Ryan & Mary & Pat & Kevin

On April 7, an exuberant quartet of old friends touched down in Hong Kong, comprised of three fellow 'Nova alum and one honorary Wildcat by marriage. Having them in town was the perfect way to celebrate our recent victory in the NCAA championship. And after living in Hong Kong for over six years, I was thrilled to finally welcome Ryan, Mary, Pat and Kevin to the Pearl of the Orient. 

Ryan and Mary landed first, so around 6am, I met them at the Airport Express station in Central. We hopped a taxi straight back to Happy Valley, and before work, we were even able to squeeze in a tasty breakfast at a local joint, Cheung Sing, consisting of Hong Kong-style French toast, a pineapple bun and peanut butter toast, washed down with milk tea.

I got dressed for work, and then we all rode the tram together to the office. As fate would have it, Tram 120 was sitting at the terminus waiting to whisk us downtown, and I couldn't believe how perfect it worked out.

From 8 until lunchtime, I slaved away at my desk, while my friends explored the traditional Western District. Ryan sent me a message around noon informing me that they had stopped for a beer at a nearby place called The Cottage, so I met them there for a Tsing Tao and explained the local dining options.

We decided on Ball Kee (aka The Steps), perhaps my favorite dai pai dong in Hong Kong. It's a simple set-up: on the steps of Staveley Street—really a pedestrian passageway connecting Queen's Road Central and Wellington Street—two men stand behind iron woks, while a gaggle of middle-aged women take orders and shuttle metal bowls filled with the ingredients for the various dishes between a table and the open flames. One wok is for rice dishes, the other for noodles.

We grabbed a table under the temporary bamboo scaffolding, and I ordered sweet and sour pork, Malaysian fried noodles and beef with noodles in black bean sauce. I've never had a bad dish here, and I've done my best to sample as much of the menu as possible.

Of course, it was back to work for me afterwards, but I couldn't really concentrate on insurance for the next several hours. Eschewing my usual tram ride home, I excitedly hopped in a cab to shuttle me to the Valley as fast as possible. I changed, woke up my napping visitors and off we headed to Wan Chai for a rooftop drink at Wooloomooloo, the ritzy watering hole perched atop the Hennessy Building. 

Afterwards, Ryan and Mary indicated that they were growing peckish... What to do when hungry in Wan Chai? Why, traipse on over to Crystal Jade, of course. Although there are branches in Central, Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui and plenty of other parts of town, the Wan Chai location is my perpetual favorite. (I even celebrated my birthday there back in 2014.) We had the signature xiao long bao and lots of other delicious dumplings, all washed down with Tsing Tao.

Pat and Kevin were set to land later that night, but beforehand, I had heard that a bar in Lan Kwai Fong was giving away a three-day set to the impending Rugby Sevens tournament to the winner of a contest. So we made a beeline for Pulse, where a former AirBnB guest, Conor, who was still in town, joined us. And lo and behold, Mary won the game! True, we would have to make the trek all the way out to Sha Tin at some point the following day, but the set was ours! 

Afterwards, we made the short trek down to the Airport Express station to wait for our next two arrivals, Pat and Kevin. And by the time we were in taxis towards Happy Valley, two other friends of mine—Steffen, on a business trip from Germany and Issam, also in town for the weekend from Singapore—had joined our crew. So after Pat and Kev dropped their bags at my place, we all stocked up on 7-Eleven beers for a tram ride back to Lan Kwai Fong. 

LKF is normally hopping. (When I first got to Hong Kong, a huge banner hung across the street proclaiming: Where Every Night is Friday Night.) And the Thursday leading into Sevens Weekend is a sort of unofficial opening party. So it was no surprise when the street was jam-packed upon our arrival. We had some drinks in the open air while stocking up on the obligatory illuminated headgear before ascending to Geronimo Shot Bar, where we happened to bump into some of my colleagues and plenty of other fun-loving Sevens-goers. 

The party, needless to say, went on until the wee small hours of the morning.

On Friday, I made a last minute decision—literally after showering and starting to dress—to take the day off from work. It had been so long since I had gotten a chance to properly catch up with everybody, and I didn't want to waste a moment. 

