Living the high life

---

To celebrate surviving our first week, we decided to put on our glad rags and head to the world’s highest bar in what must have been Hong Kong’s swankiest hotel, The Ritz Carlton. Having our taxi door opened for us, been lead to the lobby and into the uber cool, mirrored lift (which confusingly had no buttons inside it) and welcomed into the bar I felt like someone who could actually afford to stay there!



I did manage to smash a glass which prompted the staff to come over shining a torch at me, expecting the worst, I was thinking I would have to pay for the glass or leave or even both; to my surprise the staff took me to one side and checked my hand and asked me if I was ok, did I have any cuts, did I need the first aid kit! Fortunately, only my pride was hurt.



The cocktails were expensive but delicious and the view certainly made the $15 service charge per drink feel like a bargain. We looked like such tourists, taking pictures of the view through the window as everyone sat around us quietly sipping their drinks and making polite conversation, my twelve-year-old self felt quite out of place! That was soon to be rectified when the rest of the group arrived.



Girl A (I’m just too nice to mention names) arrived after having drank a bottle and a half of rice wine and was soon found collapsed on the bar between two Germans. The staff, who had obviously been trained to deal with these situations without making a fuss and ruining the experience of other clients, quietly came over and told one of our directors that her friend was “a bit ill.”



Being the martyr that I am (all lies, I wanted to leave and go to bed anyway), I offered to help another girl take 6ft girl A back to our accommodation. What should have been a twenty-five minute taxi ride ended up taking over an hour, two taxis, a train and a spot of sprinting…

---