The Epic HK Weekend

This past weekend (April 22-25) was Kent’s last weekend in Hong Kong, as well as the ending of classes and the coalescence of some great times. He was leaving early to go back home to start a job, so we decided to make it one last full weekend of greatness. On that Thursday, I thought to myself, and made the goal of this being a truly epic weekend. I think my forethought paid off.

Thursday night we organized a group outing to a karaoke bar in TST called Neway. As I have described before, karaoke in Asia is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. It’s not a couple drunken people taking turns up on a stage at a bar, sloppily embarrassing themselves in front of strangers.  It’s much better than that. The idea is you and some friends rent out a room that comes with mics, couches, and multiple TV screens playing the (often unrelated) music videos and lyrics. I think this is a much better system, mostly because it is private. You get the room for about 6 hours, and get to embarrass yourself just as much, but now only in front of people you know and like.

This time was no different, and if anything more superb. It was about 20 of my closest friends here at CUHK piled into this room singing our hearts out for four-plus hours. Needless to say, this was a BYOB event, and one of the people who worked there was trying to catch us with our drinks, so we just agreed to pay $1 extra each and he stopped bothering us. Nobody got sick, everybody was happily drunk, and everyone was singing to their favorite American tunes from the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s.

Around 3am, when we left the karaoke, about half the group continued on to LKF, where it was bizarrely empty supposedly, and the other half, including myself, ventured back to CUHK for some quality bonding time on the I-House balcony. I’m going to miss having a balcony a lot next year, but then again, I’ll be having a ton more space in our Milbrook apartment.

(On our way in the MTR)

(7-Eleven = fueling station)

(I believe this was the fake music video for a T.I. song)

(All sorts of fun being had)

(Manager guy who tried to take our drinks away. No can do, sir)

(This one says it all)

(Purely for your entertainment)

(And tonight's gonna be a good good night!!)

Friday was another fantastic, and long, day. It started out in the early afternoon with a trip by myself, Niclas and Kent to Shenzhen. Niclas and I had to pick up our suits, and Kent wanted to buy some last-minute gifts across the border for friends and family.  After trying on our suits one last time, making sure everything fit like a glove, we paid our balance and thanked our friends Stephanie and Jessica for their time. Note: if anyone ends up in Hong Kong in the next while, I have a great place for you to get suits/shirts/dresses – they look really amazing, and they were very cheap. After walking around this giant mall for some time, Kent dragged us into a teashop, where he was buying some tea for himself and his family. I ended up spending a bit on some gifts for family and myself as well, so look out for that when I return. I have definitely become a tea drinker and will probably be bringing that habit back home. Tea is so prevalent here, that when you go to restaurants, they serve you bottomless tea as opposed to ice water. I think this is partially due to a general fear of tap water hear, and definitely in China, leading them to boil it.

The last stop was going to a Wal-Mart in Shenzhen. This was an experience in and of itself.  For those who aren’t familiar, it was a huge struggle for Wal-Mart to enter the Chinese market, and they only have a few stores scattered throughout this massive country. When we entered the Wal-Mart, which by the way, were all forced to be below ground (don’t know why), it looked nothing like what I was expecting. It was completely lacking the familiar enormity of a Wal-Mart and basically just looked like a more spread out version of a Chinese grocery store. Overall, I was not impressed, and by that time of the day, my stomach and liver were complaining to me, so we headed back to the border.

(Yao Ming dunking some Oreos)

The border crossing at Lo Wu went really smooth as usual – I think it is the most traveled border crossing in the world at over 86 million people per year, but someone should check me on that. One cool experience was waiting on line to clear customs, I stood next to and started a conversation with a really interesting Australian guy who ran a software company in Bangkok before moving it to Shenzhen and HK a few years ago due to the political unrest there. To my surprise, I was able to hold a legitimate conversation about Thai politics with an Australian businessman, mostly thanks to my SE Asia Culture class. He predicted that the government would fall by the end of the summer. We shall see. Also, you should read up a bit on the unrest in Thailand these days, it’s pretty crazy.

Friday night was the IASP-organized Masquerade Banquet dinner. It was a bit pricey because it was held at the Hyatt Regency across the street from our university, but in hindsight, it was well worth the price of admission. We were all given ridiculous masks, the feathers of which tickled most people too much and that ended quickly. The buffet was amazing, and the conversations with great people at dinner were even better. I still marvel at the fact that four months later, I am still meeting new and interesting people on this program. I think that this is a very special part of the program here in HK that forces you to continually meet people and not be content with your circle of friends.

As I said, the buffet was the highlight, one of my favorite meals in HK, including some delicious smoked salmon, and Western desserts, of which I had about three plates, which I have been craving for four months. The MCs for the night were a group of exchange students, and they led us through a really nice montage, a chubby bunny contest, and some superlatives that people had voted on when we bought our tickets. Overall, a really enjoyable time to be with a majority of our group for one last time.  Of course though, the 10pm end time was just the beginning of another marathon portion of our day/night.

