Junk!

A (Typical?) Saturday in Hong Kong

After "breakfast pockets" (egg sandwich) and a smoothie around 6:30am (still struggling with resetting my internal clock to local time), we packed up and headed by taxi to Aberdeen to the Aberdeen Marina Club. Today was the day I would finally experience a junk boat. (example)

Apparently, junk boats are a favorite weekend activity among expats in HK. Someone rents out a boat and invites thirty of his friends. An invitee might know only 1 or 2 people on the boat. Everyone gathers at a port, then you go out for the day, around 6 hours, including a stop for food on an island and an anchored stop for swimming, waterboarding, tubing, etc. The junk brings a small motorboat with it for the water sports. Sometimes these excursions are free, but usually each invitee has to pay to come. Everyone brings drinks to share, as well as snacks and pool toys and music.

We arrived at the Marina Club early, and people slowly arrived in small groups and did introductions. ("Are you here for Dan's junk boat?" "Yeah." "Hi, I'm ______.") We went out on the boat and chugged out of the harbor, while the kids on the boat got to know each other and chatted. There was a covered open lower area, as well as an upper deck with an awning. We first headed to the island of Poi Toi for lunch at a restaurant whose name still eludes me. After disembarking, we followed a convoluted trail from the dock into the trees, behind cement and tin structures and around back of the restaurant, passing an ENORMOUS spider in a web.

Separated into three round tables covered in plastic, we ate fresh seafood family-style as it came out of the kitchen (slowly and sporadically). We had prawns, calamari (cuddlefish), razor clams, sweet n sour chicken, steamed grouper, baby bok choy, and broccoli, and there were several large bottles of Tsing Tao and Bonaqua (water) for the table. A few people wanted to use the bathrooms on the island, but were warned by the locals not to and avoided it. When we had finished (the meal with drinks worked out to 200 HK dollars a person, or about $24), we trooped back to the boat for our next destination - swimming! (We ended up having to wait for the motorboat to return to the island to retrieve one of the junk guests who had been left on the island by accident.)

The junk took us back out into the water, and we put down anchor near a couple other similarly sized boats. With the exception of a few sunbathers lounging on the top deck, everyone jumped, hopped, and slid into the salty water with beer cans and wine glasses. A few people went in the motorboat to go wakeboarding. Using the lifesaver rings and pool noodles, we floated near the junk and chatted for what seemed like several hours. Every once in a while, we would swim sideways to avoid the toilet side of the boat. All around us were islands rising up out of the water, covered in green with a few tall apartment buildings or exensive houses and the ocassional pagoda-type resting structure. Eventually we had to climb out of the water, and use a fresh water shower on the edge to rinse off the salt. Everyone settled in for the ride back to the harbor, tired and happy.

M and I dragged back to the apartment and slept for a few hours. After Thai takeout dinner, we headed out to a bar to meet up with some people from the junk boat around midnight. We started at a swanky bar called Tivo, then pit stopped at a kebab restaruant before moving on to the Lan Kwai Fong district's Als Diner (an American-style bar) where we intercepted a bachelorette party and acquired a white feather boa and blinking devil horns. There also seemed to be a "Fancy Dress Party" (the British way to say costume party) going on, and we ran into some clowns, including Ronald McDonald, and a few other oddly costumed people. After Als, we headed to the Wan Chai district to hit up Carnegies, where bar-goers are encouraged to dance on the shiney wooden bar. After Carnegies we stopped in a 3rd floor nightclub called Traffik, and finished out the night watching a great cover band at Dusk til Dawn. The band played "Teenage Dirtbag" among other favorites, and we had a great time. Around 4:30am, we called it quits, climbing into a taxi cab back to Midlevels.

I'm still pulling tangled white feathers out of my hair. Jeepers.