Friends and Miscellaneous Week Activities
I've been keeping myself busy with some little things. Last week, Monday the 19th, I met up with Ju Hee to take her bike riding in and around Sha Tin. The weather has been perfect, nice and cool with sun, and I've been able to get some good uses out of my inline skates. Though, I'm a bit too playful and I ended trying to race some stranger up a ramp and falling on my ass. I kind of messed up my left wrist, hopefully just a sprain, which has left me unable to go to break dancing classes on Tuesdays.
The previous week Vivian gave me a few coupons for some free tickets at
UA Cinema. After my bike riding I went with Christine to see
Saw IV. I thought it was better than the third one, it seemed to have more of a story, but then it wrapped up all three of the previous ones. So before you see Saw IV, go watch I, II, and III.
Saturday night I went to meet up with Daniel. He's been working in China doing his vouching and we haven't hung out in a while. We made plans about a month back to find sometime to hang out, and that was Saturday. Unfortunately at the same time Diana called me out of the blue and said she made plans with Janice to go down to Yumla. I want to see the girls as well, but I made a commitment already. The girls seemed pretty annoyed at me about not being able to meet up with them.
The original plan was to hang out with some of Daniel's friends, but when I got down to Lan Kwai Fong, that group already finished their drinking for the night and were heading home. That left us with no real plan at all, so I just said we should drop by
Volar and decide what we want to do. Luckily inside Volar I ran into Karl and his friends Phoebe and Jane. We decided to party with them at Volar and eventually we ended up at
Pi. Everything was going pretty well. We were hanging out, some drunk girl kept wanting to dance with me and was falling on me (okay maybe that part wasn't so good), until Daniel in his jokingly Aussie way made some comment that pissed off the girls. That was just a tragic misunderstanding, and it kind of ruined the night, but what can you do, the girls were kind of tipsy, and Daniel's an Aussie. Eventually we ended up back at Volar where I ran into them again and Veronica, one of the only models I know left in HK.
Thanks to my friend Connie, and her friend Frankie, I had an interview with a company called
Pricoa Financial. I went up to the office in Timesquare dressed in my suit and prepared to wow my perspective employer. The HR interview didn't seem like it was exactly the greatest, it seemed more like she was just questioning me and didn't seem that all interested in me. I didn't feel so good about that one, though afterwards she still introduced me to the manager and that went pretty well. We chatted for about 20 minutes. I think I walked away knowing more about her than her about me. She seemed very motherly to me, and gave me tons of suggestions for trying to make my life, and adaptation to Hong Kong, easier. I debated a long time about wearing my glasses to the interview, and eventually I did thinking that I would at least seem more mature.
Afterwards I had a lot of free time. I dropped by
Dreamodels first, and ended up meeting the new employees and having lunch with them. I had Sandy help me take a few snaps of me in my suit, since it is so rare that I wear a suit. I studied my Japanese at the agency while waiting for
Fred to show up. I was just going to chill and watch him box. We chatted and afterwards grabbed a few sandwiches and headed down to Causeway Bay. I met up with Christine in CWB and we wandered around waiting for Nokia to fix her cell phone. Afterwards, since we both have so much free time, we decided to go Karaoke over at
Redbox. I haven't sang karaoke in a long time, and luckily Christine was there to teach and guide me. As anyone who has sung with her knows, she's quite the singer. The two of us did quite a marathon, singing for about 4 or 5 hours. So far it is a pretty good week.
Labels: Clubbing, Friends, Hong Kong, Karaoke
Last night was Priscilla's birthday party over at
M1NT in Central. It wasn't that hard to find, but was quite a walk from the MTR. Surprisingly this was my first time at M1NT, and I was impressed.
The decor is nice, I especially love the sharks. The music was good Saturday nights, and it wasn't overly crowded. The crowd is a little older, more mature. I think that's okay, but they tend to be less energetic on the dance floor, so for me it is more important that I have a group of good energetic friends with me. Luckily we had just that.
