My friends Aaron and Leon are in Hong Kong again this holiday. I'm not referring to the singers
Aaron and
Leon though when I mentioned my friends someone else made the comment it sounded like I was bringing out a bunch of singers.
I didn't go out Friday night with them, but I thought that Saturday night would be better, especially since everyone was holding back for the up coming
New Years Eve Parties.
I went down to
Lan Kwai Fong to find them. They were already drinking, but had no clue where that particular bar was so I went over to 7-11 to meet up with Daniel, my
Aussie friend. We also happened to run into Phoebe C in front, and her friends Cherry and Luna. I hear about her friends a lot from her, so it is always interesting to meet them. I wonder how much they know about me actually? Phoebe had another friend, whom she met randomly in the washroom at
Hei Hei Club when it was still open, that they were trying to ditch. This girl, Maisie, apparently has a thing for us
Jook Sings and according to my source was staring and making Ms. Phoebe uncomfortable. The girls were going to their usual hangout at Club Avenue.
Aaron and Leon were on their way out and I went to meet up with them outside of
Beijing Club, where Daniel ran into an old family friend. A friend of Aaron's, Kelvin, got us in and we enjoyed the hospitality of his table and friends. It was a fun and interesting night. We kind of got separated at the end when Leon disappeared with another group, and Jenn and Monique messaged me. I went outside to meet up with them, but we couldn't get them in, so I took Jenn and Wendy over to
Volar instead.
Volar recently renovated, and is still undergoing renovation, and where the circular room use to be, a new room has formed complete with large painting style pictures and a mini
carousel in the centre. We were taking picture and dancing when I noticed this French guy harassing a girl along the side. I managed to save her and introduce her into the group. Her friend was busy picking up white guys and didn't even notice she was in trouble. We headed over to Tsui Wah afterwards to find Daniel and her group of Aussie friends who actually were at Club Avenue as well.
Labels: Clubbing, Friends, Hong Kong
First off Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noël! クリスマスおめでとう!聖誕快樂! That's my semi-international opening to this entry. Most people that I've met in Hong Kong say it in English, but I've also heard the rest. A testament to how international this city is.
I spent Christmas with my new Aussie friend Daniel. He hasn't been in HK that long, and I know how difficult moving to a new place is when you don't really know anyone. The difficulty this holiday is deciding what to do. I don't want to spend a lot of money, but staying at home feels extra lonely during Christmas. When I heard about Tiffany's brother feeling sad one year away from home for his first time at Christmas, I totally understand that feeling. There is something missing when you're not with your family at Christmas time. Of course the culture here in Hong Kong is different. There's not much of a difference between
Christmas and
New Years. Most of the people don't even know the meaning of Christmas.
The cost of going out to events increases dramatically Christmas Eve, I had a headache trying to decide on which one to go to. With the average cost around $350 HKD a party. The typical party being an all you can drink alcohol party.
Daniel met up with an "uncle" and then opted to go out with me to Wan Chai to find a party to go to. We were just going to go out together, two boys, out looking for some fun. We ended up finding a place where it was just more boys looking for action. The ratio was pretty bad, but I ran into a few girls that I know, and I came in contact with a girl I possibly met about a year ago in another club.
Christmas eve being somewhat of a write-off, Christmas day, or night actually, we met up to go sing Karaoke at the Neway CEO in Causeway Bay. We grossly underestimated the people that were going to show up, and we fill one room and had to switch to another, much larger one.
Even though the
Nintendo Wii has been out for some time, I never really had a chance to play with it until I went to Karaoke. All
those stories you read about where people throw the controllers breaking TVs and people throwing out their arms pretty much all came true in front of my eyes. Kanae managed to break something throwing the controller while playing
Wii Tennis and I almost threw out my shoulder playing Wii baseball.
It was a good night, everyone was pretty social, and only one person threw up. I brought out my friends to socialize with Priscilla's friends, and I think they all had a good time. I managed to strengthen my friendship with Kanae, but she's leaving in the New Year. We took a lot of
pictures that night, so even for those with spotty memory, there's a good record of that night's events.
