See this?

Can't find too many road signs like that in the Philippines. So that means... yeah, uh-huh, exactly. I was out of the country for a little while ;-)

I just came back from a (somewhat spontaneous) extended weekend trip to Hong Kong Saturday thru Wednesday, while the Jay-Man headed to the Northern Philippines to catch a few waves in La Union, becoming red as a lobster in the process. La Union, if y'all remember, is the place where he and I surfed a couple of months back. Jacob has really taken a liking to the place, with all its friendly locals with their laid-back lifestyle. He wants to go back there again in December, hah. Well, I was initially supposed to join him to celebrate his 25th birthday there but then my big brother (actually small brother since he's such a SHRIMP! hehehe) comes into the picture and says I should come over to visit him in Hong Kong. I kind of hesitate at first, showing him the moths that have taken up residence in my wallet, but then we work out a deal that sees me being able to see him. So I says to Jay, sorry dude, I have a chance to go to see John, and Jay is all cool about it and we celebrate his birthday with a fish dinner the night before leaving, where I was supposed to pick up the tab which he insisted on picking. Not that I was about to protest vehemently at someone else paying for my meal :-) Jay was probably just happy I didn't go ahead with a Danish tradition for 25th birthdays and empty a bucketload of cinnamon powder on him - a sort of punishment for remaining unmarried at that age (it gets worse as time goes by: at age thirty you use pepper).

So at any rate we split ways and before I know it I was speeding at high altitudes toward this place I only really knew about through cheap-ass (but kick-ass!) martial arts movies with a whole lotta ass-kicking going on. Bloodsport and Enter the Dragon come freely to mind. So, with me exiting the plane ready to unleash my Crouching Kitten, Hidden Puppy on anyone who might dare so much as to look at me twice, I was eager to check this Hong Kong place out.

A note on John: John is enrolled in the Asian Studies Programme at Copenhagen Business School and is in Hong Kong on an internship just like me. The company he's working with is Danish-owned Dracco, a toy company, where he's been tasked with optimizing the supply chain, or at least the company procedures that might be able to streamline supply chain management. In a sense, I'm doing something similar at SunPower, except the sole focus is on environmental issues. At any rate, you might know of the products that Dracco manufactures - among many others, they make those, well, bratty looking dolls of the Bratz line. You know, the ones that look alot like those loud 14-year-olds on the street with waaaay overdone make-up, the ones you just want to bitchslap for dressing so slutty and acting so retarded. Well you get those in Denmark and they're a royal nuisance.

To be fair, Dracco also produces many other high-profile products under license by or ordered by big name companies like Disney and Marvel. Which is cool because the X-Men rock. *Snikt*.

First night, John took me out for some Japanese which was awesome because he's half-Japanese, speaks Japanese and knows his Japanese shit. We then went straight to drink our brains out, and I hadn't even stashed my bag at his place yet so I had to lug it around. Apparantly there was this closed Halloween party we could get in to, so I was whisked there, just managing a quick glimpse of the impressive Hong Kong skyline by night before going up in one of the skyscrapers, which is apparantly where the clubs and high-end drinking establishments are to be found. The fun then ensued. Below are the pics.

A Chinese dragon among all the spiderwebs and bats and Jack'O'Lanterns and other Halloween decoration. Funny, right. Right?



Sigh. In China as in most other Asian countries, karaoke/videoke is da shit. It's even more unbearable in Hong Kong as the overwhelming majority of songs are sung in Cantonese.



Me getting into the Halloween spirit (pun intended), and posing with the other freaks.









Oh yeah, this is John. John is happy. John just won a drinking competition by being the fastest to drink a glass of orange juice with a straw, and got a 50 Hong Kong Dollar gift certificate to a boutique. Go John.



Actually orange juice is not the preferred drink to get drunk on in Hong Kong. Interestingly it's Chivas Regal and green tea. Quite nice. Below is a couple of pics showing the fucked-up drinking game they play there. It involves two or more people, your open or closed hands and any multiple of five up to the maximum number of fingers between the participants. The aim is to guess the correct number of fingers in two subsequent turns. John lost this one. Note cuteness factor of waitress.





That was Day 1. Didn't do much the following day except sleep off the hangover. Or rather, John slept off his hangover while I saw a little bit of TV and also slept to pass the time. John was drunk as drunk can be, you see - for instance we had to stop the taxi on the way home. Anyways no daytime pics yet. During the night, however, we went out again. This time we went to a birthday party of a colleague of John's, which again was held in a club somewhere up one of those skyscrapers. Here be the pics, including the pics prior to the party.

What would a trip to the laissez-faire capitalist capital of the world be without a picture of me posing in front of a piece of corporate art? So here it is.



Me at the entrance to the building where the birthday party was held.



Pics of the street.





I like my moray eel fresh!



The chill-out room reserved for the birthday party. Comfortable, airconditioned and fully karaoke-equipped. John and I had our revenge by singing Cartoon Heroes by Aqua. Mwahahahaha. (Cough) Yes, I did the Lene voice. For some reason one of the girls present didn't like my falsetto voice though and snatched the mic from me. What's up with that? :-)



The birthday girl with her cake, another pic showing that insane drinking game and some miscellaneous party pics.









I LOOOOVED the food in Hong Kong, so here is a picture section just dedicated to it. Behold the meat section of a cafeteria (we love meat, yes we do) with whole BBQ'ed peking duck - yumminess plus. Also behold a lunch spread of dimsum and other treats. And me.







Fast-forwarding through the rest of the mini-vacation. Here is a picture of me and my buddy, Jackie Chan.



Hong Kong skyline by day.



Um, yeah... containers.



The area where John lives, waaaay up in nowheresville in the Northern Territories, which is basically mainland China. Still, they live in them skyscrapers here. John lives in one similar to those shown here.



They use bamboo for scaffolding in Hong Kong. Funny, right. RIGHT???!



Bah, I got more but I'll just fling them at you at a later date. What else did I observe in Hong Kong... oh yes, compared to most Chinese, I'm big. At least that's what the girl said.

(Smirk)