I think the night was a success, we managed to make Priscilla happy. We went over to
Privé afterwards where I ran into a few more friends. Keith was there with another group of Vancouverites and I ended up joining them at Tsui Wah right after we finished clubbing. On the way to the minibus I got stopped by the police because apparently I look suspicious crossing the street. I was a bit experimental fashion wise that night, but I don't know about looking suspicious. So he took down my ID card number, and checked all my pockets then let me go. On the minibus I ran into Marie, from England, and her friend Phoenix. So I had a pleasant little chat on the way back home.
It was a good night. I hope everyone enjoys
the pictures.
Labels: Birthdays, Clubbing, Friends, Hong Kong
Continuing with the November Birthdays the girls planned a little birthday dinner for one of my oldest friends in Hong Kong.
Gloria was the second person that I met since my arrival over two years ago. Since then I had introduced her to Priscilla and Tiffany, and they've formed a girl group all on their own.
Sandra picked out a pretty little all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui. Originally the dinner was planned for Thursday the 15th, but due to some schedule conflicts we ended up bumping it up to Wednesday night. The quality of the food is pretty much what you expect from one of these types of restaurants, though this one in particular had a nice large selection. It was quite filling.
Tiffany started passing out her own gifts from Hawaii. She brought me back a
Starbucks City mug to add to my collection. Tiffany's a thoughtful girl, she always puts the little added effort into her gifts.
I happened to be walking by a
Christian Dior cosmetic boutique sometime ago when I was meeting Vivian in Sha Tin for dinner, and I noticed the new
Diorlight accessory. I had some problems tracking this one down, but thanks to a suggestion from Vivian I went and called up
The Galleria and eventually they had some in stock. When I walked in another man was there asking for the same item, so we brought both of ours up to the counter.
So that was the gift, the cake was another delicious
Cova cake. This one was like a big brownie, which I loved because I love brownies. My face is still a bit bloated but seems to have started to recover a bit, hopefully with some more rest my lymph nodes will return to normal, and with them my face. I know, I sound a bit vain don't I? A side from vanity I'd like my face to return to normal for health reasons as well.
Labels: Birthdays, Friends, Hong Kong
Saturday I stood in line for over half an hour waiting to get on a minibus to
Sai Kung (西貢), though this time it isn't to go out on the water. It was for
Fred's birthday BBQ. I've never barbecued in Sai Kung before so I had a bit of a problem figuring out
where the site is. I asked the minibus driver when I got aboard, but in typical Hong Kong fashion he just decided to provide me with an answer, any answer. He told me to just go to the last stop. Now, this obviously doesn't seem right to me, so I asked again when we arrived in the Sai Kung area. He was nice enough then to stop at a spot and to point in the rough direction I was suppose to walk towards. I saw a group of people ahead walking in roughly the same direction and I followed them for a bit, and decided to ask them if they knew where the site was. It turns out that they were looking for the same site, and so we became one large group of lost people.
Well of course we managed to find the place eventually and I joined Fred and his group. Louis was up making sure people were
shot gunning beer. Little Brendy was adorable, we spent a lot of time and energy playing with him. The cutest thing was when he was referring to me as his dad in front of his mom and her friends. I told him that was a secret, so he shouldn't tell anyone.
Met a lot of nice people and had a lot of fun. Afterwards I headed down to Lan Kwai Fong to find Karl. I got a call from Phoebe and I met up with her in front of club Magazine. She brought out her friend, who apparently didn't like the fact that Phoebe gave me one big hug as soon as she saw me. Well, Phoebe was really drunk that night, and her friend was probably worried she would do something stupid. We headed over to Pi to meet up with Karl and just danced around there for a while. She was pretty crazy on the dance floor, and even ended up biting me a few times. I saw dancing near me one of the Japanese people that is part of the same tennis group that I go to. He's the particular person who is married, but likes to go out for some random play. I'm not exactly fond of his ideals.
