About Last Night
Last night, I wanted to celebrate my anniversary in Hong Kong and invited some friends to go out. Michele suggested Frank’s at Lan Kwai Fong, and we met up at around 9pm.
Jacky and I showed up first, and we made our way into the noisy bar filled with dancing people.
“Let me buy you a drink since it’s your anniversary,” said Jacky.
“Oh wow, thanks!” I replied happily. “A white wine, please!”
While Jacky placed our orders with the bartender, I noticed a familiar face a few steps away. Is that – ? It can’t be. What are the odds?
I walked over to him. “Hey!” I said.
“Hey!” He replied. I could tell he had no idea who I was. I probably should have taken off my mask. It took a couple of seconds before recognition finally dawned in his eyes. “Hey! What are you doing here?!?”
The guy is Rob, a colleague. He started introducing me to the friends he was with, explaining to them that I was the one he was jamming with at work and that we were going to sing a Backstreet Boys song at our company event. I’m not sure they understood him through the loud pumping music.
I waved Jacky over and introduced the two, explaining to them that they are both Canadians. Rob told us that he was there because it was his friend’s birthday. I told him we were there because of my anniversary. He congratulated me and bought me my second glass of wine.
Just then, Michele arrived and I waved him over and did another round of introductions.
Then Sabrina showed up and completed the party.
We merged friend groups on the dance floor. One of Rob’s friends is a snazzy dancer who got us to dance with him.
“So how do you know these guys?” Rob asked me.
How I Met Your FBI Agents
And that, kids, is an interesting story. A few months ago, I interviewed Lawin, a fellow Filipino podcaster, for my podcast. He mentioned that one of his tips for making friends abroad was to join Internations, a website for expats. He explained that since it’s hard to make friends with locals who may already have established friendships, the best thing to do would be to find like-minded lonely expats like yourself, and the venue for that is the aforementioned website.
So I checked if there was one in Hong Kong, and there was, so I bit the bullet and signed up, then promptly clicked join on the first event I saw. It was a drinking session at a bar on Hollywood Road. It was such a diverse group of people which included expats from France, Italy, India, and Canada. There were also some locals who had experienced living abroad and knew what the expat life was like.
Serene, the organizer, commented that Sabrina looked like an FBI agent because of her outfit, and that Rak looked like a hacker because of his. I said that in a movie, the two of them would be working together for missions, and we started riffing off this idea.
This is an important point because this explains why later, after we had so much fun chatting to each other, Michele the self-confessed shy Italian decided to create a WhatsApp chat group for us and asked, “What should I call it?”
“FBI, of course,” I said. And that’s how we ended up calling each other agents.
Rooftop Party Encounter with the Police
Immediately after that event, someone said there was a rooftop party being held somewhere that we could go to. So we took cabs to an apartment which so happened to be near my flat and told a surprised host that we were told about a silent disco party he was throwing. He led us to the rooftop where some guests were standing around, sipping wine from plastic cups.
My new found friends explained to me that rooftop parties are a thing in Hong Kong. Apparently, whoever has the top-most apartment of a building also gets the rooftop.
A guy with a sweet-looking DJ set-up played music and we were supposed to log on to a link so we could listen to what he was playing through our earphones, so we don’t make noise beyond 10pm.
The problem is, when you have earphones on, you tend to speak louder, but you don’t realize how loud you’re being.
As a result, one of the neighbours called the police on us to come and shush us.
Which we did, for a few minutes. Then things started getting loud again. At this point I decided that I was sleepy and needed to go home, so I headed downstairs to the lift. When the doors opened, three police men exited.
“Hi!” I greeted them enthusiastically, weirdly. I blame the alcohol.
“Did you come from the rooftop party?” One of them asked in a conversational tone.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“A lot of people are calling about that party,” he complained, in a tone one would use when whining about an annoying boss to a friend.
“Oh, I’m so sorry about that,” I apologised. “They actually already turned down the music but I guess that wasn’t enough.”
“Anyway, I’m going home already, so good luck with that!” I finished, before waving goodbye and getting into the lift.
That was a rather unexpected friendly encounter with the police, don’t you think?
Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It
After that night, we met up several more times, jokingly calling each hang out a “mission.”
Thanks to them, I’ve been to the famous Peel Street.
We also once went to an art gallery event which requested guests to wear red or gold.
We’ve also been to someone’s apartment where we played Cards Against Humanity while eating homecooked risotto, followed by hanging out at that place’s rooftop where there was a gorgeous view.
One of my friends back in Singapore told me that she thinks it’s cool that I get to hang out and drink with friends, and that she imagines I’m like those people in TV sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother.
I suppose she’s right. I never thought I’d be one of those people. Maybe life begins near 40 after all. 😂
I’m really glad I forced myself to go out of my comfort zone and got to meet these cool guys!
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