Salsa, going Bananas and Anthony Hopkins' taxi driver

Well it is now Sunday evening and I am feeling a bit tired if I am honest. Of course this is the result of a good girlie night out yesterday. Following on from my last post Jo, Christina and I headed over to the "dark side" AKA Kowloon for a spot of Korean BBQ. As with all our meals so far we let Christina order, as she knows her stuff (best tour guide I have ever had!) and the meal was fabulous. In the middle of the table where hollows and inside those was the BBQ area. We were brought a lovely mix of side dishes plus beautiful slices of beef that we (well mainly Christina) cooked for ourselves. Wrapped in lettuce leaves with a fantastic sauce, the meat was fantastic and I really enjoyed the whole meal. While we started off with a beer each, Christina soon introduced us to the joys of Ginseng Rice Wine. It was lovely but far too easy to drink, so two bottles later we were ready to head back to Hong Kong island and Wan Chai for a bit of partying.

The plan was to go straight to Jo Bananas where Christina's friend Miles is a DJ but as we were walking there we went past a bar playing great Salsa music. It just felt right to go in there for a frozen margherita and a bit of a boogie. A live band came on so we were soon shimmying across the dance floor with a wonderfully mixed crowd (in Hong Kong, they don't care how old you are, bars aren't just for young people and you could see a couple of generations from the same family out together just having a good time, with an older couple really putting some of the youngsters to shame with their dance moves). It was brilliant. Sadly though at 1.30am the band had to stop performing, so the party was over there and we finally headed over to Jo Bananas.

What can I say, the tunes were cheesey, the drinks were flowing (thanks Miles), including a great big flaming pyramid of a drink that took the flaming sambuca to whole new levels, plus shots of stuff that tasted like squash, but quite blatantly wasn't. When we weren't dancing, we were people watching as you get a fascinating mix of people including a large number of working girls. Suffice it to say that it wasn't the drink making me feel queezy when I'd see a pretty young Asian girl leaving with a grey haired, old man. Of course the most fun we had was with Christina trying to work out who Jo might fancy and than trying to back her towards them while dancing (despite the near military precision of these moves, Jo was having none of it!)

At around 3am we decided to head home as we were meeting Phil T and his family for dim sum that following day at 12.30 and didn't want to turn up looking like the undead and stinking of booze (I may not work for ZO anymore, but your old boss, is always your old boss, and over the years he really has seen enough of my hangovers so didn't want to treat him to another one).

As the walls in the hostel I am staying in are paper thin, and there is someone in the room across the hall from me that seems to be rustling plastic bags all night long, I didn't get much sleep at all. So when my alarm clock went off at 10am I didn't exactly bounce out of bed full of the joys of spring (or Winter as it is here in HK). In fact 40 minutes later I was still struggling to unstick my eyes, but I finally made it in to the bathroom and under the shower which revived me. I decided to head to my rendez vous point with Christina & Jo a bit early so that I could get a Starbucks at Central station and sit updating my diary and sipping on it in Statue Sq (where we were meeting). It was lovely there as it seems to be where a lot of people go to have a picnic lunch and it was such a beautiful day, I just sat there chilling out and watching the world go by for a while. As Jo & Christina were running late, we got a taxi rather than a bus over to the South of the Island which is a whole new world. Beaches, greenery, expensive flats with fantastic ocean views. Our taxi driver had pictures of himself with the many celebrities that he had driven round over the years. I didn't recognise many as they were mainly Asian celebrities (a couple of Miss Hong Kongs and Asias in the mix) but he did have the great privilege of driving the wonderful Sir Anthony Hopkins in 1991. It was quite surreal to see a much younger looking Anthony Hopkins smiling awkwardly at us from the dashboard of the car.

We arrived at the restaurant around the same time as PT and his family and literally just sat down and the dim sum fest began. Phil's family is lovely and we had a great time chatting, watching his younger daughter look mischievous and eating far too much food. In fact eating too much seems to be a theme for my Hong Kong stay, as the food is excellent and just seems to keep coming. Christina says that life here does seem to revolve around food, which is reflected in the abundance of great restaurants that all seem to be busy. It has been good to walk around a lot, not only for the sightseeing but also for burning off all the food.

After lunch we said bye to Phil and family and headed down to the beach to just sit for a short while (the sun had really burst through and the day was lovely and warm). We then hopped on a bus to Stanley to: check out the market; be deafened by the drums that accompanied a dragon as it went round blessing all the stalls and finally head over to the waterfront to have a relaxing drink (Jo and I went for pints of beer, because quite sadly, within days of having left the UK, we were kind of craving "a pint" although we did redeem ourselves by drinking a pint of local vs European or American beer). We realised just how many dogs (canine, vs disparaging comment about ugly women, although on that note, there are some serious crimes against hair styling in evidence here - Esteban you would love it here if only for the mullet spotting) there are in Hong Kong.

Plus we noticed our first freak, as this older Asian guy with very badly dyed red hair stood in the middle of the street swaying, hand to his forehead, apparently transfixed by whatever he was listening to on his walkman. From the moves Christina's guess was that he was listening to Elvis, however now that I have had more time to think about it, I actually think that it was probably a David Hasslehoff CD, as I think that is more likely to induce a psychotic epidode. When he started heading towards the bar that we were in (this poor Husky puppy looked terrified when he came near him, even the animals could sense he was a loon) we decided that it was time to make a sharp exit and went to get the bus up to the Peak to take in the view over Hong Kong. Re the Peak, nice view, snapped a few piccies.

I am now in Christina's flat, she and Jo have popped out to the supermarket and Christina's is treating us to dinner at hers (Western food tonight though, we are craving things like cheese) and a DVD. It is very quiet here as her cat (he is gorgeous and Jenny you won't be surprised to hear that I have taken many photos of him) has temporarily stopped meowing (he'll start again soon, as he wants to be stroked but very hard to cuddle cat and type at the same time). So that is my news. Promise that future updates won't be quite this detail-tastic but am taking advantage of having good internet access here.

Two more days in Honkers before I head to Auckland. Christina has been great at making sure that we have seen all the most important sites so tomorrow I am thinking it will be a leisurely trip to Lantau to see the Big Buddha.

Bye!