Labels: Friends, Hong Kong, Karaoke
My "Tour De Hong Kong" was suppose to be a fun event for my friends and Evita's friends to meet, socialize, and to get a bit of exercise. I was pretty hyped about it, leading up to the final week. I made up the group on
Facebook and had Evita go and help me admin the event. With 15 confirmed going and 5 "may-bes" I thought the only thing I had to worry about was the weather.
This experience quickly reminded me why I hate event planning in Hong Kong. You can't exactly blame anyone, these things just happen, but they tend to be the rule of thumb here as opposed to a chance event. Evita had a group of coworkers who were planning on coming out Sunday for the bike ride. One guy had to drop because of his girl friend, and then 5 others dropped out because they were too shy to go with a group of people they didn't really know. Evita ended up with some last minute shipping work that she had to get done before the 24th and went into work that morning to finish it. Ran had to work as well, so her best friend Yembie wouldn't be coming. The story pretty much goes on in a similar fashion. In the end I ended up with the core group I usually do these hiking/cycling events with, plus Priscilla and Maxwell, plus Maurice's ex-coworker from IBM, and plus my Aussie homeboy Daniel, "Danny the Man", Chan.
We met up and
Tai Wai (大圍), but I waited for Priscilla and Maxwell, while the others went along their way. Priscilla and Maxwell were pro, so we didn't have any problems catching up with the rest of them. We had a good
bike ride and everything was pretty uneventful, except when Raymond was cut off by some girls and took a spill on the road, snapping the wire to his front break. As we crowded around him, a group of Chinese
emos dressed in all black decided that we took up too much space on the road and were complainingly both loudly and bitterly at us. We actually caught up with them a bit later at a turn, and they were still complaining.
We got separated a bit later, but managed to make it back to Tai Wai separately to return our bikes. I had to take over for Connie, but that was ok, I was already impressed she had lasted so long.
Afterwards I went with Daniel back to Mong Kok to find him a present to bring to his company Christmas party. The minimum was $100 HKD, and I just happened to step into a store that was selling
table tennis paddles for $100 HKD. I went to Pizza Hut afterwards with my friend Wing after she got off
work.
Labels: Friends, Hong Kong, Sports
There's a quick rush before the holiday season for people to meet before everyone goes off to their respective groups to spend Christmas and New Years. Quite a few people go and travel, and of course for us ex pats we might just go home as well.
Wednesday, Kanae had a day off and gave me a call. We were suppose to meet up at a
Starbucks in
Harbour City, but that turned out to waste a good half an hour of our time. We really had communication problems. I had no clue just how many Starbucks existed in and around that mall. We took a trip across the
ferry to the Hong Kong side and I had an early dinner with her there.
We came back to
Tsim Sha Tsui (尖沙咀) afterwards for another dinner party. This time it was just to stop by. Monique was hosting a Christmas dinner party for their group of friends and some special visitors; namely her sister Jenn, her sister's boyfriend Simon, and her own boyfriend Ricky. They had plans to spend Christmas in
Taiwan, so they planned this dinner party to meet up early. They booked a space in a cute little cafe/restaurant in TST called "Our Wonderland".
Unfortunately I could only drop by to take a few pictures and say hello, because I had another dinner engagement in
Mong Kok (旺角) with my Canadian girls (and special included members). We chose Mong Kok because Priscilla happened to be finishing up a computer class that night in that area. I met up with her first and we went up to get a seat at a restaurant called
Tastecreator (品味人生). I told Joyce about our dinner arrangements and she had recommended the spot. Gloria and Sandra showed up afterwards after a quick shopping spree at
QuikSilver. The picked up a nice white hoodie for me, though I might have lost some weight recently so I think I'll probably try to exchange it for a size smaller. Apparently they got a fairly fat guy to try it on, and they decided that I would be one size down. The girls are so sweet.
Labels: Friends, Hong Kong
December seems to be another massive birthday month, but I can't imagine why? Nine months back it was March, so unless these kids were late from Valentines day, or an Easter surprise, I couldn't guess what the special occasion was.
