Convenient Change

It was dusk on Lantau Island, our bellies were full of beer and the breeze off the sea made us feel so content. I had a handful of change bouncing around in my pocket that we needed to spend within the next few hours. We had put aside enough money to pay for the two bus rides back to the airport but the rest needed to go before we left Hong Kong. 

We debated what to spend it on. Our dinner hadn’t cost as much as we thought and we only had another hour or so before we needed to get to bed. We were walking very slowly back to our hotel along the beach path when we noticed the first convenience store. It was only a shed with an ice cream cooler outside but we eagerly went in and used some of our change to buy a package of cookies and another beer. We hadn’t used all the change but it was better than nothing. We popped opened the beer, each of us taking a swig and continued slowly down the beach until we noticed a second convenience store. This one was only about 200 yards away from the last one but it was a little bigger and a few people hung around outside. We laughed that each store was so close to each other but nonetheless we went in to see what treasures they had. This second place had a bottle of the beer we had been searching for all day plus so we grabbed that and a few small packages of delicious looking chocolate. We bought that and a bag of gummy bears that hung by the register. Jon strategically stacked all of the goodies into my arms before we walked out. We couldn’t stop laughing at our little feast. 

The lamps outside the restaurants now began to turn on as night fell. We were nearing our hotel. 

“We should have bought more from that store. We still have a little bit of change left.”

And just as the words were spoken a third convenience store came into view. The lights inside this one were dim as we hunted through the only aisle. A layer of mysterious white dust covered everything and toy flamingo’s hung from the wall, staring at us. I wiped off a package of cookies and we grabbed a bottle of some strange juice and made our way up to pay. Jon counted out the change and handed it to the man. But two coins were still left over. I quickly ran back to the aisle, found a package of hard candies and very carefully picked it up without dropping the rest of our things. The man behind the counter gave us a strange look but he took the last two coins and we left. 

Both of our arms were overflowing now as we stumbled out. We looked ridiculous but we were giddy. Giddy from the beer. From the excitement over our new found treats. And giddy from the simple joy of being silly together, in a perfectly gorgeous place, at the end of a wonderful vacation abroad.