Sunday, April 01, 2007

When I was in uni, I used to hang out with a bunch of stupid girls, much like myself, seeking out all the ladies nights and happy hours in town. Our favourite hangouts included Graffiti and 97 in Lan Kwai Fong, Hot Gossip on Canton Road, JJ's at the Hyatt, Joe Bananas, Neptune and the New Makati in Wanchai...etc.... well you get the picture. I thought those places were dire as fuck but didn't stop me from going three four times a week. That's how dire I was. But I never went to the sevens though, not once.

My girlfriends would go to the sevens, as they would go on junk trips and bbqs and parties in someguy's 400 sq feet apartment in Happy Valley. I never saw the attraction of the sevens, even though I was am a big fan of alcoholic beverages.

Well this weekend, for the first time, I actually sat still, sober, and watched some of the action on tv. And it was quite exciting. If I can get hold of some free tickets sure wouldn't mind going next year (ok I hear you, fat chance right?)

It's been surprisingly pleasant today. Went to church this morning and the palm sunday service was very nice. There was a slightly awkward seven minutes when bunc of people went up to do a "dramatised" reading of the passion from Luke. But other than that, it was pretty good.

Then went home, cooked eggs and sausages for brunch, baked bread and cookies, then the kids and B went to Tai Mei Duk for a wander about whilst I was supposed to get ready to go a seminar and then see a film in Tsimsi.

The seminar is on eroticism and the future of Hong Kong and some such terribly interesting and relevant topic. The film is one of the ten I am supposed to see for the HK International Film Festival. This one is a documentary about the HK homeless people's football team and their journey to the international homeless people's football championship (I'm sure it's got a more respectable name but I can't remember what it is).

Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, I fell asleep reading a few chapters from "Documents of the Christian Church" (Bettenson and Maunder eds.), and when I woke up I was groggy and grumpy and didn't really feel like dragging my ass out to TST for all that intellectual stimulation awaiting.

So I opened a beer, ate some cookies, and watched the sevens on TV, instead.

I feel slightly bad, since this would be the third film from this year's festival that I've gotten tickets for, and not went to see. Bad bad bad. The only two films I've seen so far are "London to Brighton" and "Stranger than Fiction". Both seemed terribly mainstream for a film festival, especially the latter. The other two I missed are "The art of crying" and "Red Road".

Fourteen, fifteen years ago when I first started going to the film festival, I would watch some thirty or more films within those two weeks. Skipping classes and sometimes watching three to four films a day. It is mad to think, today, now, with a job and two kids and a blog to write and bread to bake and calories to burn, I still kid myself into thinking I could yeah, sure, why not, buy tickets for ten films and reckon I'd still actually go and see them all.

Anyhow, B took the boys to After Five to watch the last few sevens matches and I went to join them. It was really nice there, in the middle of all that Taipo marketness. The beers were good, the food was good, and the staff incredibly child-friendly.

Life is good.

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