Today was by all accounts a perfect day in Hong Kong.  22 degrees c (72 f), and only 45% humidity (compared to 95%).  It was sunny with the occasional cloud drifting by.  Amazing.  It felt just like we were in Sweden in the summer, actually.  Awesome.

Then it came time to decide what to do.  We had plans to go to Ocean Terminal to a few shops and maybe lunch and so on.  But the thing is, the weather was perfect.  So perfect that it would be a sin to be inside when it is so nice, right?  So perfect that it would be crazy to go all the way from Discovery Bay, with it’s clear air, parks, and nice walks as a family.

So there we were.  We had 8 minutes to catch the ferry or wait for another 3o minutes, and that would mess up the lunch timing for the little guy.  It was time NOW to figure it out.  I said, “ok, stay or go?”  My wife didn’t say anything.  “Hey, stay or go?”  She said finally, “we should not go to Ocean Center, it’s too nice today.  We have to stay here.”  Ok, a decision.

We were walking the opposite direction of the ferry, and I thought about it a bit.  I said, “ok, are we trapped here then because it’s nice weather?  We can’t do anything we planned to do this weekend then?”  She said that wasn’t the case, but to me it felt like it.

See the thing is, my wife is Swedish.  There’s a bit of a mindset built into all Swedes, and apparently, it works like a switch.  If the weather is nice, SWITCH, all things change so you can “enjoy” it.  My wife used to say that Spring is the most stressful time of the year because of all the pressure to enjoy it all the time.  Of course this switching to enjoy the good weather is a nice thing most of the time – nice memories with nice weather.  But of course they also have an expression in Sweden, “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.”  So that means that it is always “nice weather” and you should be out enjoying it.  You see how this works?  Tricky.

Of course I am American, so for me, I appreciate good weather when it comes.  I might even alter my plans because of it slightly.  But if it is good or bad, usually you just stop and say, “oh, how nice / oh, how not nice” and go on with it.  But I certainly am not afraid to spend a day doing what I want, or what we want, because it happens to be better or worse weather than I had in mind when I made the plans.

In the end it was a wonderful day anyway, so no complaints about how it was spent.  Just an interesting look at how we come to enjoy these nice days when they come our way 😉