Durian is Disgusting

Today was study-day. After thoroughly enjoying the first two days of our holiday weekend, I decided it was probably time to get work done-- especially since I have two marketing simulation projects coming to a close next week.

Jen's friend Max got in town on Wednesday night. He previously went to American University in DC (where bumper stickers say "Taxation without Representation") and decided to take a semester off to save money for 4 months of travel. He started his travels on April 2 in Tokyo and plans to finish by August in India. Nuts! Anyway, on Thursday night we met him in East Tsim Sha Tsui for "Crazy Hour" at Sticky Fingers. It's not a gay bar like George originally thought when he was in HK, but just a place to get "crazy" cheap drinks for $19HK ($2.43US) between 6-8pm. After we wandered through TST, we decided to take him to Good Luck Thai in LKF for good food and people-watching. From there we had mojitos (my second favorite mixed drink behind margaritas!) at La Bodega-- a bar that advertised "Mojito Night" without having any kind of special for mojitos. I was confused.


On Friday Jen and I went to Wan Chai to catch the end of the Olympic Torch Relay. Prior to arriving in Hong Kong, the torch was in Ho Chi Minh City, and its arrival marked the start of the relay through China. Well, we goofed. Somehow we thought the closing ceremony would be open to the public at the conclusion of the race... and it wasn't. So we went all that way, through thousands of people to just see... well, Chinese people wearing red. I'll have to steal some pictures from friends who actually saw the torch go by.

Bummed, Jen and I went to Soho (our favorite spot in Central) to shop on Hollywood Road. On the way, we walked through an alley market-- a great reminder that we ARE in Asia.




Can we just take a moment to notice how BUFF the butcher is? Oh yeah... and there's a bucket of skin under the table. But most of the time, Hong Kong looks like New York or some other magnificently western city. Most of the time.

Max joined us for dinner in Soho and we finished the night at Makumba, the African bar I went to earlier in the semester.

Max had better pictures on his camera, but this'll give you a taste of their moves that night. Oh, and to Jen's right, you can see the flirty couple that we loved to watch. The guy had some serious good slow dance moves, but as soon as the tempo picked up, he returned to his more nerdy state of uncoordination. But man! When the music was slow, Jen and I kept looking at each other saying, "Where are the Steve(n)'s?!"

Oh, so back to the reason I wrote this post. Max came to campus today to do laundry, tour and have dinner at Uni-Bar. If you visited me in Hong Kong, I would have taken you to Uni-Bar too. Especially since we figured out that we can sit at the back table and keep refilling our wine glasses with our under-the-table bottle from Park 'N' Shop. Sweet!

After Uni-Bar we took Max to Honeymoon Dessert... mostly so we could finally try durian, a popular Asian fruit. Durian (see picture below) is quite distinct both in look and smell. Quoting Wikipedia, "... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia." Ok, well maybe it's SUPPOSED to be banned, but we've definitely smelled it all around town.

Ok, by that description, you shouldn't be surprised that the taste was quite disgusting. I think my favorite quote of the night came from Jen after dinner. She said, "I just burped durian! F* durian!" I couldn't stop laughing because as soon as Jen started burping, we followed... which made it even funnier.

So needless to say I think my day started as well as it ended. Studying = terrible. Durian = terrible. Nonetheless, good company made for a good night.