(Good times ahead)

(Yummy!)

(Chubby bunny. This was so out of place)

(The Frenchies "singing" their national anthem)

Next up was an after-party at a club in LKF organized by and packed with CUHK students. I had brought my camera to this night as well, and again, though I looked like a bit of a tool, I’m happy I did. As my uncle told me, the only good camera is the one you use. If you have an SLR that sits at home, it’s not really that useful. Sage advice proven once again. Another great time partying at this club Sugar, with an open bar until 4am, could not have been better. All the right people, mixed with the right drinks at the right time = a fantastic night.  The nightcap, as has become ritual for me at this point, was a trip by Niclas and I to Ebeneezer’s. I forget if I have described the glory that is this small kebab shop, but it’s about time I do. This chain has various, and perfectly placed, locations around LKF and Wan Chai, for that all-too-necessary late night snack. I always end up talking with the managers there, at 4am of course, and getting some nice goodies thrown into my order – free fries etc. While it’s a bit expensive, about $7 US for a kebab wrap, I personally believe that it is the ultimate hangover cure, not that I get those to begin with. By about 6am, after a lengthy taxi ride home, I got to sleep.

(Heading up to LKF)

(Mandatory pitstop)

(View from Sugar. For more pictures, see Facebook, otherwise, they weren't meant for you to see)

Saturday didn’t start for me until around 3pm, at which point I was only functionally able to look through and upload my pictures and mope around. Around 5, Kent and I met up at the MTR to head down to go to Macau. I was planning on going for a night bungy jump, and Kent hadn’t yet been to Macau, so I was happy to show him around.  In Central, we also met up with a friend who Kent had met at LKF named Deion from South Africa – pretty cool and interesting guy.

We got off the ferry around 8 and went directly to the Macau Tower only to find out that it was too windy up top and that they had closed down shop for the night. I was pretty upset, mostly because it was an incredibly clear night, very unusual for HK/Macau, and it would have been an amazing view from up there. Oh well, c'est la vie!

We started walking around town and picked up a bottle of wine each to get us started. Next up was a poor-man’s Sushi One, aka a mediocre sushi dinner, and then walking up to the Old Town by the church ruins.  It was very strange for me being there again at night, because when I went during the day in March, it was staggeringly crowded – so much so that it was difficult to move around.  But, this time, when we got there around 10pm, it was stark and empty. This was a pretty cool experience and it looks so different at night, and with nobody there, that it was definitely worth going.  Then, we made an obligatory stop at the Venetian, though the gondola rides had sadly closed down for the night.

(It's like a completely different place at night)

(Empty streets and Lisboa in the distance)

(Church ruins facade)

(Taxi to the Venetian passing by some casinos)

(The Wynn)

(The grandaddy of them all - The Venetian)

We had tried to go to that disheveled hostel that I had been to before, but to my surprise, it was booked full. So, with backpacks in hand, we just decided to wing it, and probably take the ferry back in the morning. Around midnight, we started moving towards the main bar/club area and had some drinks. Around 2, we finally made our way up to the popular club D2, which at this point, was finally starting to have people arrive from the casinos. I still can barely wrap my head around the notion that these people start going out at 2am.

After a few hours in the club, and too many drinks later, we somehow arrived at the ferry (I thank bigman Kent for this) and slept our way back to Hong Kong around 6-7am. By the time we arrived in HK, I was so confused that I told Kent that we needed to buy tickets to get back to HK, not realizing that I had completely passed out on the ferry ride back that we had just completed.  Good times.

I went to sleep around 8 and woke back up around 3, a pretty good night’s sleep actually. Alex and I hung around I-House for most of the day; he had gone to the massive, thousand-person beach party on Shek-O beach the day/night before and was also recovering. Later that night we all went out to a final hotpot dinner for Kent’s departure. Hotpot is wonderful, and I hope to find a good place to go either in NY or STL to keep my cravings for it down. Another fantastic time with my favorite people here and some great conversation.  It was a very bittersweet end to the weekend, and to our time with Kent. He was our first friend to leave, and only then did the realization that this was my last couple weeks in HK finally set in.

That night I started thinking that, okay, I have this coming week plus three days left in Hong Kong. It is such a weird feeling because I know that I’m not going home for a month, but that I won’t be in my adopted city for much longer. It’s a mix of feelings of “wow I cannot wait to go traveling on this amazing trip that I have planned” and the feeling of “shit, I’m leaving all of these great friends and places until… next time”. I’m glad I realized this early, and I planned to have a very productive and enjoyable last 10 days in Hong Kong.

My next post will be about my last days here in Hong Kong. A breakdown of my schedule is as follows:

May 6-10 – Trip to Yangshou, China with Alex. Return Monday, May 10, 2am

May 10 – Final Exam 9:30-11:30am. Pack up everything, leave for trip at ~3pm

May 10-29 – Big, awesome trip to China and India

May 29 – Return to HK

May 30 – Fly home to the US