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Published: April 27th 2007
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The Birthday Burger!
Happy Birthday too you.... It was like going back to school for us. We were off to stay in Hong Kong for the next five days with our favourite tutor from school, Miss Lees, or Paula as we call her now. Although i lost count of the number of times Sam called her 'miss' in everyday situations. Now, to most kids this would sound like an unbearable nihtmare, but we all knew why our Drama books were never marked and handed back to us on time. Paula loved to go out and party and enjoy the spice in life - this was going to be no detention.
Paula met us at the airport with open arms, what a delight it was to see her after so long! We took the train over to Hong Kong island which gave us the chance quiz Paula about life in Hong Kong , and more importantly - is her tutor group as good as ours was? Don't be stupid. She was shocked, interested and laughed after revealing what the rest of our old tutor group members were getting up to. What we've always loved about Paula is her bluntness with things, and respones like 'yeah i knew
Shau Kei Wan
Getting used to the beautiful chinese writing was going to be fun.... she wouldn't hack it and turn out a bit like that' had us all in stitches. Not sure if i really want to know what my teachers actually thought of me now....
We were then driven to Paula's boudouire in a little village called Shek-O, about 20 minutes outside central Hong Kong. The village was fairly high up in the mountainous region, and the view from our tents on the rooftop of her house offered stunning views of the 'dragon's back' hilltop and the south China sea. The beautiful beach just a one minute walk away added to a certain meditterenean feel and not the bustling bright lights of Hong Kong central area - awesome.
The original, planned idea to Jona that after Bangkok myself, Al and Samwise we're leaving him and heading to Hong Kong and China for the next month was obviously too much for the man . So he booked a flight to nearby Macau for the same day and would take a bus and catch up with us later in the evening. But as we lay down to bed in our rooftop tents, there was still no sign of the jayman. I was alertly
Rooftop view
Beats the view of Cotham Lawn road i suppose... woken up at i think 1am, by a shadow of someone unzipping my tent and a dark face and a flail of arms attacking me. I bolted up right like a soldier who had fallen asleep on duty, and jumped on him and layed a few Frank Bruno's on this man who i thought was going for me and my belongings. As i stirred to a state of full awakeness, i stopped. Jona had just arrived and his calls of 'Dunc,Dunc!' from underneath my shoulders had made me realise and stop. Sorry mate. He told a great story of how he managed to arrive in Hong Kong in good time, but taking hours to find an internet cafe to access our message and unhelpful locals, he hadn't arrived in the Shek-O village till 12am. No street names and house numbers didn't help, still in mind that it was pitch black with noone around, he arrived somewhat flustered and extremely relieved one hour later. A great way to start off on your birthday!
Yes, we all woke up the next morning on a special day for Jona. For his 19th birthday Paula had a whole day planned out, starting with,
Playtime at lunch time
Those memories kept flooding back... a much awaited English fry-up. Yes please, sunny side down, thanks.
We hopped on the underground MRT to head into the city centre, first heading to the Chinese travel agency to get our visa's for China, then we had arranged to meet Paula at her international school where she worked at 1pm. As we passed through the front gates and crossed the playground, our heads were filled with fond, fun memories. Balls flying passed your head, the popular crew hanging out on the picnic benches, the giggling girls in the corner, even though we found ourselves on the other side of the world - somethings never change! A few of us suddenly felt a strange sense of self-conciousness, or maybe that was just Samwise. He was sporting some oversized, baggy, buddhist orange linen trousers and must have caught the eye of the school bully or some young, pretty girls - the usual 'too cool for school/heart throb' Sam Rawlings, suddenly felt like the odd one out and wanted to hide in the toilets!
After grabbing a school dinner of tuna and cheese panini with a mango smoothie, hardly your burger and soggy chips from Cotham, we were escorted
Right, that's lunch.
Pass the mustard Al. by Paula to her drama studio for year 12's performace of King Lear. I didn't know what the story was about and by the end I still didn't know, funny that, but we all agreed they displayed a great performance with some very talented acting, although it was 'lacking diction and projection' Samwise commented at the end. Idiot. There was one more thing to see before we left, we were taken up to the school roof, Paula half looking for any skivers, this was the place they go we were told. We could see why, standing on top of the school gave some of the best views of Hong Kong, the world renowned bank of China glistening in the clear blue sky, with other beautifully architected sky risers surrounding the school. Not a bad place for a young student's first kiss i thought.
We then whisked back to Shek-O to slip into a few gladrags and sip on some early beers, before heading into the centre for some birthday celebrations. We hit a highly reccommened burger bar, and blowing out a few candles as Jona made his wish before we all tucked into our 100% New Zealand beef burgers.
April
The B2B Callendar will be available in our Autumn collection. But that wasn't it, Paula had made one last suprise for the day up her sleeve. She had organised for some of her 6th formers to join us and show us all a good night out on the town in Hong Kong. Word had spread, our they had seen a few great pics of us in our travel blogs (probably), as we made our way to the bars along with 9 very good looking young ladies.
Happy Birthday we all thought. Thank you all ladies, as they fully achieved the goal of giving us a great night and a very good ending to Jona's birthday, even if we were misguided in to some alternative bars and heavily imbiebed. We even manged to fit in a very competetive, semi-concious game of basketball at 3am with some willing locals. 4-3! Slam Dunk! Jona was our man of the match, mainly due to the fact he fell over the least, but did swoosh a very attractive 3 pointer.
On our final day before we left to tackle China, Paula took us to her favourite fortune teller. As we got ready to be told our future, we all thought of the one
Captain Corelli and Co.
A few pre dinner drinks and sing song on the rooftop in Shek-O question we wanted to ask the wiseman, something we hadn't experienced before! The answers I cannot reveal, for you will have to ask each of the lads what they were told about their future destinies. Everyone walked out with smiles on their faces though, but if you're petite,brown hair and spanish born, watch out on October 23rd, as Jona could be right behind you with a bouquet of red roses....
We left Paula and her wife Jessica in our quest to head north, not before a great last meal cooked by Sam and Jona to celebrate our renion and great times spent with them. We thank you again, and hope to re-live more great times in the future!!!!!
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Nanou et Christian
non-member comment
Bonjour en passant
La vie n'est-elle pas trop difficile Samuel ? Les bras déployés... c'est parce que ça plane pour toi ? :-) Merci pour tes nouvelles qui nous ont fait très plaisir. A bientôt et bonne fin de voyage.