Mary, shall we say, was not quite feeling her best that day. And so she and Ryan stayed behind to regroup while Pat, Kevin, my flatmate Max and I hopped a taxi out to Sha Tin to collect the free three-day set. And since we were all the way out in the middle of the New Territories already, we stopped for lunch at the Sha Tin Inn for an amazing al fresco meal before taking a taxi straight to the stadium in Causeway Bay to kick off the sporting portion of the weekend. 

Ryan re-joined the group afterwards, and we indulged in a second consecutive dinner at Crystal Jade before riding the tram to Pottinger Street to source costumes for Saturday's main event. We ended up with an assortment of multi-colored kimonos for each of us. In order to fully appreciate Saturday, I have a "Cinderella rule" for the Friday night of Sevens Weekend. It's home and to bed before midnight so we're all ready for the big day. So we took a taxi home afterwards and called it an early night. 

Saturday started bright and early. I took Fredric for a walk around 5:30am and stocked up on champagne. Upon returning to the apartment, Ryan was the first up. 

"I can't believe there's a place open that sells champagne at six in the morning," he said as I put the bottles in the freezer to chill them as quickly as possible. 

"Welcome to Hong Kong," I told him. "Club Seven."

While we all got ready, Conor and Kareem arrived. So we popped the corks and started the celebration, ultimately moving it up to the rooftop before finally heading out around 7am. A quick McDonald's pit stop put some sustenance in our bellies before we walked down Ventris Road and headed towards Hong Kong Stadium.

Someone in McDonald's had urged us to get going quickly. Seeing our coordinated kimonos, he knew there was only one part of the stadium we were headed. "My friends say the South Stand is already nearly full," he warned. We linked up with the scalper I used to coordinate tickets, and in the end, we had to enter in two groups. (It's a complicated story, and not really one worth telling.) Anyway, after a slightly stressful but ultimately successful endeavor, we were all together in the notorious South Stands, at my perpetual spot, beneath the H of the prominent HSBC sign. Not long after we arrived, a loud bell sounded. "The South Stand is now full," an announcer's voice boomed. But we were in.

Sevens Saturday flies by every year. It's a seamless mess of a day, filled with drinks, dancing, singing and wandering about the South Stand bumping into old friends. Of course, the rugby itself played very little part in our day. We did get to watch David Hasselhoff perform in the morning before a midday set by the Proclaimers, inevitably concluding with their iconic "I Would Walk Five-Hundred Miles." And later that night, Kevin, Pat and I all went to Wan Chai to finish off what had turned out to be a phenomenal day.

Sunday started with massive downpours. We were all a little the worse for wear, so instead of heading straight to the stadium, we instead dropped in to the Jockey, a traditional pub a few steps away from my apartment. We had brunch while we waited to see if the skies would calm down. And around 1pm, we re-entered Hong Kong Stadium for the final day of the tournament.

As amazing as it was to have this crew here for Rugby Sevens, which I've often described as my single favorite weekend of the year, I was at least partially happy when it was over so I could finally don my tour guide's cap and start showing off my adopted city to my old friends.

Monday began with dim sum at Lin Heung Tea House, followed by a harbor crossing on the Star Ferry. Ryan wasn't quite feeling his best, so he didn't join for breakfast, and being a dutiful wife, Mary went back to the apartment after our meal, leaving Kevin, Pat and I to explore the wilds of the Dark Side.

We ducked into the Peninsula Hotel, before wandering up Nathan Road, shortly thereafter cutting through Kowloon Park as we meandered north towards the famous markets of Kowloon. Although Temple Street Market was dormant, awaiting its late afternoon reveille before really hitting its stride after dark, we still walked through and made a stop at its namesake Tin Hau Temple. We also had a milk tea and French toast break at my favorite Mido Cafe. 

Some street food and further wandering brought us through the Ladies Market and up to Tung Choi's Goldfish Market before strolling along Flower Market Road and ending at Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. A well-deserved drink was in order after all that sight-seeing, but every bar I knew in Prince Edward seemed to be closed. Finally we stumbled upon Future Lounge, which was just what the doctor ordered. We had a few pints there before catching the MTR back to the Island for the evening's happy hour. 

Stone Nullah Tavern's "Beat the Clock" has now become a standard feature of just about every out-of-town visitor's Hong Kong itinerary. Ryan and Mary joined us there, and although they missed out on the HKD 1 drinks Kevin, Pat and I enjoyed, Mary still took part with some still-cheap HKD 8 drinks and some bar bites. (Ryan, in the ultimate irony, wound up forking over HKD 30 for a Coke. Soft drinks do not feature in the special.) 

