Tim's travels: King of the Kong

Oh my buddha! I have never in my life had such a wild time anywhere! Hong Kong seems to be a crazy place at the best of times, but the Sevens weekend is on a whole new level. Thousands of people descend from rugby playing countries all around the globe and go all out to have as much fun as possible for the whole weekend.

I arrived here in HK from Tokyo last Wednesday evening and checked into my hostel. The next morning I arranged to meet up with some of my old PwC colleaques who came out for the Sevens. We spent Thursday exploring some of Hong Kong and enjoyed lunch out in Stanley. That evening everything went pear-shaped! We started out in Lan Kwai Fong, the ex-pat party district, before heading to the more dubious Wan Chai. Somehow between Wan Chai and another stint in Lan Kwai fong, Scotty and I found ourselves in Kowloon (thats not even on Hong Kong Island anymore Toto!) at 9.30am and in depserate need of some sleep...

But I wasn't to be that lucky. When I finally stumbled back to my hostel I found a message to the effect that my Chinese visa application had issues and I had to go to the Consulate immediately! I queued there until 2pm before finally sorting things out... just in time to head straight to the stadium for the start of the tournament!

That rugby tournament is an event not to be missed. Everyone goes all out in dressing up in an amazing array of costumes. It starts to look like a great big gay-pride parade! I'll let the pictures do some talking but suffice to say the rugby is not the focus of proceedings and the booze certainly never stops flowing! (Oh, and thats at R50 a beer by the way, as it is throughout this crazily expensive city!). I was lucky enough - or unlucky if you're Tim's liver - to meet up with some great Aussie lads and we partied the whole weekend together.

The rugby continued through Saturday and Sunday with non-stop partying in between. I have no voice left! I would love to decribe it all more in detail but I have a flight to catch. I'll report tonight from Seoul, South Korea...