Hong Kong Rugby Seven's

This past weekend my friends and I went to the Rugby Sevens. This is the equivalent of the soccer world cup, but for 7-on-7 rugby. The games where 14-minutes long with two 7-minute halves which made the games faster rather than more strategical.

We all met up at the castle (University Hall) and started pre-gaming Saint Patricks style. We bought about 8 cases for 6 of us and started drinking 4 hours before leaving to the stadium. Even though we were pretty drunk by the time we started to leave, I decided that it would be a good idea to try to sneak a case into the stadium so I packed it into my backpack.

We met up with more friends in the MTR station and headed towards the station in Causeway Bay. At first we felt foolish wearing costumes to the game, but as soon as we got into the train we noticed a huge wave of people that where also dressed up. I wore a angry bird hat, Mike and Chris wore a mario/1-up costume, Phil went as kirby and Christy wore a yogi-bear hat.

We followed the wave of people from the station into the stadium where I was stopped by the security guards because of the case of beer. After failing to bargain with the guard, we decided to shotgun the entire case before going in because we knew that booze was going to be expensive. We finished the case and walked inside the stadium. It was a beast that could seat about 50,000 people. We found some seats near the center of the field and started to watch the games.

For some odd reason I decided that I would try my luck as a bookie and started throwing odds on the games. Phil was the only one smart enough to take them and won both bets for a total of 100hkd ( $13). The worst part was the second game, in which New Zealand had to win by 60 for him to win. At halftime it was 14-0 so I started getting cocky, but somehow they got their act together and started scoring a lot and in a last second play managed to score and win 61-0.

After a while we decided to move to the south stands where all of the drunk people went. At some point there was a 4-hour wait to get into them, and what was worse is that people stayed in the queue! By the time we went there was a pretty short line so we got in fairly quick. We managed to sneak our way into 2nd row seats right behind the goal posts.  After a couple of games it became a contest to see who could appear in the jumbotron first; neither of us won. There were a couple of girls dressed as cheerleaders that took all of the glory.

We left the stadium right after seeing the U.S destroy Japan (really dude's?.. give them a break) and headed to central for some burgers. We managed to get out of the stadium right as the last game ended and barely beat the rush of people. Mike went missing as always so we left him behind. We went for some burgers at the Terminator restaurant and then decided to finish off the night at LKF.

Guilin and Yangzhou

This past Monday, Phil, Dave and I took a 10-hour night-bus from Shenzhen to Guilin. The ride itself was a unique experience. The bus consisted on roughly 30 asian-sized beds that would only fit us if we were on a sideways fetal position, and the driver kept playing loud Chinese songs through the entire ride.

We arrived at Guilin at about 4:30am. Instead of being like most tourists and taking a cab to our hostel, we decided to go against our nature and follow Phil who claimed to know how to get there. We walked around asking for directions with our broken Chinese skills but got opposite ones from the cab drivers in their attempts to get us to hitch a ride with them. After 2 hours of walking we finally found our way to the hostel which ended up being just 5 minutes away from the bus station.

We decided that it was already to late to go to bed, so we left our backpacks in the room and headed for the city. We started the day by eating some Pork Buns off a street vendor for 1yuan each ($0.16). Afterwards we walked to the central part of the city and into the wet-markets. These were pretty traditional Chinese ones in which they sold a variety of products from ROCSC( fake crocs) and AILE (fake Nike and Adidas clothing), but also sold a variety of spices, fish, meat, turtles, frogs, etc.

From there we followed the street along the river and ended up in a park with giant pagodas inside it. We decided to check it out to see what it was. It was some monastery to provide homage to Confucius which had a bunch of meditation gardens, tea houses, obelisks, temples, and a peak with a pagoda on top. We decided to climb the peak to get an overview of the city, and by the time we got up we were disappointed by the view. Even though it was nice, it wasn't what we expected to find. We went back downhill and entered a temple that had a bunch of pictures of monks, each with a year on it. There where 60 of them so we assumed that it was some sort of cycle and each year was a specific monks year. People prayed to them and put money in the box beneath their name. Surprisingly this cave ended up inside a gift shop, which reminded me of pretty much every American attraction.

After the park we kept walking around the city. We went to another place that had a big lake with two giant pagodas in it. We ate some lychee and walked around for a while. It started to pour hard so we took refuge in a KFC. We walked around a bit more, then headed back to the hostel, had some dinner, watch a movie and then went to bed.