Saturday night I was suppose to show up to Michelle's birthday BBQ down in Tin Hau. I didn't quite make it to the BBQ, trying to deal with some banking issues, but I made it there eventually. I ran into Mabel from Pink Martinez walking over, I was surprised she just happened to be in the same area. The reason being is that Cherie was a big fan of Pink Martinez and I was going over to meet up with her, and the rest of the girls at Michelle's party.
This group holds some pretty interesting events. They had a theme for the party, Overly Hip Hop night, and people came dressed to suit the theme.I got to see a lot of newly familiar faces and to meet some interesting new people. One of Michelle's friends, Yoh Jin, is a Korean girl working for
Cathay Pacific and has been in Hong Kong for around six years. We had this whole conversation about Koreans in Hong Kong, and working at Cathay Pacific. I ended the party playing darts, which took us an incredibly long time. They had a Polaroid camera at the party, and that is always fun to have around.
Cherie, Germaine, and I hoped into a taxi and headed over to
Beijing Club. I ran into Keith in the lineup, he was there with his friends. He seemed a bit preoccupied so I exchanged a few words and then went inside to find Terence. I located them at a table on the 2nd floor, and after sitting down and chatting with a few of his friends, all the lights came on in the club.
The police came by to do a check. Beijing Club spans three floors, and that night there was about 900 people inside. The check took a while, and we were kind of noisy so they came by and had us whip out our ID cards. It reminded me of
when Karl and Penny wouldn't shut up at the lounge in Causeway Bay.
Terence didn't seem as wasted this time around, he managed to get away fairly clean from this birthday, so someone has to make sure to get him next year.
I got a call from Phoebe that night, and she wanted to bring her friends over to Beijing Club. I said I would try to help bring them in, but when we tried, it didn't work out and we had to choose another place to go. Her friends had managed to pickup a bunch of guys though, which made it difficult. I told her friend Luna that I couldn't get the guys into
Volar, but she didn't really seem to care so we went. The guys eventually paid to follow us in. Inside her friend Miu was kicking up a storm between two guys trying to give her attention. These girls are professional party girls. I spent my time, enjoying it, with Phoebe, but even she managed to make me feel uncomfortable watching her act in her
intoxicated state. It was certainly a busy night.
Sunday Daniel dropped by Mong Kok to do a bit of walking and shopping. We just hung out and chatted. I've been looking for a certain style of leather bracelet and we found some potential ones at a shop on the 2nd floor of Gala Place, but after trying on several leather bracelets the shop owner very rudely complained how we were wasting so much time picking one out and not buying. The guy never once helped us out, even when he saw people blocking our view in the mirror. He was busy helping all the other customers. In addition to that, I think we drove in even more customers just by being inside the shop. I regret not yelling at him before leaving.
Labels: Birthdays, Clubbing, Friends, Hong Kong
Recently I changed the password to
my online photo album. What caused this was something that surprised a number of us. Priscilla messaged me online, telling me that someone's boss found his picture online. A particular picture of him with another seven lovely girls. She was referencing a picture I took at her birthday party this year and we thought that somehow this guy managed to find the password to
my online album. Just as a precaution I changed the password right away. I've given the website out to a lot of people, and I've kind of lost control over who has access to my pictures now. If they're really my friends then they can contact me for the new password. I appreciate my friends letting me take silly pictures at our gatherings, and I don't want those pictures to cause them grief in the future. Apparently
google has indexed a number of images on my blog, so some how this guy's boss was searching for something and ran into his picture. The question is, what was he searching for that would lead him to
my blog?
Tuesday night I went to my weekly break dancing lesson at the
Mong Kok California Fitness. We had a pretty good session this time, just in terms of pushing ourselves. Breaking is really a full body work out. I was sore all over the next morning, I felt like I was beaten up several times that night.
Just got back from the
Galleri Magazine Issue 2 Launch over at
Racks mdb in Central (7F, M88 Wellington St, Central, Hong Kong). Galleri Magazine is a joint production by
Red Dog Studio,
RedCactus, and
ChinaStylus. Galleria Issue 2 is a nice little photo book representing some of the industry's creative work.
I remember doing a casting for a phone ad with
RedCactus some time ago when Rui was visiting me in Hong Kong. Christine introduced me to the
brain child behind RedCactus, ex-model Melanie.
