“Should I bring an umbrella with me?”

It’s a question I ask when the sky is gloomy, when it suggests the possibility of a shower without quite promising it. A bluff, I sometimes think.

Everything slows down in the soft rain. It’s raining, but it might as well not be. Or should that be the other way around? People walk around, half with their umbrellas open, possibly because they brought an umbrella out and would feel stupid if they didn’t use it at least once, or possibly because they have a really cool umbrella and want to show it off. Or because they have a really big one and felt like being an asshole. [Insert penis joke here].

I don’t do much from day to day. I usually spend time in coffee shops, reading or writing. The time I don’t spend in coffee shops I spend in hookah lounges.

I’m going through some stuff.

Intimidated, perhaps? Living in a small city bustling with activity and filled with people in suits clogging up public transport does that to people, even those who have never aspired to wearing a suit for work or spending their days travelling around on trains to their next business meeting, checking their phones for the latest happenings in the stock market.

So.

It’s nice to walk into a coffee shop where the barista is actually passionate about coffee. The coffee shop itself was quite hard to find, despite it being in the middle of one of the busier streets in Hong Kong, and all streets in Hong Kong are inherently busy (or so it seems). I walked around for 15 minutes trying to find the place before finally spotting the sign that said ‘Tamper Coffee’.

It was loosely decorated, small, a place that knew what it was and didn’t pretend to be something else.

I bought a Latte, the barista gave me a CliffNotes version of how coffee is made (when I asked) and what made a good cup of coffee, and I was on my way. To a hookah lounge.

It was just another day. A gloomy ‘should I bring my umbrella with me’ kind of day.

And a good cup of coffee.