It's All A Matter Of Perspective

*inspired by the insightful la vite e bella-themed blog entry written by Pau

Friday night. Volume.
The boy sees an old acquaintance, the Entrepreneur, and playfully pokes him on the shoulder.

Entrepreneur: Hey! It's been so long. What do you do now?

Boy: I'm a fitness instructor now. I teach group exercise classes. And a few technique dance classes on the side.

Entrepreneur: You enjoy your new career?

Boy: Immensely.

Entrepreneur: Nice to hear that. Looks like you're the only person in Hong Kong that life's been treating kindly.

Boy: I'm just thankful that, in this time of recession, I am caught in a city where people invest a lot on health and vanity. They may cut down on other things, but there will always be enough budget set aside for an-hour-a-day fitness classes.

___________________

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."
-Marcus Aurelius

"...So I guess it won't hurt
to form our own opinion
and see things from our own perspective,
if only to make life less difficult to bear."
-Ryeness

Come Rain, Come Shine

These photos are of the main thoroughfare that lies about 200 meters from our place. Taken by a friend Jojo around noon on June 7 (Saturday), while on his way to the MTR station to report to work after the typhoon warning signal was hoisted down from black rain to amber.

It started pouring in the morning of Friday, June 6. Late in the afternoon of the same day, the winds started to move radically and the rains started to fall more heavily, which carried on until the following day. This heavy downfall caused the soil from the mountains beside our village and those that can be found close to Discovery Bay to erode. Our village was flooded knee-high with muddy, murky water (from the mountains, not from the sewage system like which happens a lot in Manila every now and then) and the creek nearby started to overflow.

People panicked, and some braved the rain and the flood to evacuate to the town plaza even if only for half a day, until the inclement weather would start to show some positive progress.

The roads were blocked due to the minor landslide and bus and taxi operations were paralyzed.

It all happened here in Tung Chung. The first time ever since we moved here three years ago. Some were shocked by the sudden temperamental outburst of nature; others were amused at how fast HK government responded to the emergency. Some got scared for their dear lives; others went on to take advantage of the suspension of work, and never left their beds.

Dan and I, we didn't really get to experience all these. The stories we told our friends and our families were all but stories we heard from other people. Because since the typhoon started, until it has gone hundreds of miles away from the island that it damaged, we were out on another island partying like Paris and Nicole. The biggest damage we have accounted so far are a few hundreds of dollars from our back account. Oh, and a little bit on our livers too, from the many glasses of chardonnay, cosmopolitan, champagne and all thet shit that we rained down on us at Volume. But hey! No one can blame us. You only turn 30 once! (Not me. Dan.)

Unfit For Work

Funny how my Facebook and Twitter status changed from

"wants to drink til he gets smashed but is unable to walk to the store because of his sprained left foot. :-("

to

"unfit for work. no, not the sprained foot. hangover. terrible hangover from his midweek off."

in less than 48 hours. And to think the normal recovery time for a sprain is 36 hours.

So this is what happened.

Tuesday afternoon, I twisted my foot during the show but managed to continue dancing. It didn't really hurt that bad. I even got to workout after my shows. The two people who saw exactly what happened, Pro and Nombuso, were very concerned because they thought it was a bad twist. I didn't feel anything alarming. I went home and took a nap. When I woke up, my left foot was already inflammed and I could barely walk on it. That's when I wrote "wants to drink til he gets smashed but is unable to walk to the store because of his sprained left foot. :-(". I was hoping one of my neighbors would read it and volunteer to buy me drinks. No one answered my plea for help. It was frustrating, trust me. It was my Friday and I was sitting alone in my room watching the last season of the Golden Girls with not even a can of beer or a glass of wine anywhere within my 100-meter radius. IN one of my trips to the freezer to change my ice pack, I saw the fresh 1.87 pint of Dreyer's Rocky Road. Consuming 3/4 of it by myself in 30 minutes helped soothe the frustration quite a bit.

Wednesday, around 6pm, I went to see Dr. L. He gave me Celebrex and massaged my foot a little. I took the train to Central, for free vodka Wednesdays at Volume, although I wasn't really in the mood to socialize. But I promised Josh I would be there and Steve had just gotten back from another business trip. Plus, Val was going to be there. I got to convince myself it wouldn't be bad to just sit there, have a drink, chat with friends, and then leave beofre the last train departs. On my wasy to Volume, I saw a food friend, Kelly, who invited me for dinner since it was only 7:30. A little too early to start drinking, according to him. While we were sitting at Bacar, a quaint tapas bar by the Soho escalators, we saw another good friend, Charlie, whom we hadn't seen for a while. See, Charlie is one of those people whose presence just excites me and makes me giddy. He sat down with us and later came to Volume with us.

When Kelly, Charlie and I got to Volume, the beckies were already there, probably on their fourth round of drinks. Some of them were already loud, some were flirty, some were slurring. I gave out a loud and curly "Hiiiii!" to everyone, to which Steve replied, "Friend, you dn't look the slightest bit unwilling to socialize!" Josh exclaimed, "I thought you were injured. It doesn't show!"

3 chardonnays and 2 cosmopolitans later, at around 10pm, the place was filling up with more familiar faces. Brad teased me, saying he was sure he would receive another message from me on facebook on Thursday morning saying, "I have a terrible hangover. You should have one too." Then a new friend, Theodore, made a surprise appearance as well. Just before 10:30, he instructed me to finish my drink and said we had some place to go. I obliged without any question. Before 11, was already buzzed and was saying goodbye to my friends. At this point, Charlie had already left but his impact on my general disposition that night remained with me.

About 20 minutes later, Theodore and I were on a private bus that would bring us to a secluded piece of land in the middle of West Tsim Sha Tsui. When we got there, I chuckled at the thought that the place was swamped with people fashionably dressed in black and gold. I was underdressed, and both Theo and I were in a brown ensemble. It was Diesel's fashion show. As soon as Theo showed his invite to the reception, we were escorted to the bar and were given a glass each of chilled Moët & Chandon. There was just a lot going on and there were a lot of people we both didn't wanna see, so he urged me to call Andy, a wine and spirits supplier, to ask whether we could pick up a bottle of Veuve. Andy replied in the affirmative. We then hurried out, without even finishing our drinks.

Blah, blah, bah... How it all ended, I got home at 6pm on Thursday. Hungover! But smilingly hungover.

__________

Off-tangent:

Out of extreme fatigue, I dozed off right after dinner tonight. When I woke up 30 minutes ago, I found a message on my phone which said: "Friend, are u the guy seeing Fly? Or is he seeing you? Top nga naman sya. Hehehehe!"

My response: "Twinks don't attract me. Not even the horniest of twinks. Natatawa ko pag tinitigasan sila. Pano ko magde-date ng twink? The!"