you want to know what makes it hard to post notes about what you've been up to? having no sleep schedule and wandering around in hong kong. *that's what*. i had to sketch an outline to myself and play around with it in order to figure out what to write right now
thur jun 19
so, after previous post. don't remember what we did all day, but ended up going to thayer's friend's mike's house and playing poker 'til 7am. i now know how to play texas hold em, and it's actually decently fun. stakes were low, so i didn't mind learning (lost $150, which is like 20 USD). the architecture around here is super nice; all the apartments are insane modern high-rises nestled in mountains and coves. started reading this book called "the game" by neil strauss, which i recommend everyone read.
fri jun 20
7am poker ends, so naturally we decide to go to the beach. we check out of our hotel on hk island and get our stuff, then shlep off to this mountain cove beach area and nap/swim around; it's super hot, like you can only be in the sun for 5 minutes even with spf 70 before you feel like you're going to die. the water's warmer than a heated pool. they have more staff keeping the beach clean and water safe than they do people on the beach (at least until later when it gets more crowded). after, we head over to kowloon (the more mainland part of hongkong) and check into our expensive hotel (we decided to live it up for the weekend), sleep 'til 10p, then head back to lkf (the bar area in central) and meet up with the brits and canadians and meet a few more people. don't exactly remember where we went... i know at some point it was just us and the brits, and then we lost the brits, and found them much later, and hung out until they had to catch a plane at 7am.
sat jun 21
saturday we explored southern kowloon, walked through an insanely huge like 2 mile long mall, and checked out kowloon park, a highly stylized version of new york's central park. it has pools, sports facilities, sculpture gardens, mazes, an aviary, castles, other weird shit. an "advanced challenge course" in which hongkongers trying to get fit are instructed at one of the stations to "walk on balance beam 1 times if novice, 2 times then walk if advanced". it's hardcore fitness here in hong kong.
headed back to lkf that night (fri and sat it's super, super crowded), went to a club populated by nothing but asian chicks (bleh), then i left and pubbed around a bit, ending up at "the whiskey priest" and talking to some local chinese girl until 5am while we watched a big soccer game (she paid for drinks because i won)
sun jun 22
met up with the canadians and some of their kiwi friends for dim sum in kowloon near our new hotel (our cheapest one, but it's still pretty nice actually. much better value, that's for sure). after that went back to the island to a beach called repulse bay, which is the sweetest people beach i've ever seen; looks gorgeous, surrounded by amazing, amazing apartments and homes in gorgeous modern towers soaring over the cove up in the mountains; i've got lots of pictuers of these. thayer and i hung till late, then met up mike for bowling. thayer'd never been, and i've decided to learn to bowl properly (i was a straight-baller until now), so we started out slow, getting my usual score of 50-70. had fun though and learned that even in hong kong, cheap bowling places use the exact same shitty bowling program that states places do
mon jun 23
thayer and i watned to go to the beach, but we'd given our laundry to a laundromat and weren't going tog et it back 'til late, so that plus the cloudy weather meant we decided to locate a bowling alley and resume learning our skills (apparently he'd been dreaming about bowling?). this place was super new and high-tek, though, so it was really cool, and we both got massively better; we were consistently above 100, regularly hitting 150, and i got my new PR of 197. we did that for about 4 hours, then shlepped back to TST (the area in kowloon our expensive hotel was in,a nd the closest thing to western night-life we knew of around here). checked out a few bars, then on the way home i wanted to see a karaoke place here (thayer said they were different from the states, which is untrue), and we ran into some chinese folks who were boisterous and friendly, and they invited us chinese dancing (1am now). the father-like guy kept telling us "very traditional night time, traditional chinese, very fun". basically just a sitting room with karaoke and drinks and whatnot; a little expensive, but worth the experience. oh, and there was a monkey that i got to play with
today tues jun 24
finally caught up, pretty sure i've hit all the major points; been here for fucking ever, so gonna go see if thayer's up. i'll try to hit posts more regularly, primarily for the sake of me remember what's been up easier. 1:30p, signing off
