Dragon Boat Races

Last Sunday I went to the Annual Dragon Boat races in Stanley, Hong Kong. It was a damn hot day with low tide and too many people trying to stand on the beach watching the races.















See?

After spending all day, every day alone in my apartment it took me awhile to get adjusted to the masses of wet and sweaty people. I just hate that feeling when the air is so thick you can slice it and serve it with with ice cream...nothing you do brings any relief so you decide to just stand there and take it...then you feel a drop of sweat slowly drip down your back until it lands in the pool accumulating in your ass crack. Good stuff.

I finally just sucked it up and enjoyed watching the races. Our friend Yumi was competing with her company's team so we watched her race (see below)
















Yumi's 2nd from the back in the white team's boat.

After Yumi's race Brigitte and I sought refuge at the over-airconditioned Pacific Coffee then barely made it back in time to see our guy friends compete in their race. They won the whole event last year so our expectations were high but due to a steering mishap in their first race they missed being able to compete in the top final race by 1 point. Bummer.

7pm - the partying began on Main Street in Stanley. There was a neverending sea of people...
















...which is always exciting to me because that means there are that many more potential MEN to flirt with! Unfortunately, all that happened was I saw a guy who spent the night at my apartment last fall and he didn't remember me. Then I saw a guy who was interested in me after meeting me at the Rugby 7's (Imagine THAT! A guy was interested in me after seeing me wearing a slutty nurse's outfit?) but I didn't feel like saying hi to him so I did the mature thing and avoided looking at him all night long. Then we met a drunk French guy with a blue fish (long story).

Needless to say I didn't meet the love of my life but we did dance our butts off to all the same songs I heard at every single frat party I attended in college ("Tainted Love", etc.).

11:30pm - They cut the music off because there were actually people living above these bars. We weren't ready to call it a night just yet so we moved the party to Lan Kwai Fong, took over Bar George and made it a dance club.
















See?

1am? - Someone brought a frisbee so an impromptu game of street frisbee began right in LKF. Of course I couldn't help but participate (read: show off). I'll add those pictures when I get them from Brigitte.

2am - 5am?? - Ummmmmmmmmmmmm.... stuff happened? At this point I would just be playing a never ending game of "Fill in the blank" and as much fun as that game is I think I'll just let whatever happened during this time remain a mystery.

5am??? - After a breakfast meal...I finally went to bed around 6am or so. Then my alarm went off at 9am because I forgot to turn it off. So that was awesome. Then the cable guy came at 10am so I stayed awake contemplating why I never seem to learn my lesson that drinking too much makes my stomach and head not feel so good the next day.

While I was contemplating this conundrum of all conundrums I was experiencing the typical waves of hot flashes but they were more intense due to my fucking broken A/C.

Around 3pm I was finally able to experience the upright, forward motion that homo sapiens worked so hard to achieve without wanting to puke or passout. So I met Brigitte, et. al. for some much needed pizza. They went running at 5pm and I thought it would be a good idea to try and run with Ironman athletes on a bum knee after dancing for 6 hours the night before. Also, while still being hungover and digesting pizza in 90% humidity.

WTF is my problem? What am I trying to prove?

I ran with them for about 7 minutes and then had to let them continue without me. They're so in shape. I'm totally jealous.

After we all showered we ate Indian food and watched "Swingers". Much to my delight only one person other than myself had seen it. So I was able to introduce that movie to two Frenchmen and a Swiss gal. I felt good doing my part to educate these fine people on what a good movie is. And what LA is all about.

So that was this past Sunday/Monday and here it is the following Saturday and I'm still recovering. I love HK but it'll be good for me to move on. I can't keep up with this lifestyle much longer or my body's gonna age 15 years in one month's time and then just spontaneously combust.