We picked up a few copies of
Galleri on our way out. If you see them, pick one up, there is a limited number of copies (according to the numbering on the back there are 4000 prints).
Labels: Friends, Hong Kong
Karl had a pre-birthday party Saturday night over at a karaoke lounge in Wan Chai called Fifteen Twenty (15/20). I had the hard time finding the location. It is somewhere near Tai Cheng Plaza, up on the 27th floor of some unmarked building. Janice had to come down to get me.
I met a few people at the party from before when we went drinking in Causeway Bay, so luckily I wasn't bored and had people to talk to. Janice asked me to look after Carlos who seemed either already drunk, or upset that night. I hung out with Karl for a bit, but he was a bit tipsy and his fists were out and punching, so I focused more on keeping Carlos occupied.
After Janice, Niki, Penny, and Carlos left, I headed down to Lan Kwai Fong. I was suppose to head over to
Volar first to meet up with Peter before he left to go back to the Netherlands, but I managed to run into him right when they were leaving. At that same moment Terence was walking out in front of me so I asked him to help me take a picture.
I spent a little time at
Volar, waiting to meet up with a friend who promised to call me that night, but she ended up breaking that promise by getting too drunk to make it down to LKF.
I was lucky enough to run into some friends when I went over to
Pi. I turns out that my friend's friend, is also friends, with my ex-coworker Pamm. Who, wasn't quite
ready for our photos together.
Labels: Birthdays, Friends, Hong Kong
Friday night there was a little event in Tsim Sha Tsui hosted by
HP Inter Action. Dubbed "Art in Motion". As part of their Asia Pacific tour 2007, they were traveling to multiple cities performing. I found out about the event via the social networking site
Facebook and I decided to register early just to save a spot. It was free and it never hurts to have that option open in case that particular Friday night was free.
I have a close friend who moved to Sydney recently to study, but has been finding life boring there. The stop just before Hong Kong was Sydney so I forwarded the link to her and she attended the night before the event and gave me a little summary. Apparently by filling out a survey you get a nice little gift. Well, it wasn't very little, it was a big case with two boxes inside and two wireless mice. The design was very pretty though.
Originally I was going to go with Diana and Janice, but they were busy that day, and I ended up calling out Gloria and another Japanese friend, Kanae. There was a bit of communication problem between the two, but it was all good we didn't have to talk too much inside.
The feature attraction was
ColdCut, a pair from the UK. Not for Gloria however, she was enthralled by the MC that night, who apparently resembled her ex-boyfriend. There was another pair of canto-rappers called
Fama that was performing. Apparently, they're semi-famous themselves in Hong Kong, but the act was horrible. I was so not into canto-rap. The other Caucasians standing around me seemed pretty lost as well. Maybe if I understood the lyrics it might help, but their on stage performance seemed, well typical Hong Kong.
We left the party pretty early. Gloria headed home and I had dinner in MK with Kanae. My highlight of the night, was bringing home my two wireless mice. I have to compliment the design team on these babies.
Labels: Clubbing, Friends, Hong Kong
Friday night after the
Terry Richardson exhibit opening party I walked back to Lan Kwai Fong with Janice and Diana. I heard someone call me as I headed towards the
7-11. Leon had apparently met up with Tiffany and a few of their other friends, and were sitting on the the steps near by. The group had ballooned quite a bit, and so we decided to go to a club that would be easier to get into;
Club No. 9.
It was a pretty fun night, we were picture happy and a bit crazy that night. I think Tiff picked up the new Sony camera (
DSC T2). The pictures are actually pretty impressive, I think the quality of the pictures have improved a lot. I didn't like the colours of the shots in the Sony cameras in the past.
After Club No.9 a few of us headed over to
Volar. They had another event with Channel V; The
Shitdisco DJ Set. Usually I've been pretty lucky getting in, but this time one of us had to pay to get in. I suppose with a ratio of 3 guys to 1 girl that isn't too bad.
Saturday I was studying like crazy for my
Japanese exam. I didn't spent a lot of time with Leon that night, but I went out anyways to see if I could find two of my friends. It was John's birthday, but apparently he got sick and canceled the party. The other party was for an old schoolmate; LeHoa. Her party was over at Yellow Devil. I ran into Anh and Kelvin there as well, also from the same year in University.