As 8 o'clock approached, we headed to the MTR to return to Kowloon to watch to nightly Symphony of Lights from the waterfront promenade in Tsim Sha Tsui. 

Another staple item on most Hong Kong "to do" lists is an all-out feast at American Restaurant. So after riding the ferry back to the Island, we made a beeline to Lockhart Road for a hearty dinner of Peking duck and all their other specialties. 

As hard as it was to believe, Tuesday was our final full day all together. Kevin and Pat were headed to Thailand on Wednesday, although Ryan and Mary did have another full day-and-a-half afterwards. Still, Tuesday was our last shot to go to Macau, one of the first and only things Ryan had specifically asked me to include on the itinerary. It's actually been awhile now since I last set foot in Macau, so I was more than delighted to spend a day soaking up the old-fashioned charm of the former Portuguese colony just an hour's ferry ride from Hong Kong.

Although the weather was not on our side and did its best to thwart my plans, our day was still phenomenal. By the time we got through customs and purchased our return tickets for later, it was nearing lunchtime, so we hopped in two taxis to Coloane Village for a delicious meal at Espaco Lisbao, high on my short list of top Macau restaurants. We had cod fritters, cabbage soup, chourico, African chicken and a delicious steak dish, all complemented by several jugs of both red and white sangria, and finished off with a tasty serradura. And as if that weren't enough, we stopped at Lord Stowe's bakery for egg tarts as we wandered around the typically Macanese fishing village.

A couple of buses transported us from faraway Coloane to the Macau peninsula, where we made our way to the fanciful Grand Lisboa Hotel and Casino. None of us fared particularly well at roulette, but the rain made it difficult to explore the quaint old city. We wandered instead among the linked casinos, and when the rain finally calmed down, we caught the fountain show at the Wynn.

At last, after a pit stop at the impressive lobby of the MGM Grand, we decided it was time to explore the UNESCO World Heritage sites of Old Macau. If the rain returned, we planned to pop into a restaurant or cafe for more sangria. And of course, that's precisely what we had to do. Ryan later joked, "Our afternoon in Macau consisted of: Church, Rain, Retreat, Sangria. Repeat." But it was a fun and memorable afternoon.

Fun, at least, until the strap on my flip flop broke while coming down from the Fortaleza do Monte and wouldn't stay in place... We had to stop at a shoe store and buy an emergency pair of sandals, but it all worked out.

Alas, the restaurant I had hoped to visit for dinner was closed, but a hip, recently-opened Portuguese eatery beckoned us from just across the street. And so wound up with yet another nice meal accompanied by perhaps the best sangria yet, all capped off with a walk along Sai Van Lake in the moonlight before catching our ferry back to Hong Kong.

On Wednesday, Pat and Kevin flew off to Thailand, but I had one last day to show Hong Kong off to Ryan and Mary. After saying goodbye to the guys as they headed to the Airport Express, we had a hearty Western breakfast at the local Classified before hitting up the Hong Kong Museum of History. We spent around four hours combing over the museum's incredible collection, as it relates the story of Hong Kong from its geological formation billions of years ago right up to the 1997 handover.

Walking from the museum back towards TST, we saw a sign for a tea house, and deciding to pop in. We wound up getting a personal tea brewing demonstration, and Mary got a lovely souvenir teapot to remember the day.

We just beat the rush hour crowd by hopping the MTR back to Hong Kong Island, where we feasted on 8way's amazing Taiwanese dumplings followed by my favorite char siu in Happy Valley. And of course, as it was Wednesday night, we also hit up the horse races before venturing into Wan Chai via tram, and I'm sure you can guess where we headed. Standard Chartered twenties at Devil's Advocate, a stop at Typhoon and the obligatory nighttime breakfast at the Flying Pan. 

I'm not going to deceive you: getting up for work after such a fun yet exhausting string of days was far from pleasurable. Ryan and Mary were flying off in the afternoon, and we met up in Central for a quick goodbye during my lunch break before they actually left.

I know for a long time now, when I look back on this period of my life, I'll always remember the visit of Ryan, Mary, Pat and Kevin to the Pearl of the Orient. I hope their memories of the trip are as good as mine!