Partying it up at 7-Eleven

Unlike the rest of Southeast Asia where one can buy an alcoholic drink and consume it walking down the street, Hong Kong has a no open container law. This made things difficult when Carrie, Karen, Ben, Michelle and I just wanted to grab a quick beer from 7-Eleven and drink it as we wandered around looking for a club. However, as we looked around the store we saw that there were around a dozen other locals, Indians and Africans hanging out and drinking…it was the thing to do I guess.

Finding drinking in 7-Eleven highly amusing, we grabbed a few beers of our own and joined the fun. Within an hour of socalizing, our group had added a pair Australians and a Hong Kong resident from Nigeria named James. Based on our requests, it quickly became James’ mission to take us to a club and show us around his town. After taking us to a few that were completely closed or dead, we found ourselves going downstairs to what seemed like a good place. However, we quickly looked around and realized that it was, in fact, a brothel. The quote of the night came from one of the Aussie guys who said, “um, we definitely need to leave here. Immediately.”

A night on the town in Kowloon with our new friends that we picked up while partying at the local 7-Eleven

Finally, we found ourselves in a real and nice club in Kowloon and proceeded to dance and hang out until nearly 4am. Surrounded by locals, they all took turns trying to show off their dance moves for us. A classic evening in the world of travel.

On a different note, the club also gave me a disturbing insight into the racial divide in Hong Kong. James and I were the first to arrive and he quickly went over to talk to the bouncer and get us in for free. At first, the bouncer wanted nothing to do with James and basically shooed him away like a peasant trying to enter a palace. However, as soon as the rest of the group of Westerners came around the corner the scene changed. All of a sudden the bouncer was shaking James’ hand and leading us in with his arm around James’ shoulder. Racism at its finest.