One Night in Wan Chai . . . sans Sheryl

The Hong Kong Rugby 7s were this weekend. This is a huge weekend for sports fans in Hong Kong and it is very hard to get tickets to the event. Because I love watching college football in sports bars, I figured watching the Rugby 7s in a sports bar could be just as fun.

Lailany and I set out after work on Friday to a pub very close to the stadium where the games were being played.  We parked ourselves at the bar in front of the TVs, but no rugby! Asked the bartender why they were showing soccer and not rugby and he said they were going to be broadcasting the games tomorrow instead. HUH???!! Biggest sports weekend in Hong Kong and the pub is only planning to broadcast it one day out of three? So we missed the 7s that night and decided to meet up on Saturday to try again.

Met at Lailany's place on Saturday and walked over to one of the many British pubs on Lockhart Road in Wan Chai. Now, Lockhart Road is an attraction in itself -- pubs and restaurants all interspersed between strip clubs.

The Old China Hand is the name of the British pub where we started, and the games were playing on the TVs! We got there just in time to see England beat some other country (yeah, that's how into it we were!) and to also see USA get stomped badly by New Zealand (I think that was who they were against). I had forgotten how nice it was that bars in the U.S. banned smoking. Everyone was smoking inside the pub - ugh! Eric met up with us and we moved on to some Mexican restaurant for dinner (yes, even though I am not a big fan of Mexican food, I sucked it up and the burrito was pretty good -- maybe because I hadn't eaten all day, or maybe because I was missing Julie).

After dinner is when the fun really started and this is where I was wishing Sheryl had joined us -- she would've had a blast, and I was missing her. We wound up in another British pub (I have no idea what the name of it was) and spent the rest of the evening there. The DJ was spinning some good 80s music (mixed in with some Elvis and other oldies - which we thought was strange) and he was also taking requests.  We wanted to hear Madonna, so I asked the DJ to play "Like a Virgin" -- here is our DJ friend posing with us (and Flat Stanley - who was sent to me for a visit by my nephew, Zachary).

And here is a pic of me, Eric and Lailany -- once we remembered I had a camera, we were taking tons of pics (fortunately for you, my dear readers, I'll only be posting a few here)!


Pretty soon, we were partying and dancing with a bunch of people in the pub. These two guys were crazy drunk and a lot of fun (Sheryl, you would've died!).

I think they were dancing to "Down Under" here

We had stopped dancing long enough to pose with Minnie Mouse and this guy (who had a crush on Lailany)

Ummm, what was Minnie doing in a pub?!

A couple of hours later, we were greeted by the Hong Kong Police! I guess they were there to arrest someone or raid the place or something, but we asked them if they would pose for a picture with us and Flat Stanley (and they did!).

Eric, me and Flat Stanley with Hong Kong's finest

After the DJ played "Like a Virgin" -- yes, hours after I had requested it (even after a 2nd and 3rd request), we decided to head out and "home" -- me with a camera full of approximately 60 pictures!