I’m sitting eighteen stories in the sky, looking out over bright blue sky and a busy harbor. I’m drinking Sumatran coffee with a French chanteuse serenading me through one box, official Chinese news murmuring seductively about the U.S. State of the Union address through another, and am paging through the portfolios of twenty-three international photographers looking for photos of Kowloon, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul and Shanghai to warp, manipulate and upload. The whole time I have access to my network of friends fourteen hours and oceans behind me through the chat feature of Facebook.

Keep your flying cars, I’ve got my future right here.

The work that needs to be done: After training in Toronto wrapped up, we got some video testimonials from the users which we want translated into Flash and uploaded for our Chinese hosts to preview, along with a ten-minute b-roll about the project overview. This is going to take a bit of time and processor power, but not a lot of energy or thought.

I can’t say the same for the photo work. I’m looking for photos of the major cities in which we do business to preload for their viewing pleasure, but not every area has quality, available stock photography in my usual haunts – and I’ve hamstrung myself a bit by beginning with wonderful night shots of the skylines, which cuts down on the number even further if I want to keep a visual tie-through.

Still, I expect it will all work out. I’m using the downtime of the processor to write all of this out and plan the afternoon at the same time. We’re planning to take the ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island for a trip up Victoria Peak, likely followed by visiting the street markets through the island proper. The main thing I want to accomplish is a ferry trip along the harbor during the nightly light show, followed with supper and drinks at the Intercontinental and Sky Bar. That’s if I’m playing cruise director for the group, of course; which so far has been working out extremely well.

To be honest, what I want to be doing is writing. Even here in the relative sterility of the hotel room I can feel the city thriving around me, grabbing my biceps and pointing out places to be, to do, to look, to experience. I’m lucky in that my Edge of Propinquity work is in the editing stage; I don’t know how I could write convincingly about the Fox Valley from here but I’d be game to try.

To that end it’s going to have to be earlier mornings. I sprang out of bed at 6 today for the first workout in a week and felt fantastic, so I’m setting the alarm for 5 tomorrow. I’m hopeful that will give me a full hour to spend getting all the night-spice out of my nose and onto the pages in between the official reason for my presence in this sweet soul city.