„With white wings fluttering across the sea“
„Mit weißen Flügeln meerüberflatternde“
Der Gesang der Okeaniden
Heinrich Heine
In Hamburg, I stood on a bridge, watched seagulls fly and I think of this verse by Heinrich Heine. A verse from his poem „Der Gesang der Okeaniden“. „Meerüberflatternd“ Am I? Are you?
I took an early train and luckily I did, for the later train I originally wanted to take was cancelled. Arrived and checked in at the hotel. Have a chat with my friend in Hamburg and arranged a meet up with her on the next day. She recommended some authentic Cantonese restaurants to me.
On my way to get food, in the lobby, one traveller told me briefly about his long and weary journey. I myself experienced the train delayed for hours and eventually cancelled; or three to four trains in a row cancelled that I had to take bus; or no train at all for two complete days, it was just a week ago when Munich covered in snow. I do not know which one was his experience, still I felt sorry for him.
I thought I was in Hong Kong when reading the menu at Herr He Restaurant. My eyes were almost tearing when I tasted the „gōn cháau ngàuh hó“ (stir-frying beef with wide rice noodles) with Hong Kong Milk Tea, they were too similar to the ones in my memory. Before leaving the restaurant, I ordered a take-away „Nai Wong Bao“ (steamed custard buns) for dessert later.
I enjoyed wandering alone at the harbour at night, watching the lights playing with the waters. I was thinking, if I want to witness the dawn unveil Hamburg tomorrow? If yes, then I should sleep earlier.
Decision made, I went back to hotel, ordered a cup of orange mint rooibos tea at the bar and took it to my room. The tea went wonderfully well with „Nai Wong Bao“. I read Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast until I slept.
Moin. Good morning Hamburg. It was impossible to film and take picture, it was raining. I can make plan, but I have to react on the given situation. However, if I wait until the rain to stop to take picture, I would not have any picture. Hamburg reminded me of London weather. My strategy was, when the rain abate, I quickly took picture; when the rain getting stronger, I protected my camera. Until the cafe „Speicherstadt Kaffee“ opened, I have a cup of espresso in this quaint area of Hamburg, „Speicherstadt“, UNESCO World Heritage Site.
I met my friend for lunch near to her music conservatory, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. We reminisce about the past, evaluating our current development and thinking of possibilities for future. After lunch, we went to an organ practice room that I admired. A room with a view.
I walked in the Alsterpark, down the street Milchstraße, to the church St. Johannis Harvestehude. I opened the door, angelic voices greeted me, a children choir was having rehearsal.
After that, it was one of my dream comes true moments, that is to experience a concert in Elbphilharmonie. The concert turned out to be as if my last missing puzzle piece of 2023 is found, now the puzzle is completed.
I am grateful, very grateful for this trip. To make a trip like this again, I do not know how long it takes for me to save up. Thinking of this, I breathe in and out the melancholic air. Yet, it is right to give thanks and praise God for His goodness and His future plan for me.
„You may leave that place when your time is due, but it will never leave you …“
M.K. Haka, The Hesitant Architect.
To me, Hamburg is „that place“, it has become one of my new homes. When will I visit my new home again? God only knows. Until that day, I will carry Hamburg in my heart, like a *moveable feast.
*Ernest Hemingway’s idea of Moveable Feast …
“a memory or even a state of being that had become a part of you, a thing that you could have always with you, no matter where you went or how you lived forever after, that you could never lose. An experience first fixed in time and space or a condition like happiness or love could be afterward moved or carried with you wherever you went in space and time .” Patrick Hemingway
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