The next morning we took a boat tour to Yangzhou which is world renowned for its scenery. It was one of the first tours in China and even though the city only has 100,000 inhabitants, it gets roughly 15 million tourists every year. The greatest attraction it offers is the view of all of the mountains through the river basin. This view was made very famous by its inclusion as a default desktop picture in the new Windows computers, and the back of the 20yuan bill.

There was one specific mountain that was called the 9-horses mountain. The tour guide said that Clinton could only spot 3, so if you could see more then you where capable of being the next US president. Here is the picture of it, and try to find as many as you can.

After a 4 hour tour we finally arrived in Yangzhou. We walked around the city's main street for a while and then decided to go to the countryside. We went to a famous bridge called the Dragon Bridge and then walked across the rice fields. It was a gorgeous view and apparently many couples got wedding pictures taken there right before their wedding.

Afterwards we went back to the hostel and headed back home to Hong Kong. We arrived at the border at 5:30 but it didn't open until 6 so we just sat there for a while. They opened the doors at 6:00 but didn't let anyone in until they rang a bell. As soon as they rang it, the 500 people in the door started running to be the firsts in line. That scene is something everyone has to experience at least once in their lives since it is truly one of the funniest things i've seen.

Third Dessert Please!

This Past Thursday a couple of friends and I went to Causeway Bay to get some dinner. One of our friends was a local and knew some cool spots around the City. She took us through an underground tunnel all the way to the bay where we took a little boat for a small tour facing the skyline. It looked unreal and it made me wish that I had gone at 8 so I could see the light show from there.

Afterwards she took us to a local hot pot place where we had a bunch of food and some sake to go with it. It was a japanese hot pot, which unlike the chinese one, uses different spices and therefore make the meal very rich in flavor. For some reason we where all craving something sweet so we headed out to find some local desserts. Somewhere along the road we ended up walking into the introduction to the first Chinese race team. There where a bunch of news reporters  so we all took out our cameras and pretended to be one of them to get closer to the stage.

We started roaming around the area trying to find the dessert spot until we finally reached the street she was looking for. We ordered a bunch of different desserts including chocolate pudding, and ginger pudding. I had never tried the ginger one so I got one of those. Hubert ordered a Chinese french toast, so I had to get one too since I was intrigued to what it could be. I was shocked to realize that it was a giant sized toast full of butter and syrup. I probably increased the chances of getting a heart attack by like 25% after eating that.

After we all finished we started heading back to the subway station, when one of the girls saw a local bakery that she loved and claimed that had the best dessert in town. Even as full as I was I had to try it, I mean, I couldn't pass down the opportunity of having the best dessert in town, even if it would become my third dessert of the meal. We went inside the bakery and ordered the sweet buns, to my surprise, it was another bun covered in butter, regardless I HAD to eat it.

I somehow managed to finish it and survive, unlike my friend Hubert who almost died in the process. Here is a picture of him crying over the stomach ache.

When I found Nemo in the Hobbit House

Its been a while since I last blogged. This has been mostly due to my traveling and midterms, however here are the long due stories and pictures of my trip to the Philippines.

Our trip started  Thursday the 24th after Chinese class. We left Hong Kong and landed in Manila around 3am. We checked in at a hostel close to a famous Chinese cemetery, slept for a couple hours and headed into it to explore it. All of us were very impressed by the sights, since instead of the common graves they had built big mausoleums for each individual tombstone. Some of them looked like churches and others even looked like houses. After a while of touristing around we headed back to the street to find some food. We ended up finding a street shop that sold sizzling beef platters. Our entire lunch (4 beef platters and a jug of iced tea) ended up costing approximately $4. From there we headed to the 7-eleven to buy sim cards and then back to the hostel to wake Chasen up and go back to the airport to fly to El Nido.

We where flying with a small airline called ITI. Our flight was only 15 people in a small double engine plane. The flight took about 1:30 hours and then we landed in El Nido Airport. We were welcomed by a singing committee and a bull in a carriage, and a line of "tricycles" to take us to town. We split into 3 and headed to the town which was about 15km away. We booked into the hostel and went straight to our actual home, Palawan Divers and scheduled our diving trips. Phil, Carl and I got our Advanced Open Water and Nitrox Certificates while Chasen and Dave got the Open Water one.