I'm getting a bit worried, after Saturday night I started to notice, and feel, that my
lymph nodes around my face have started to swell up, which can be due to infection. I don't feel particularly sick but my face is starting to look bloated. I hope it is just a simple reaction to infect, I would hate for it to get worst, it has been a long time since I've been really ill.
Labels: Birthdays, Friends, Hong Kong
Just a randomly little post. I was covering at Readership on Friday and decided to walk over to Sogo to wait for a phone call from Keith who was getting off work around 7:30ish. I usually drop by the 55DSL shop there to say hello to the employees.
Apparently just outside of Sogo Janice managed to see me walking in the crowd of people. There were so many people there, she must have pretty good sight. She was on a bus passing by actually. Janice gave me a call and asked if I wanted to join them for drinks at Cica Bar & Lounge (20F 大利行 Bloom House, 登龍街2-4號 / 2-4 Tung Lung St.) with her friends. It was just a handful of girls when I got up there, but after a bit of calling it turned out to be a fairly big group. I got to meet up with Michelle, whom I haven't seen for a while, and Karl and Elaine again.
We had some promotional girls come by asking about a survey for the brand Kent (cigarettes) and we got free motorized fans with little LEDs that displayed letters and patterns when on. They were also giving out chocolate with alcohol in them, but I didn't try them.
The police came by to do a check, and it lasted forever. Unlike the ones in the clubs, they actually went and checked everyone's ID card this time. Karl and Penny had a hard time staying quiet due to their drunken nature and were nearly expelled from the premises, though they probably don't remember that.
Labels: Friends, Hong Kong
After the excessive amount of partying I really felt like I needed a break from it this past weekend. I ended up pretty much staying in, or just going out for dessert with friends.
Jacqueline invited me out Sunday to go bike riding with her boyfriend and their co-workers from
IBM. I thought this was the perfect time to try out my
roller blades on the bike riding path and because I knew Ricky had his blades in Hong Kong, I gave him a call as well. I invited another recently sporty recreational friend, Flora, out. I just found out she quit her job over at
Cathy Pacific and so has some free time.
The bike path runs from
Tai Wai, through
Sha Tin, past
Tai Po. It is quite a long trail actually, we spent the better part of the day out on the path. We were suppose to meet at 10:30 am, though of course it turned out to be more like 11ish. We went to get our bike rentals, and aside from a lunch break, were pretty much on the bike path until around 5 pm.
I found out I love roller blading on the bike path. There are very few people who roller blade on the path, but I find it more comfortable then biking. I mentioned in a previous post, people in Hong Kong don't really know how to ride bikes, so going out on the bike trail can be dangerous for one's health. I managed to cut myself badly along my left wrist (it looks like I tried to commit suicide) and my right forearm. I was heading down a slope behind Patrick when I noticed he was slowing down. I have less control slowing down so I had no choice but to accelerate and try to overtake him along the narrow path. where the slope ends is a "T" like intersection which ran under a bridge like structure. As I accelerate down the incline, three other boys appeared and started to climb along the other side of the narrow path. I made a quick decision and decided to shoot towards the hand rail along the side and to hold onto it help stop myself. That's how I ended up cutting myself so badly.
Over all it was a great day, the weather was perfect, and despite the long ride which Ricky couldn't hack all the way, it was quite enjoyable and something I really would like to continue doing.
Labels: Friends, Hong Kong, Sports
I haven't really done Halloween in Hong Kong before. I always hear that going down to Lan Kwai Fong is crazy. The roads are all closed off, and people are forced to walk in one direction (to bring order and to prevent people from being trampled) around the streets, taking extra long to get to any particular location.
I didn't have a plan for this year, but on a whim when I received an email about a party down at
Adrenaline Bar & Lounge, over at the Jockey Club, via the boys and girls at
JUICE, I knew at least I had to put my name on the RSVP list. I've never been disappointed in a party held by
JUICE. Coupled with that fact, I was at
Adrenaline before for a
DKNY fashion show and I was really impressed by the venue at that time.
