Dragons and Jet Lag

Yesterday started off promising, as Cymerman, Kaplan and I saw our first sunshine of the trip. We ate a big lunch at a restaurant with a panoramic view of the Hong Kong city skyline. It was hard to focus while we were eating, because the whole time an enormous grumpy looking fish stared us down from his death tank.

The atmosphere was a bit stuffy for our shorts and T shirts, and we didn’t help matters by deciding to play Lazy Susan Roulette for the last dumpling. I spun the wheel too hard and all of the food and plates flew off of the lazy susan, crashing down onto the table. The staff and fellow patrons seemed less amused than we were. Must be a cultural thing.

After lunch we headed down to the riverfront to watch the Hong Kong dragon boat festival. It's a 2 day festival with teams of all age categories from all over the world competing against each other. Barges lined the center of the river to block off the wake so that the boats could race down a 500 meter course, and crowds filled grandstands that lined the side of the river. The festival was sponsored by San Miguel, a Philippino beer, which leads us to the next part of our story...

San Miguel set up a beer garden adjacent to race course filled with promotional activities and kiosks to buy beer. We grabbed a few beers and sat down on the dragon boat themed bleachers. Just as we were ready to get on our way to the next destination, we heard the whispers of a what seemed to be a rambunctious man yelling in Chinese on a microphone from a distance. Cantonese is about as foreign a language to me as any in this world, but from the excitement in this man's voice I knew we were not far from one of two things: an auction or an eating contest.

In the middle of the beer garden, a table was set up on a stage surrounded by speakers. On top of the table were four devices not much different looking than the scales we used in high school chemistry lab. Or college chemistry lab if you didn’t take Geology 100 to fulfill your Physical World requirement. When the beer was removed from the device by a contestant, a timer was set off that subsequently stopped when the beer was placed back down. A carefully measured yard of beer was propped up on each of these stations, and a commentator stood to the side to give a scintillating play-by-play to the audience. He was speaking very fast in very not-english, so he could have been saying anything, really. Steve C. and I made a bet for the loser to pay for the winner's dinner.

Nerves were high as we walked up to the stage. My heart was in my throat. I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of the small crowd of 100 or so gathered around the stage. Steve, Jeff, me, and small middle-aged Asian male managed to get into the last heat of the day. As the commentator yelled "GO!" we each grabbed our yards of beer and began chugging. I started FAST, and things were going so well that I figured I might be able to get the whole thing down in one gulp. But just as I got to the last ounce, either an air-bubble exploded (think the boot in beerfest) or I choked, because the beer exploded all over me. The commentator did not seem to notice, and I put the glass down well ahead of all the others and was declared champion. Never mind the contest, my focus immediately turned to fighting off the opposing forces battling inside of me. In retrospect, I missed a golden opportunity.

It hit me soon after the contest that any video of a beer chugging contest in a foreign country with three American tourists competing against a small middle-aged Asian male, in which one competitor downs his yard of beer twice as fast as any of the others and immediately projectile vomits all over the stage while speakers blare as a live commentator screams to the audience in Chinese... is a mortal lock to become a youtube sensation. If there were a formula for a viral video, this pretty much hit all of the marks. This may have been my one shot at world-wide fame and I blew it. I apologize to all of our loyal readers for the oversight. I clocked the fastest time of the day, and if the time holds in the top 2 after tomorrow I win a large crystal trophy that says San Miguel King of Beer Drinking. Not really sure how I'd get that one home.

After the contest, we headed to Mong Kok, the most densely populated region of the world, to sift through some of the fake crap in their street markets. Highlights included Steve C. spending 45 minutes looking through fake designer belts before deciding not buy one, and a bunch of other things I didn’t witness because I decided to go back to the hotel early. Street market shopping with Steve and Jeff is a truly insufferable experience. Also, Angry Bird apparel is apparently big over here (or maybe they just think it's big in America?). Either way there were Angry Bird themed T-shirts, hats, slippers, lighters, USB cords, etc.).

Jet lag hit us hard and between the three of us we hadn’t slept one full night's sleep since the day before we left for our trip, so we were too tired to really enjoy our last night in Hong Kong . After meeting Jen and her brother for dinner, we headed back to the hotel, napped, had a failed attempt at going out (complete with some testy emotions - but not to worry, BHHN group dynamic is once again strong as ever!), then had our best night's sleep of the trip (6 whole hours). Macau later today. Can't wait.