No longer do we have 3 week quarantine with a 2 week washout, but we're still stuck with 7 long nights, self paid, hotel quarantine. Is a get-away worth it? **EDIT** As of 12 August 2022 it's now 3 nights and 4 days self home monitoring, so even more worth it!
Yup!
I could simply end the post here, but I won't as that wouldn't make for good reading.
I recently got fed-up with Hong Kong so decided to take my two kiddos back to my original country (not home country, as Hong Kong is very much home now.) The schools were shut, the parks were shut, the bars were shut - which annoyed the children no end as you can imagine. So I did what any mad parent would do in these taxing times - I decided to take two smallish children away, by myself (my wife was stuck in the 852 for work) for what I thought was going to be a 3-4 month break away from Hong Kong and its draconian restrictions.
I got quite excited about the prospect of going it alone. I was to be like the Bear Grills of Daddy Daycare. I found a 20 year old Ford Mondeo for £1k (about HK$10k) which I figured would be cheaper and less hassle than hiring a car for all the adventurous trips I had planned. I bought it whilst still in HK and carolled my mate Tim into travelling to North London on his bicycle to collect it for me.
Within one day of ownership I had the kids screaming in the back "what's that noise" as I scrape the whole passenger side of the car down my sister's neighbour's driveway wall. Day 1 of ownership. Day 2 of the trip. I was starting to wonder if I had made a huge mistake.
Trips back to the motherland are always tricky as there are so many people to see and so much you promise yourself you're going to do. Invariably you never quite manage all the events, visits and exciting days out you have planned due to time constraints. Not this time. This time I had 3-4 months. The kids and I were going to hold this trip upside down and shake the pockets of fun until all the lose change came out.
Except we didn't.
The Hong Kong government opened the schools again, so we had to come back.
And it didn't matter. We had packed in nearly 2000 miles driving, seen so many wonderful friends and family. Were the only people in an entire campsite. We saw castles, owls and a shit-load of squirrels. Spent a fortune on fuel for the car. Spend a fortune on the silly, pointless and annoying hotel quarantine room but it didn't matter as my kids got to hang with their cousins, I got to shoot the breeze with my buddies, if only for a few hours, and I got to hug my mum again after nearly 3 years. .
So yeah, book the ticket. Take the plunge and forget about the money as life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.
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