I remember the first day I spent in this apartment. Must have been Oct. 9, one week after getting off the plane and spending seven nights in the hotel.

In the tiny bedroom I saw a white device in a corner, next to the head of the bed. It looked like 10 or so long, rounded slats of metal, standing on end, but held in place, about an inch apart, by two transverse metal tubes — one above, and one below.

After a moment of contemplating this exotic device, I said, “That’s a radiator! That’s a heater! In Hong Kong!”

And we laughed. It was just a ridiculous concept. Or I certainly thought so,  at the time.

The first week here — well, actually more like the first six weeks here — all we did, like everyone else in this city, was try to stay cool.

We still were looking for an apartment, back then, not knowing that we would be able to patch together four months of living at current and former IHT employees’ places.

And in every one of those we went into … we always checked to make sure the air-conditioners (usually multiple; one per room) worked.

The place might have stains on the floors, holes in the wall. It might have been odiferous, out-of-the-way or impossibly small, or otherwise a non-starter on any number of levels … but we didn’t even stop to consider any of that until we had determined if the AC worked. Because you couldn’t possibly live in Hong Kong without AC. That had been hammered into our heads just by walking out of the hotel doors. By trying to sleep through those hot nights.

It was sultry all of October. The end of Hong Kong’s seemingly interminable summer. When it is pushing 90 day after sweaty day, with humidity numbers nearly as high. With overnight lows of, perhaps, 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Our only consolation prize was this: It rained very little, in October. There was the threat of a typhoon, our first few days in town, but it missed Hong Kong, and we just never got those sheets of rain that add up to an average annual fall of 70 inches. That all came before.

But, my goodness, was it hot. Sticky. And almost unbearable, especially at night. Unless you had the AC cranked up. We laughed about the winter-ish clothes I had brought with me. Two sweaters, one sweatshirt, two sports coats, one windbreaker. As if! I remember trying to wear one of the sports coats to work a time or three, just so I would have on something that was not a golf shirt … and feeling as if I were baking inside “all those clothes.”

To imagine that Hong Kong ever would be cold enough to wish we had a heater, or to use it … just seemed preposterous.

That carried through into late November, when it cooled but certainly wasn’t cold. In the 70s, day after day. The occasional day in the 80s, when that short walk from the metro to the office would leave you mopping your brow. Still.

Even into December, when Hongkongers were pulling out their winter clothes, a heater? “No way! Just don’t run the AC.” It was still reaching 70 almost every day, and rarely getting below 65 at night. The days I wore a sweater to work, I tended to regret it.

Now we are reaching the middle of January and, believe it or not, it is almost cold.

Not real-world (sub-freezing) cold. Not even Southern California (in the 40s) cold. But Hong Kong cold. Which is temps at night that might — might — reach 50.

And that is when, after a few nights of that, that you realize that the T-shirt and short pants that have been your at-home outfit since Day 1 … is no longer enough to stay comfortable. And that sleeping near a window will mean cool air leaking onto you all night.

Finally, we broke out the comforter that had been stuffed into a closet above the bed. But, finally, staying warm became an issue, while sitting up. On the couch.

So, finally, on Day 112 of my stay here, I reached for that space heater next to the bed in the Wan Chai apartment.

I found out it has wheels. And weighs almost nothing because it isn’t a real radiator,  with water inside. Just a collection of thin metal slats (with, presumably, coils inside) made to resemble a Euro-style radiator. (The machine is named “Gemini” and is Made in Italy.)

I pulled it out of its slot in the room, managed to wheel it past the tight space where the foot of the bed nearly meets the tiny tower of Ikea shelves … and into the “living room.”

I placed it near the sliding-glass door, about halfway between the couch and the TV … and plugged it in.

And there it was: Heat.

And the amazing thing was, I was glad for it.

Remember, it’s still not cold here. Not really. Only if you have no central heat, no fireplace, almost no clothes to do any layering with.

But it’s Hong Kong cold. Last night, almost down to 50, after highs not much above the mid-60s.

I am looking at it now. The Gemini heater. It’s off, because it’s daytime in Hong Kong, and I don’t need it. And even now, I don’t have it set at a high temp. I have it at about 2 on a scale of 10, and it throws enough heat to be noticeable after 15-20 minutes. But not a lot. Just some.

I imagine there is a chance I will fire it up again tonight, and probably off and on will run it between now and my departure, at the end of the month.

And by March, at the latest, the heater won’t be necessary. By April, at the latest, it will be back to being hot-sweaty-miserable Hong Kong again, and the Gemini space heater will roll back into its narrow place in the bedroom and stand there unused (and more than a little ridiculous) for eight months. At least.

And the next people in here, whenever they arrive, will see the heater in the corner of the bedroom and scoff. A heater? In Hong Kong? Stop, you’re killing me.