Part One: “It’s always interesting when Simon’s in town”

[Friday 4th July 2008]

Wise words spoken by the sage old guru that is Pies. Simon (eventually) left yesterday morning (oddly enough, not on the flight onto which he was actually booked, but more on that later) after flying in from Thailand for a 10-day visit on his way back to England after almost 11 months’ travelling.

It all began with me having to break the unfortunate news that he wouldn’t be able to stay with us due to the lack of separate rooms at the serviced apartment place (you remember the glass-walled bathroom, I’m sure) so he tried to get in touch with another girl he knows who lives here. Which proved somewhat unsuccessful (and it then transpired that her flat had been rendered pretty much un-liveable by the torrential rain of June, so no go either way!)

Cue frantic text to me asking me to track down and book the cheapest hostel I could find for him and his ex-girlfriend (now friend) who was coming with him. Er, ok. Never booked a hostel in my life – can you really see me roughing it with a backpack?? – and don’t really know what to look for/not look for, but sure! Turns out hostels aren’t something they have a lot of here, but the ones they do don’t present themselves hugely well on the internet and are not really helped by the crazy conflicting reviews; i.e. some people would give a place 10/10 “best hostel ever”, while the same place would score 2/10 “only go here if you’re an entomologist and want to study the cockroaches” from someone else! Aaaarrrggghh! In the end I phoned a place that was in The Rough Guide, was HK$150 (£10) a night and hoped they’d be too tired to notice if it was dirty/noisy/had rodent neighbours.

They arrived, with far more luggage than I thought you’re supposed to have as a smelly, soap-dodging backpacker (they had decided they were ‘flash’-packers instead, apparently) and I took them to Causeway Bay to the hostel. Which, apart from having no air con in the lifts, didn’t seem too shabby for a tenner each. I then proceeded to expose my severe lack of local geographical knowledge by leading them on a merry search for a pub called the Horse & Groom (looking back now, I’m not even sure what was so special about that particular pub...) We eventually happened upon said drinking establishment amidst an unnecessary amount of flashing pink neon, opposite a place called ‘Coyote’s’ and was nearly the only shopfront not promising ‘model dancers’. Whether they were models who danced or t’other way round, I will of course make a special trip back there to discover; I don’t want it to keep you awake at night.

Beers duly ordered, we caught up for an hour or so, by which time the two of them looked like they might just sleep in the bar if we didn’t make a move. And all went smoothly for two days (hostel wasn’t terrible, and Simon managed to get them a couple of Octopuses so they could negotiate the MTR over to our apartment to use the free internet – free because it’s in our apartment and Lehman are footing the rent bill!) Smoothly until the ex-girlfriend didn’t want to come and look at flats with me (which is perfectly fine – unless you’re nosy [like me] there’s nothing worse than trawling round houses for rent/sale especially when they’re not even for you).

Simon, on the other hand, is very nosy, so they made plans for her to join us later, after we’d met Brian, my fourth real estate ‘friend’, and his three real estate friends (not entirely sure why they were all needed; including Simon and me, there were six of us cramming into the tiny lifts and filing into apartments). I just lapped it up and enjoyed pretending to be J-Lo/Mariah for an hour or two, with my own entourage…

My little brother was somewhat short on cash (to anyone that knows Simon, this will come as no great surprise) as he was nearing the end of his travels, so I suggested I make some pasta for dinner instead of eating out again. Unfortunately when Simon texted this to the ex, a slight misunderstanding came to light: she thought they’d already arranged to go for pizza and so wasn’t really interested in home-made pasta. She said she’d go to the cinema, would see Simon after dinner and all was well.

Or so we thought. Simon got back to the hostel at about half ten and she wasn’t there. Nor was she there at midnight (which is quite unusual for her and she’s not a big drinker). By 1:15am Simon was beginning to worry as she wasn’t responding to his texts or subsequent phonecalls. Having called the police (and been told you have to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person report) he texted her parents to check if they’d heard from her and at 1:40am, he called Colin and I. (I think there was some growling when Colin picked up the phone.) I also forgot to mention that this was the day that Typhoon Signal 8 was raised for the first time – i.e. probably best not to be outside; otherwise the panic level would probably have been lower.

When I phoned Simon back to tell him where the nearest police station and hospital were, it transpired that finally, she had arrived back, unharmed and asking why she’d had texts from both her parents asking if she was OK. Turned out that after the cinema, she’d gone for pizza with a couple of people from the hostel and didn’t see what the fuss was about.

The typhoon pretty much scuppered any outdoor plans we had for the next four/five days (which typically, are the cheapest kind of plans) and also meant that repeated attempts to go to HK Disneyland by the two of them were also thwarted, but we did manage to find IKEA (hurrah!) and go out drinking on the Friday night. Which was also the night that Colin lost his iPhone. Which wasn’t actually Simon’s fault (thankfully!), but just happened while he was here!

So the days were filled with window shopping excursions in a variety of malls across Hong Kong island and Kowloon, a lot of ‘buying-one-coffee-and-making-it-last’ – including discovering ‘Charlie Brown’s Café’ in Tsim Sha Tsui – and a 3-kilometre walk around the Peak. In 35° heat and 85% humidity. Well, I couldn’t not show him any sights! (More on this with lots of pictures to come in a separate blog.)

Then there were a few drinks and a tasty cigar (for Simon rather than me) on his last night, and before I knew it we were saying our farewells at the airport bus stop. (Not wanting to waste any further money on a hostel bed that he’d have to vacate at 4:30/5am to check-in for his 8am flight, Simon had decided to pass the hours between two and six in the airport so as to have an extra $150 to spend on beer. My brother, ladies and gentlemen.) I, on the other hand, had to run extremely fast after hearing them announce the last tube was about to leave, got home and then fell asleep hoping Simon wouldn’t pass out somewhere and miss his flight.