Our diving trip consisted in 9 dives: 2 fun ones, 2 enriched nitrox air ones, 1 deep one, 1 night dive and 3 special-techniques dives. We saw a bunch of cool stuff such as nude branches, school of big-eyed groupers, lobsters, crabs,  many clown fishes (NEMO!!!!!!!!!!!!), Lion Fishes and my personal favorite A HUGE TURTLE! Anyways, we dove for the majority of the day, and then usually chilled in the local bars around town or got massages. After 3 days of diving we rented  bikes and drove around the island exploring the beaches. Right after we left town, Carl crashed the bike and got nicknamed by the locals as Superman. We got him another bike and continued driving. We found an awesome beach called Calitan and spent the day there. On the way back we somehow ended in the local university and joined them in a choreographed dance routine that they had been practicing. We returned the bike and rented a small boat to take us island hopping to some of the popular spots around El Nido for the following day. We took a couple snorkels and two kayaks and went to some of the most gorgeous spots on earth. We started with Snake Island, a place famous for its low tide in the morning which generates a long walkable path connecting two islands. From there we went to big lagoon, small lagoon, secret lagoon, helicopter island and a couple other unnamed beaches. We raced in kayaks, had lunch in the beach, swam for a while and drank some local brews. What a life. Sadly the day ended and we had to leave El Nido. We went to Ricsons one last night, finished our leftover beers and hopped on a 7 hour van to another city called Puerto Princesa.

After we arrived we dropped Carl off at the airport and headed to the hostel. We dropped our bags and walked around for a while. We found a place that rented bikes and we got them for 2 days. We set off to explore the town and found a Shakeys pizza (Google South Park - Shakeys). They actually exist! We HAD to eat there. We got some shakes and got on our bikes again, this time wandering around closer to the water. We found a couple of locals playing basketball and decided to join them for a game. They were fucking quick! If it weren't for the fact that we had half a foot average on them, we would have probably gotten destroyed rather than winning  the game by 1 point. Anyways, it was getting dark so we headed back to Shakeys and ordered a party-size pizza. We ate like we've never eaten before and the met some iIsraeli dudes that where traveling across South East Asia as well. They gave us some hostel recommendations and headed back home. The next morning we got on our bikes and went to a different town 2:30 hours away called Sabbang to visit the Longest Underground Navigable River, one of the new contestants for the new 7 wonders of nature. When we finally got there we got on small boats and went inside the cave. After all of the thrill of maxing the bikes on the highway we had to sit down and listen to some dude talk about the different shapes that stalagmites had for about an hour. No offense to the organizer, but if the ride is that fun, how can you expect us not to get bored on the boat. At least they had monkeys though. After we got out of there we got back on our bikes. This was the most entertaining part since now the road was mostly downhill. We managed to make the ride back in about 1:45 with just about enough time to get our stuff, return our bikes and go to the airport, this time Manila bound.

We landed in Manila that night and met up with Fie and Klara (the Danes from El Nido), they where staying in our hostel too. We decided that the next morning we would go to Intramuros, a famous part of the city surrounded by a wall.  The next morning we started our excursion around the city. We took the subway to central manila and walked to intramuros. 

We had heard about a secret barber shop that not only cut your hair, but also massage you, give you a manicure and a pedicure all at the same time! the best part was that all of this cost about $25. Phil and Chasen got the full package while Fie, Klara and I went for the full body massage only. After the hour had passed we were all so relaxed that we couldn't move. We decided to go inside a mall called Robinson's next to our hostel to find something to eat and we ran across an all-you-can-eat sushi place. They didn't know who they where messing with, We must have eaten about 12 nigiri platters each before they started feeding us with miso soup to get us full. We left the restaurant and walked around the mall for a while, only to find out that they were hosting Philippine ComiCon. We bought some Angry Birds / Kirbi  hats to fit along the crowd and took some pictures of what most have been the strangest scene I have ever pictured. I somehow convinced one of the locals to kiss my buddy Phil and even got it on camera. She was wielding a 6kg sword so that made her even more interesting.

 The next morning we headed out to see cock fights. Not only is it legal, but its more of a national sport. Being foreigners we got first row seats and a private bookie to advise us and place our bets. After about 20 fights, Chasen learnt that he had absolutely no skill in picking roosters. Sadly it was time to go back to reality and start packing for home. I had one more surprise before we left. We headed back to the hostel and met up with the girls and took them to a place that I had found before called the Hobbit House. As the name implies it, it is a bar where every employee is a midget. It was an awesome experience! Not only was it one of the most different places i've been, but they had a bar with over 200 different beers! It was the best way to end the trip. We headed to the airport and landed back at around 6am. Luckily for me my classes didn't start till noon. Chasen on the other hand had class at 8. I wonder how that went.