China Day 17

Today we graced the Taoist festival in Hong Kong with our presence once again. It's definitely a little strange getting your picture taken by so many people that you don't know while getting stared at from all sides. It wasn't as noticeable as the first day we weer here right off the train from Shenzhen (the 13th)... man that feels like it was a month ago when it was only 4 days ago. China is a time warp like when I try to get in or out of Coconut Island on time.
As we walked in Master Wei saw a friend of his (no name). It was pretty cute, he was so excited.

Once again, we were in full costume (check Bowen rocking the stairs in a full length robe), prepared to spend the day sweating in attendance at the least, but hoping to sing something like Chapter 33. This was eventually made impossible as there was no way to hook up my ipod to the PA so we could have Jud to lead our tone deaf and shy group. We were instead to follow the group led by Pauline (Shifu's disciple) around to each alter and pay our respects. It would have been nice to have learned the song they sang for that, or at least to know when to bow, but hopefully we didn't look too ridiculous (or too much like fakers).

I wish I would have thought to bring a deck of cards, or maybe I could all of sudden be one of those always full of fun ideas to pass the time people, but really we ate lunch and followed Pauline and then sat around waiting for the next performance to finish. Shifu was performing in this one. She had been telling us how she wasn't exactly looking forward to it as they would be singing in Cantonese which she can converse in, but not read. I ended up taking pictures for a while and then hanging out with Master Wei and Ming trying not to laugh too hard when they started making fun of the songs and whatnot.

I got a couple of cool pics of Rhonda, Chris and Zach, Val and Josh, etc. fun stuff while trying to do my part to entertain Master Wei while he fetched me a can of coke (even though I tried to tell him I didn't want any - how much can you pantomime?) and the occasional cup of water.

Eventually Shifu started doing her thing and it was much more interesting to be on the outside looking in than the inside looking out. Plus we had to eat, so I went back down off the stage to join the masses. Speaking of masses, I was really expecting more of a crowd at this festival, but not so much. Just a handful pf people checking out the craziness going on at our little alter area. Finally, after hours and hours of sitting absorbing, we saw the finale of the performance (not for the night but the piece) and demanded leave for the night.

After a semi-nauseating display of bitchiness by most of us - it was difficult to demand passage home to a hotel that none of us had been to much less knew what part of town it was in - when Shifu was clearly exhausted from her performance and had been up since 5am like the rest of us.

We got out though on a bus and then I had my first experience on the Hong Kong subway. I was pleasantly surprised to find it clean and easy to use. We even found our hotel without too much trouble and were surprised to find Ming and Mater Wei waiting for us there. We checked in and then the craziness started. I was back to rooming with Bowen and Zach decided to kidnap Master Wei and give up his bed in the room he shares with Chris. We were thinking that this would be a no no with Ming and Shifu, but Ming actually seemed pretty stoked about it. Chris later explained that this helped them out because otherwise Master Wei would have been staying with them in Shifu's small apartment.

So we decided we'd be going out on the town. Chris said he knew where to go, and that there should be plenty of things to do in the part of Hong Kong we were in. Zach and I had already started drinking on the way to the hotel, so we were fairly confident that even though we'd been up since 530am, it'd still be a good night .. and it was.

We started off the night by introducing Master Wei to pizza. He'd never had it and it was pretty funny to see him sniff it suspiciously before he'd venture a bite. But luckily for Val, Zach went out of his way to find some for her so she's quit bitching about chinese food and how she only wanted to eat some pizza.

From there we headed out form the hotel (a boyscout hotel in the Jordan district - very strange place with tiny rooms) out to prowl the Hong Kong Streets. Before we went out, Chris let us in on an little story that had us start questioning Master Wei's innocence, and as the night went on we had a few more reasons to question who was corrupting who. We had some difficulty finding a place we would all enjoy this night, and to avoid further frustration, we stopped at one point and purchased a little mood lubricant by the names of Hennessey and Black Velvet. This definitely made things go a little easier and after Master Wei tried to take us to a men only bar with dancers we finally took Chris's advice and jumped on the tube to a part of town called Tsim Sha Tsui.

As soon as we got out of the tube station we saw an Irish pub called Murphy's. I got all nostalgic for Sean and Nuuanu Street and had to go there at least for 1 Guinness. Murphy's turned out to have a bunch of non-Chinese people in it, surprise, surprise. We all had a round of Guinness on me (holy expensive! I thought we were in China! Good thing I'd had all that Hennessey already!), except for Val who had a cider and Master Wei who didn't appreciate the fine drink placed before him and had to have something a little more golden in color.

We left Murphy's and after a little walking around found the place for the evening... Sticky Fingers. They had a live band and drinks. What more could we have asked for. We (Zach, Val, and I) danced the night away and Chris and I got more than a little drunk. It was a fine time. From what I am told and what I can see from the pictures, we made some friends - a couple from Beijing and a guy from Argentina (?), someplace like that. I'm not really sure. But really the important part was that we had so much fun together that we went back to the hotel and had a sleepover so as not to disturb Sheryl and to give Master Wei a place to sleep. This sleepover was minus Master Wei and Chris of course who went back out on the town for a little extra credit fun and had a room of their own.