The Last day of the Ministerial was very very very long. I was there from the early hours of the morning--though I took a lunch break and went to Victoria´s Peak to grab a bite (great view but as most places in HK, from the airport to religious relics, there was an ugly shopping mall of course, selling stupid shit. PS: check out the blog called: "HK: A Big Shopping mall, a.k.a city of the future¨ for more on the malls)
and came back to find out that the final decleration was going to happen but noone new what time would that be.
Whole afternoon, while waiting, kept myself busy working on audio editing and posting features on rwr website have not finished for the rest of the week, chating with fellow press-center mates, finding out that BBC wanted to use some of my photos from the Real HK trip and sorting it out, snacking and interviewing the representative of an important turkish NGO for Acik Radyo, and kept entertaining myself people watching (an all-time favorite, especially with Jasoncum) and sometimes daydreaming (the cumulative dizziness from not sleeping, not working out and not eating healthy was really kicking in by that time). Anyways finally around 11 pm the WTO announced their "consensus" and to forget about this small battle loss a group of us went to protest in front of the police station in culo-de-mundo Kowloon where the protestors from the day before were detained.
Ceci, Brett, Benny and I got there just in time to see that a group of women were being released (or so we hoped) and I stayed there just a bit more to interview famous french peasant leader (for you to get an idea, think about an Asterix but from this century, great guy) then hit the road to upload the latest news to the radio around 1 am (I know what you are thinking: is this how you spend your ¨last night¨in HK, keep reading it gets better later)
Cecilia called me at 3 am saying they were downstairs waiting for me to have dinner! The same quartet, we went to a ¨boiling pot¨ restaurant. What an experience, they bring a boiling pot to the table, actually the pot boils on your table thanks to an electric heater placed in the middle of the table and you choose raw ingredients and cook them and eat them fresh out of the pot (a version of Kendin Pisir Kendin Ye that we do in Turkey!) NEEDLESS to say, after a couple of bears and boiling ingredients ranging from goat testicles, monkey brains, cow tongue (it is an inside joke), putting a lifelong curse to Pascal Lamy, and chatting with chinese undercover secret service dudes (the rest of the group did not agree with me on my assumption but I firmly believe those guys were not who they told us they were) I was feeling much better. After dinner, Ceci wanted to go home, three of us stayed with a mission: Karaoke!
Unfortunately at 5 am, we could not manage to find an open Karaoke bar, so we entered the only open nightclub we found. BOY OH BOY! Probably one of the cheeseest place I have seen, the decoration was so au nouveau rich hard to put it in words (i.e. fabric covered ceilings, huge greek god statues, ugly chandeliers, private rooms and rythmless german house music!) and almost every one was drugged, Brett confirmed my suspicion, it was mostly extacy at that time of the morning what else could it be?
As the only foreigners, only non-Hong Kong residents, noone seemed to talk to us either. We were about to leave suddenly two dudes came and started to talk to Brett, they were from HK but living in Australia, Brett´s home. They asked us how the hell we found the ¨triad¨joint among all the bars in HK??? Suddenly everything made sense: of course who else would hang out on a sunday night, drugged up, in this whole in the wall, paying $10 a beer? Gang members!! Out of all the bars in Hong Kong we were at the famous triad hangout! For some reason it did not suprise me.....
My ¨last night¨in Hong Kong ended there..went back to the hotel, pack up, took a shower and met with Alberto at breakfast, who brought me the good news: My ticket has been changed to next day!!!!
What a relief because I was not menthally ready to go that morning. I needed a closure, something that has nothing to do with WTO, a little adventure, most importantly World´s biggest Budha in Lantau island.
I headed to Ceci´s apartment, where I worked for an hour or so, by that time an argentine friend, Javier, Julia from Brasil and my new turkish friend Ziya confirmed that they will be joining me in this journey ( it takes 45 mins in boat then a bus for another 30 mins).
My mother was right when she told be upon my arrival to HK, when one stands on front of the Budha, feels very little and earthly but at the same time, this 34 meter stature sooths you in certain way.
I think it was one of the most spritual experiences I had. Until my cellphone rang! Acik Radyo was calling me for my daily report! I talked about the protests and arrests, etc and passed the phone to my turkish expert, who commented on what this deal meant for the develepping countries, and especially Turkey (mom text me later saying we were great) .
We left Budha, took a bus, an hour later: we were somewhere that we had no idea where we were! Lost in Translation, once again (subconsciously, by not payin too much attention, I think I wanted to get lost in HK, as I have done in other cities, being on top of everything all week, made me sick after a while). Luckily we were at a subway station, in the middle of an ugly housing complex (estilo ruso!) and a mall in the middle of it (again, mall!), with Haagen Dazs counter and Chillies, etc. Picture perfect capitalist China...
We managed to get back to Kowloon in no time, and by that time we were starving so I proposed we eat at Victoria´s Peak, to see the amazing night view from there. Needless to say it was a good call: really delish food and a fabolous view from the top of HK. What a great way to say goodbye!
We dropped Ziya to his hotel, and also paid a quick homage to HK COnvention Center, where I spent 70% of my time in next 7 days, took the subway back to Kowloon to meet up with the FOcus people, and Cecilia. They were waiting for us in this 100 $ all you can drink bar in Nathan Road, by that time I was so sleepy (being awake for more than 48 hours, plus running around, plus being already tired from the whole week) even the sight of the hot economist could not keep me awake, I said goodbye to all, and he walked me to my hotel.
Curtain.
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