Memorable Night

I spent an unforgettable night with three English people. Emma, Adam, and Louise. It was the first time I wasn't wearing my age on my face and gestures and words around people who were older than me. We go to Lan Kwai Fong, a hip and happenin' place filled up to the brim with bars, clubs, and restaurants. That's the thing about Hong Kong, if there's one bar in the area...there's a lot of them. If there's one flower shop, the whole rest of the street is flower shops. Shim Shui Po is full of electronics. A place a little off of Prince Edward is concentrated in just flowers. Tsim Sha Tsui, at the tip, is all about museums and culture. And Lan Kwai Fong is nightlife. We stop by a chill joint for some meat, clams, noodles, and veggies. And the bunch I'm with is incredibly open and seem to love anything they put into their mouths. I was surprised at how into it they were because a lot of people I know aren't as adventurous as they were. Pig intestines, cow stomach, and chicken feet...oh my! There's always this moment of hesitation usually...maybe even refusal to eat anything unfamiliar. But they were nothing like that. We were talking about the limitations of that kind of lifestyle, how small people's worlds are in that way...even IF it's just the world of food. Then I spoke to the waitress in cantonese and the English bunch was all into that...saying "wow that's so cool" and how cantonese is such a beautiful language. beautiful?! unheard of. All I've ever heard of was "Cantonese is too harsh" or "Cantonese sounds like cats fighting" and I started to believe that. But they had mentioned how much harsher Mandarin was actually. We all agreed by the end it depended on the person who spoke it. (My mom, for example, is not all that...let's say...gentle with it).
We also talked about the bombings of the London Tube a year ago. I didn't know the magnitude of it but they exchanged stories back and forth...Emma being one of the people in London and near those stations at the time. Then Adam tells us his story about being in one of the corporate buildings right near the towers on 9/11. We all perked up our ears and he described the experience little by little. The first plane crashes...but nobody says anything. nobody even notices..they go about doing their work. He says...when you're that close to something, you're sometimes the last one to know it's happened. Of course, he was on the other side of the tower...seeing only smoke and papers flying out. As he continues looking out the window (he being one of the few while others are going about normal business), he notices a plane flying really low and says, "that plane's not going to make it!" (thinking, for one irrational second, that maybe the plane was going to try to squeeze in between the towers or maybe try to just make it over the top of them). It crashes. This time, people notice and watch. The evacuation alarm goes off immediately and everyone scrambles to leave the buildings. Adam was the last one to leave....and sees even more paper flying out of the building and even dead weights...which disgusted him. Then the least expected thing...the towers start to collapse. So he jets on out of there and runs through the dust...he's covered in a full layer of it...but not the way a lot of other people were who couldn't even see out of their own eyes. He somehow finds his boss who lives in upper Manhattan and stays there for the night, unable to go back to his apartment which is in the apartment building only two blocks off of the towers. Anyway...my mouth was open the whole time...in disbelief that I heard this story from a person who truly experienced it. It never truly struck home for me...it was big and people talked about it but they were all regurgitations ...and not the real thing like Adam's story was. So I just sat and let it sink.
Later on that night, us girls go to a club called "California Tower" which was the only club playing hip hop music (what is it with these countries and techno?!) and danced the night away. Then we notice this Indian dood...who was by far...the greatest of us all. He stole the show for sure - a little of a healthy man....ok....thick...and wore glasses and smiled really big, dancing his BIG moves and looking all goofy but loving every bit of it. Then all of us girls went big too and all of us looked so ridiculous...to the point where we didn't notice we looked ridiculous anymore. He didn't give one rat's ass that anyone was watching him....I loved that. At one point, I was doing some crazy Indian dance move with him and was mucho satisfied enough to call it a night.