Closing thoughts on HK

Got back a couple of days ago with a nightmare flight haha. Woke up on the day having forgotten to online check in only to find that the flight was delayed by 9 hours. I was flying with BA and they had arranged some food and a hotel stay at the airport. For the 13 hour flight from HK to Heathrow I was sat next to a young couple with two babies. Not only were they kicking and crying all flight the stressed couple were also bickering at each other constantly…then for the London to Glasgow flight I was sat next to a very obese man who was a very nice chap but probably needed 2 seats.

Overall HK was a lot better than I had anticipated.

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I traveled all over HK trying various places that were specialists at a particular type of food. Not able to post all the pictures because there are too many and although it’s really good to be home, food is so tasteless in Scotland. Also visited Lan Kwai Fong (LKF) which is the party scene in HK but it’s very similar to what we have in the UK.

I’m a very lazy person and coupled with relatively long hours as a doctor I tend to be guilty of routine activities during my annual leave. Catching up on sleep and meeting up with a select few close friends. Important things but it’s also important to pursue things you want to do. Big things – it could be to get married, buy a house and have kids or more and more people want to spend time traveling these days. It can be very easy to fall into the routine of going to work for 2 months then getting a week off to “recharge” but actually we’re just trapped in our houses sleeping in every day.

Especially for us FIRE folk we must remember why we’re pursuing this goal. I have a lot more I want to talk about in terms of financial independence and retiring early but don’t feel qualified on certain topics as I’ve not encountered them in real life. Concepts like safe withdrawal rates, sequence of returns and pensions are all things that allow you to sustain the interesting lifestyle you want.

Would I ever relocate to a place like HK? Having a holiday somewhere and working there are two entirely different ideas I know. Having met up with a few different friends who had relocated from UK to HK some are having the time of their lives whilst others would recommend against it. Like everywhere HK has its own problems which I won’t get into in this post but I like to keep options open. The big news of course is that the HK medical council are thinking about scrapping the one year internship all overseas doctors have to complete. If this goes through all I need to do is the three HKMLE exams and when I complete my training theoretically could practice as a senior medical officer (SMO) which I believe is their consultant equivalent. Regardless I’m staying in UK until I finish my training as I’m not at the place I want to be yet in medicine. There are still many things to learn.