A serious event in Hong Kong

It is now 1am On November the 2nd, and I am watching TV with Nikki. She is staying with me for a week and then will travel to a different friends floor for a further week. This is a cycle that will continue till she can move back into her flat at the start of December. It's quite nice to have her back, so I don't mind having her. Plus I am basically providing a charitable service to a homeless person, so i'm sure good karma will result.

Halloween 2008 has now been and gone in Hong Kong. It is an event that is taken very seriously here and is one of the best nights of the year. My theory is that generally people in Hong Kong are quite uptight, the community consists of bankers and lawyers and a largely conservative local Chinese base. So on Halloween everyone seems to take advantage of an excuse to have fun on a large scale.

Whilst mentioning bankers, it was a banker friend of mine called Matt who offered to host a Halloween party at his flat. However, during the organizing of the event it became apparent that we might be inviting too many people, and needed a larger space. It was at this point that someone who knew Matt offered his flat as an alternative venue, which Matt explained as being 'quite a large place'.

Well large does not describe it. When I walked into the flat my mouth almost hit the floor, the place was massive on almost a ridiculous scale. It was possibly larger than my family house in England, but it was in the mid-levels of Hong Kong. A very exclusive area. I could not begin to put a price on the place but it was clear that the owner must have a great deal of money. Walking around the flat you could see some pictures the owner was displaying on electronic photo frames. At first they all looked like normal family pictures, they contained relaxed settings and images of children and a man who I later discovered to be the owner of the flat. Except that when you looked closer, you could see that there were additional guests in the photos. Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, George Bush Senior, the Chinese presidents and various other dignitaries all featured in the family shots. This guy was clearly well connected.

However, whilst the owner of the flat did seem to have an abundance of money and power, he thankfully did not seem to have an abundance of character or manners. This was something that the rest of the guests at the party did have, so I left the venue not feeling the slightest bit jealous.

And now, onto the pictures.




bx

ps I am aware I look pretty much the same as I did last year, my original plan was going to go as dead Steve Irwin but I was told that this would be insensitive.

pps I am trying something new with my pictures, if you can't view them you need to download software called flash player. Let me know if you can't see them