I had problems deciding on who to go with. Originally I RSVP'd myself plus five. I received an email confirmation which also informed me that I would be limited to four only. I called Adrenaline to make sure that meant me plus four, which at that time they had confirmed. I made arrangements to go with my friend Ran, and because I wanted her to enjoy her time there I thought it would be nice if more of her friends were going. She told me that her best friend Yambie would be making an appearance. We were down to 2 spots left. Originally we wanted to ask our friend Carole to come out, because she's pretty crazy at a party, but she already had commitments with a group of friends, so we started making calls.
I don't want to sound horrible, but sometimes I'm pretty selective about which friends I mix, and especially when my space is limited I become even pickier. I messaged a few friends, and Ran ended up calling a few friends. As it turns out, everyone we asked was interested in going. On top of that I gave Priscilla a call, who knew about the party, but wasn't too sure if she was on the list to get in. I ended up giving the spots to Ran's friends, who after being told about the dress code, dropped out later. Priscilla thought there was a chance to go, so I offered up one of the spots for her in case she had an extra friend who wanted to show up. Keith has been a great guy, and he's always inviting me out to events, so I decided to call him along to meet my friends and to enjoy the night with. When we go to the door we were told that it was a total of four people allowed, not the me plus 4 I originally confirmed the night before. Oh well, we made it in at least.
Inside I ran into Dominque, and another old friend Samuel (whom I've run into on several occasions, but I don't quite remember where I first met him) who was there with another girl. Which was nice, because I was expecting for the most part to go in not knowing anyone.
The event was great, we had free face painting on the side, we let the girls decide what to do with our faces, and then we went around taking tons of pictures with people in costumes.
After we went down to LKF where I finally experienced the one way herding. The police had setup their barricades and we took a long long walk around the perimeter of LKF before getting over to where we wanted to go; Pi where Keith's friends where. Lots of costumes, lots of people taking pictures. I even got a call from my friend Josephine, who doesn't even go out to these events, yet she was down there to see the costumes.
There wasn't many people at Pi when we got there, I ran into my friend, and ex-coworker, Pamm. I didn't recognize her at first, she was staring right at me in costume of course, so I just walked away. She found me towards the end of the night and luckily I figured out who she was.
While walking Ran to her ride home I saw some girl I use to have a relationship with in the lineup. Actually I've been running into her a lot recently, mostly at the gym. We don't really talk though, and because she's pretending not to see me I do her the curtsy of doing the same. I had to go back up towards Sugar to pick up another friend, whom I met a while ago at a club. We've been talking a lot recently and have built up an odd relationship. When I go clubbing I try to keep everyone I know safe, after what happened with my friend's ex-girlfriend.
This incident happened last Saturday. After Sunny left, I decided to take a break from clubbing. We did so much of it while Gene and Sunny where here, a little break was in order. I received a call Sunday morning that my friend's girl friend Tiffany had gone missing after going out clubbing. The two had come to Hong Kong together, a couple's trip, and Geoff was schedule to leave Sunday afternoon at 2:30. Fred and my other friend were together searching at 9am down in Lan Kwai Fong for her. They managed to call her friends, family, and pretty much anyone who might have a chance knowing where she went. Apparently her friends reported that she had left
Privé around 4 or 5 the previous night to go home. The thing is, her boyfriend found out she never made it home. She wasn't answering her phone, her friends and family didn't know where she was, and she was a visitor in Hong Kong.
Like any good boyfriend he recruited his friends to go find her, plus had his flight back to Canada canceled. We were all pretty worried. Eventually, I heard back from
Fred that they were at the airport. Turns out, she was with another guy that night, and they way she responded, it didn't sound as simple as being an accident. They immediate headed to the airport after that conversation. They stood in line trying to catch a flight back to Canada for my friend. He ended up having to pay and extra $400, but at least he made it back. This has been one of the craziest stories for me in a while.
Labels: Clubbing, Friends, Hong Kong
