Taipei in its current incarnation is a young city; most of it was built since the end of WWII. There are famous landmarks here that look really old, but were constructed bewteen the 50s and the 80s in the Tang Dynasty style and layout. I visited the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Park that has the CKS Memorial Hall, the National Concert Hall, Theater and two gates that remind me of the layout of Tiananmen Square and its related buildings in Beijing.
The Concert Hall near the MRT
The National Theatre on the other side of the square
Lost Evening in Hong Kong!
Like all lost evenings, it began with the most innocent of occasions. Well, first it was Friday night, the official start of the weekend. And second, my fren Wallace, who was visiting HKG with our other fren Coy, was flying back to the land of tax (AKA USA) on Saturday. So there were two excuses to debauch!
We began the evening at Alcove, a restaurant located in the upper part of Central. It’s a very very small place that serves Beijing style fusion food. The dishes didn’t necessarily match like a typical Chinese banquet but it was very good and the decor was funky in a mainland sorta way.
The front door!
Our table was the entire depth of the restaurant! That’s how small lah!
I broke one of the rules of food blogging…I put the camera down and enjoyed the meal and the company. If you want to check the place out, call first! It’s one of those places that great for a party or great for a date…
Alcove
55 Peel Street
Central, Hong Kong
+852 29759788
We then adjourned for several hours of debauching. Actually, it was from 2300 to 0330. Hong Kong is one of those progressive places where there is NO last call and the owners of the drinking establishments determine when to close. What a concept! Since I was inebriated (that means “drunk”) for much of the evening, I don’t remember specifics. We went to three different places as a group and I took silly pictures (and drank a lot).
Here’s an outtake
Here’s the real picture!
This is what happens when you collect for the bill for ten people…and you’re smashed!
Wal and Helen. Helen’s the one who prepped the hairy crabs…thank you!
Helen and Kevin. They live in HKG. She’s from SFO. He’s not.
We went on like this, gradually losing people on the way, until we called the evening at 0330. Then Wal, Coy and I got the munchies and wound up in Causeway Bay at some late night place. It was fine for me because I was 5 minutes walking distance from my place. It wasn’t so fine for Wal and Coy because they were staying in Kowloon Tong, it’s a HK$300+ cabride back & the MTR dun open until 0550. So what do you do to kill time?
You haggle for porn!
and take pretty pictures…