Tubthumping – this is probably one of the best songs that describes a typical night out with friends from work. Which is not to say that we always aim to go out with the intention of pissing the night away but sometimes it’s a necessary evil.

It is our way of de-stressing from a darining week at work. Our way of pausing to enjoy the start of the weekend. To do some major biartching of almost everyone and everything under the sun. Drinking with a group is definitely way more fun than just doing solo drinks (which is damn sad!). And everytime we step out, there is a story/scandal that is almost guaranteed to happen.

From Jan till now there have been: People looking like the red skull (you know who you are!), to people being gloriously happy (DT), to people falling on our faces (yours truly), stumbling into a cab (almost everyone), people groping other people (hah!) to having fugue states (man oh man), to even not making it home (AY! – where the hell did you go?) – secrets have been spilled, new stories cemented and most gloriously yet, memories have not been restored.

But do we have a smashing time? Hell yeah! We’re like the PR equivalent of Anthony Bourdain – only we don’t host shows and get paid a way lot less. Details…bah!

What is starting to worry me is – what will happen if no one’s there? What if our guardian angels decide to take a break and were not watching us while we keeled over or did the Jimi Hendrix? Am I being paranoid? Well, realistic actually. I think we have to start being more aware of how much we can drink and always make sure that there’s someone who can help us home if we can’t.

There is something to be said for having safety in numbers while drinking. It’s great to have friends who are able to help send you home or even wait till you sober up enough to see yourself home. To that, I’m endlessly thankful. However, I think sooner or later, we need to assign one or two ‘safe’ people. These are the people who will make sure you get stuffed into a cab when you can’t even spell your name or be there for you. One day, we should be the ones who’d be sending the Roo-ster home drunk too…it’s only fair.

Belle and I have had our little safety measure in place for years and it’s helped us through many a party night. It’s the One Drunk rule which means that we take turns. That way, if one of us gets totally smashed, they can be assured that the other one will haul their ass home. It’s a good rule and one that works.

I think we should start implementing this for the office drinks too – buddies for everyone! Start partnering up, people! And no funny business...if you know what I mean...

I’m back from a whirlwind trip to Hong Kong. Am still a frog – it’s my personal tell for tiredness. I must say, HK during sale period is bloody madness! The good news? It’s a shopper’s paradise where almost everything and the kitchen sink is discounted. The bad news? The weather just about killed the lot of us traveling from one place to another.

But what I really enjoyed this trip was that I was able to finally see HK at my own pace. Check out the photos! I can now make recommendations of where to go. The last time, we just ran from one place to another without pausing to explore – I hardly knew where I was half the time!. This time round, we stayed in the Metropark Mongkok which was easy access to the trains. What almost made up for the appalling weather was the cute bellboy when we arrived which is a bonus good (no pictures, he declined a photo. Ooo!) Must train Teresia not to faint at the sight of cute guys, though. Otherwise, we took our time at the various shopping places, pausing for great dessert moments and went to some places which not many people have been to.

Then there were the unforgettable moments, (of which we had many but I’ll restrict myself to 10):

1. Food & dessert – Thank god for the endless walking cos we’d never work off the appalling amount of food we stuffed ourselves with! I decided to forego the Krispy Kremes this time due to heatstroke.
2. Na’s apartment – Is smaller than my bedroom and costs twice as much!!! She also has an aircon that sounds like a plane taking off – I could never sleep with noise like that. Am very proud of her for doing the internship and finding independence in HK.
3. Shopping – ROCKS! I ‘heart’ H&M. I need to take my sister shopping here and gosh…I ‘heart’ everything! I usually hate shopping but not taking advantage of the sale is just stupid.
4. The beach – Yes, there are beaches in HK and they are gorgeous. Hello beach bunnies, hello gorgeous men, hello, hello, hello! The one scary thing? It’s only public showers so everyone has to shower in the open (to the delight of lecherous ah peks everywhere). Shameless exhibitionists love this though and take it as some sort of Sports Illustrated shoot…which irritated the crap out of me.
5. The Peak – offers one of the best city views. Ever. It gave me the chills because of its sheer height and the tram ride was bloody scary. Thanks to the enormous guy who stood in front of us…imagine an elephant falling on you at while you were climbing up at 45 degrees? Fuck.
6. Sunday mass – dang near killed us. The first church we went to was packed to gills and they thought I was Filipino – hookaay. The second church we went to, took us halfway up the Peak – which would’ve been a great workout – if we had breakfast first. Honestly, by the time I got there, I had no clue what was going on and kneeling on the floor was one way of preventing myself from falling over.
7. Lama island – is like Singapore’s Pulau Ubin. Damn nostalgic looking – we only went there for dinner – Honestly, who the hell could hike the island in summer?! Are you MAD?!
8. DIY facials – are the perfect way to end off a long, hard day of shopping. It recharged the batteries and made us look good the next day
9. Friends – we caught up with almost everyone who was in HK. And amazingly, there were A LOT of people to meet…sadly, we couldn’t squeeze in everyone but, it was fantastic to meet up with long-lost friends J
10. Disclaimer – contrary to popular belief, I did not pick up Terence in Geylang. When and how he got there has nothing to do with me.

Sadly, we didn’t make it to salsa but, I finally got to see HK and make a new friend in Teresia. The family madness which was Alicia, Na and me almost killed the lot of people we met but, we made an impression, lah!

The fact that we almost missed the flight back home and delayed the plane by 15mins was only a tiny glitch in an otherwise fantastic holiday.