After the Yellow Devil, I felt bad if I left Leon to go home so early, so we went over to
Pi for a little bit. Just out of random luck we ran into Sunny's cousin Elaine there, and later Phoebe and Jane (whom I met through Karl the previous week).
I wrote my test and I crashed and burned, but It was an interesting experience. I been really thinking about opening a Japanese language tutorial centre, but I found out just how different the demand for English and Japanese is. Hiroko will be moving to Australia as well, so that opportunity won't exist again anytime soon. I'm sure we'll keep in contact though. The MTR was pretty interesting in the morning though, everyone was busy studying on the train. Even for my testing site there was a lot of people.
Labels: Clubbing, Friends, Hong Kong
People often ask me why I choose to stay in Hong Kong. I mean really, what does Hong Kong have to offer a Canadian? Our currency is stronger right now. I would say in general the people in Canada are a lot friendlier and not so calculative. There is a lot more space, and the air is definitely better.
So the question stands, why? Within the last two and a half years I think I've lived more in Hong Kong, than twice the amount of time in Canada (in terms of experiences of course as opposed to actual linear time). In Canada I met a lot of people from different nationalities, but a lot of them were basically Canadian. In Hong Kong, I just meet a lot of people from different countries.
My friends back in Canada really are the best. I've said it so many times, and it is something I honestly believe. They go above and beyond when it comes to taking care of their friends, and it is something that will be difficult to find in Hong Kong, but there are good people in Hong Kong as well.
Generally I've been pretty lucky meeting people, this post is to thank a particular friend who has just been great recently. I'm not going to name names, but friends of her will recognize her immediately.
First off she arranged a casting for me, Thursday, over at
Jam Cast. I went to meet with the director, Miranda, about a possible job in Macau next week. I think as an extra possibly. The guy taking the snaps, Jacky, apparently lived in Ajax for a while. He was the only guy in that agency apparently. I knew the casting was suppose to be smart casual, but recently I've been having a hard time deciding on what is really smart casual. I was chatting online with Joyce for a while about my possible look, but in the end I just ended up doing something that was more like business casual. I had to borrow a blazer from the agency for a couple of shots. While I was there I over heard that it was Miranda's birthday, so happy birthday to her.
Friday was just a crazy night. I was schedule to meet my friend at 6:30, but there must have been a number of events running Friday because the MTR was the busiest that I've ever seen it. It took me forever to transfer at Admiralty, literally the line to transfer started when I got off the train from the Kowloon side. I felt bad because my friend's friend Linda, who arranged the VIP tickets for us to go see the
Swire Symphony Under the Stars, had to wait for us all to show up before we could go.
The concert was good. I haven't had a chance to attend anything like this in the last couple of years. I suppose you expect me to only like House, Hip Hop, and R&B, but that really isn't the case. I can appreciate Jazz and Classical just as much, each has its own right time. Performed by the
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and with an appearance from
Zuo Zhang, the pianist, the symphony concluded with a small display of fireworks at the end. Surprisingly I ran into Tim and Tina there.
Right after the symphony we headed down to Central to the
Terry Richardson "
From Rio to Hong Kong", exhibit, with special guest artist
Michael Lau. The event was sponsored by
Diesel, and was to celebrate the launch of the final chapter of their annual Brave magazine. I only found out about Brave when I went with a Canadian model,
Jason G., to the shop at TST to constantly pester the sale staff. Now I know a number of their sale staff.
The exhibit, was shocking. It honestly wasn't what I was expecting. I wouldn't say it was bad, but it still felt a little pornographic. The images seemed well shot, and the colours/grains were nice, but I could only glance at them quickly without feeling perverted in public. The party was fun, I ran into a lot of people there, and true to the Diesel spirit it was chalk full of rock that night. Unlimited drinks, and they even served ice cream.
My night wasn't over though, Afterwards I went to meet up with a friend who was visiting Hong Kong...but this post is getting long so I'll save it for the next post.
Labels: Friends, Hong Kong
