I Used Up My Nine Lives In Hong Kong

Habits are hard to break, as evidenced by my time spent in Hong Kong.  I forgot that they drive on the opposite side of the street from traffic in America.  I can't tell you how many times I looked the "wrong" way before crossing the street!  My husband, who travels there often, was quick to remind me, but I still did it every..single..time.  I also noticed that even their escalators are oriented on the "wrong" side.  Where I think the down one should be, I find the up one.  But at least the escalator doesn't pose a risk to my life.  :)

The other one of my nine lives came when we were staying at our hotel.  I think about 12:30 at night, we heard this loud noise.  In my dead sleep, I thought it was my husband's phone, and told him to "get it".  But as it turned out, it was the fire alarm!  But it only rang for just a few seconds, and then stopped.  My husband recognized the sound immediately, and ran to the door to look out.  I laid contentedly in bed, glad that he was the one getting the phone.  He said, "That's weird.", and then told me the source of the sound.  I jumped up and looked out the window, but we couldn't see or smell any smoke.  The fact that the alarm sounded so short of time, made us think it was a false alarm, but do you risk it in that moment?  Well, actually we did, and we stood there trying to discern what was going on.

All of the sudden we heard a fire engine.  I looked out the window and saw not one, but THREE engines coming!  I decided that if I was going to evacuate, I was going to do it clothed, so I threw on my clothes.  I know, you aren't supposed to do that in a fire.  But that's why I titled my post the way I did.  :P  I went back to the window while my husband called the front desk.  He asked if there was a problem, and they told him it was a false alarm.  I was standing looking out the window, and could see the firemen coming back out of the hotel, and returning to their engines.

So now you see that if it had have been a real fire, we would have been toast.  And if it weren't for my husband, I would be burned toast that was smashed and run over by a car on the side of the road.  So now I need to watch carefully, because I'm sure my nine lives are used up.  Meow.