I step from the sub-zero air of the hotel lobby into the early morning oven of Wanchai, The Kong’s little Gomorrah. The familiar cocktail of harbour water and marine diesel toys with my memory. For a half minute I forget the year. The rattle of a pushcart registers; a mama-san’s burnt offering smoulders in a perforated red tin curb side.

One of those bulky red Toyota taxis cruises by, whitewalls sucking the gloss of a pre-dawn shower off Lockhart Road. I cosy up to a street-side ashtray, start in on a cig, catching a spear of sunlight in the furthermost white of my bone-dry eye.

A group of painted floosies appears from under a club’s half-opened steel shutter and make slow progress along the sidewalk, stopping to adjust a bra strap, secure a loose high-heel. They call out and wave; one makes an obscene gesture that momentarily sets me on fire. From behind the steel shutter, the thud of bass and drum; the defibrillator of late-night souls.

Flick the cigarette, joker, watch it arc into the gutter; the outdated reflex of a natural born scofflaw.

You’re sure to make your flight back to Expo City. The Airport Express takes 22 minutes; you’ve timed it a thousand times. Might miss something more if I move from this spot; like a convoy of nine identical sedans rumbling by, hazards flashing; a car club funeral. One of our members has passed, black antennae ribbons for Brother Lam. Only in The Kong.

I feel the weight of my over-stuffed backpack for the first time; it’s the laptop, the vitamins, the books, the battery chargers and the rolled up linen suit that keep me pinned to this spot, to this speck …