everyday MoZiLLa (aka Tess’ mom and Seb/Terrific Trio’s gorgeous gran) sends photos of Tess and the Team having loads of fun in Canada. (Okay, the Terrific Trio are not having fun when crying for their evening bottles, but it is hilarious to watch and the photographers are clearly having fun at the Terrific Trio’s expense!) These photos are deeply appreciated but also stir-up all sorts of questions… where is home?

Flashback to dinner with the HR Team. Lots of interesting discussion when finally I discovered Google has a new tool called Google Earth. During the breaks of the management meetings some of the folks were playing with the tool. Google Earth is actually really neat – a collection of satellite images that allow you to pinpoint places all over the planet. The tool is based on satellite photos, not actual live cameras on live satellites. (I pulled up HK at night to find it covered in sunshine according to Google Earth.) In the heavily populated areas there is very high resolution. In the less populated areas the images are not as good… therefore, I never got a decent picture of the Fintry dock or lighthouse but I could clearly see the area. I pulled up several pictures of Pokfulam, Hong Kong and sent them back for Tess and Sebastian to see… just so they wouldn’t forget what home looks like. I marked on the photo common places where Sebastian likes to go.

Then I went hunting for other places and what an out of this world exercise. First I went to have a look at "home" in Toronto where I grew-up. There home sat with my dad’s burgundy Subaru in the front yard. Sitting there at 5000 feet above the earth I saw my old schools, the trails where I used to run, the side streets where I road my bike, the hills where I used to toboggan. I mentally drove down the Don Valley Parkway to Toronto Island to find the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. Based on photos, (# of boats still on dry dock at the yacht club) I concluded the satellite images were pulled around late April/early May. Images of my being at the RCYC at those times of year flashed through my head. I found my sisters houses and a few other places that hold fond memories. Weird.

Then I drove up to the Farm in Omemee, Ontario – a fuzzy area where I could only see the pond – but for sure, that was our pond! I poked through Peterborough, then with a flick of a button spent a few minutes pouring over Vancouver before returning to Hong Kong.

If I had the energy I would have wondered out onto the balcony for a thought provoking cigar but I was just too tired by that point. As I shut down the satellites I couldn’t help think of the implications. I lay in bed contemplating all the places I had been to in my life that I could now go back to see… to have a second look… cities I have visited, trails I have run through, lighthouses I have sailed by. Daily the world seems large, but from a satellite a hundred miles away it seems small. If I travelled a billion miles away, home would be Earth. In such a case I’d probably say to people, "I want to retire on Earth." If people asked me, "where do you want to die?" I’d probably say "Earth."

But I am not a billion miles away, and chances are, never will be. Instead I am here, in Hong Kong, asking myself the same questions. The answers don’t come easily but on the other hand, does it really matter?