Puritans in Hong Kong

It's date night again. We have the luxury of a regular babysitter, which means a regular date night. Problem is, we've never had a regular date night-at least, not the traditional movie-and-a-dinner date night. Even before Finn, our weekends were more often spent having dinner with friends-their house or ours-,curling up with a movie or some good books, or going to the Dartmouth women's hockey games.
        So here we are in HK, with a fabulous arrangement of a regular night out. And what do we do? Well, tonight the plan was to go to the library and write (me) or read (Matt), then go meet a friend for a drink after the library closed. This plan, I should say, was hatched in the morning, a time of the day when we both are awake and full of frugal pep.
        But after a stressful afternoon of navigating the crowded Flower Market with a stroller and a cranky, teething baby, our enthusiasm for such a disciplined evening waned. And as we rode the tram towards the library, I looked out at crowds of people dressed up, obviously not accomplishing anything other than relaxing, and I wished I was a different sort of person. The kind of person who could just decide to go out and have fun on a Saturday night, and maybe even spend some money while we're at it. I should note that this is not the first time we have cursed our deeply ingrained Protestant work ethic.
        After expressing this desire to be other than who I am, and to base our evening plans on something other than "getting something done" and not spending much money, my dear husband laughed and suggested a change in plans. So instead of the library, we headed to our favorite cafe, which, for good measure, is in Wan Chai, land of Suzie Wong and girlie bars. No puritans here! Admittedly, we still worked, but the "warehouse sophisticate" ambience and (decaf) macchiato made the writing and reading feel downright luxurious.