Sweets, arrivals, and the ravages of war.

My name is Louise and I'm a violist.  Although this might sound like a confession, it's perhaps an explanation as to why I might have the inclination to write about our time in the Far East; we violists are relentlessly teased for being underemployed in baroque repertoire.  Violinists imagine that we revel in our umpteen bars rest but the truth is that we're creative souls, just wanting to add the middle voice.  For occasional consolation then (Handel could be rather mean with his viola parts), I'll be writing a blog about our experiences. This is all you'll need to know for now. 

It's 7am when we reach Hong Kong.  By 7.30am, Alfonso has a blogging page all set up for me.  He's technical support as well as the principal violist. He can't understand quite why I won't start writing immediately; he has set it up, I should write.  Plagued by guilt by 11.30am and on the ferry to Macau I begin and this is what I wrote: 

WiFi addiction at Hong Kong Airport

Waging war with jet lag takes some strategising.  Failure in your personal battle with the beast carries a high price when there are concerts looming.  I'm already feeling that terrible ache behind my eyes and the sense of being almost permanently off balance.  Some of us are armed with drugs, others have DVDs for the inevitable sleepless nights. There's an abundance of advice and the horror stories.  Surviving the long haul flight makes us brothers in arms, bound by the pain of it all. 

Back at Hong Kong airport we sat like students on the floor. Bill Carter, our theorbist has had an idea, the kind of which he has quite often.  On a tour of the Brandenburg Concerti with Another Orchestra he had suggested the serving of a 'Branden burger' with every ticket.  He wonders if we shouldn't offer sweets to our audiences on this tour.  Our program begins with Bach's Orchestral Suite No.1.  It takes time for each of us to fully appreciate his offering.  It's been a long flight and Bill has an original brain.

We were pleased to see him.

When we arrive at our hotel in Macau, whilst waiting for our keys, a few of us initiate a competition for who looks the least tired.  Carolyn Sampson wins.  The crueller game of who looks the worse was quickly abandoned.  Alfonso and I go foraging for a quick lunch.  We walk along streets sparkling in neon, mostly jewellery shops selling the same enormous jade necklaces.  We decide upon a cafe on a side street, its entrance guarded by tanks of beautifully coloured fish.  The walls are covered in photographs of the dishes which seem to be coated in the same gelatinous sauce.  They bring us menus we can't read and with gentle smiles we are encouraged to point at the photographs to make our selection.  So often on tour it can feel critical to choose the best thing on the menu but here, I could be pointing at just about anything; the strange pleasure of being illiterate.  We eat silently with occasional noises of pleasure.  

Back at the hotel I allow myself a nap which is spent thinking that I'm not sleeping.  I keep the curtains open and I'm dimly aware of a useless hammering somewhere below me; the random tapping in of picture hooks perhaps? I wake up thinking that I can't possibly stay awake, but after an hour it feels as though I'll never sleep.  It's morning and night all at once.

I have a desk in my room, set at a jaunty angle in the corner.  It looks as though I might interview someone from behind it.  The large window is grey with the grub of outside. The familiar suspects career skyward, great towers of glass and steel, and here and there, forgotten little buildings reaching as far as their ankles.  I know nothing about this place.  I resolve to explore tomorrow.