Good times in Hong Kong

Left Tokyo on Saturday morning after a relatively calm Friday evening consisting of dinner at a Shabu-Shabu restaurant near the hotel and an early bed time.  Took a Cathay Pacfic flight into HK that arrive around noon local time.  Immigration and customs wasn’t a big hassle (that was saved for later when we went to mainland China) and so about 30 minutes after landing we found ourselves in the exit lobby of HK airport.  I have been to HK a few times before, but always on extended layovers so I never had to figure out where any of the hotels where.  So instead of risking it and taking a train that could have deposited us farther from our intended hotel that we started, we decided to go to the Four Seasons desk at the hotel and arrange trasportation there.
Immediately we were offered a limo for 800 HK Dollars (about $100 US), and after we took it, we were told that they were out of Mercedes limos and would have to give us the Bentley at a Mercedes price.  It would turn out to be the best bargain we got all day, so I’m glad we took it.

Inside the Bentley
The ride into town went without a hitch.  The guy I was travelling with from Microsoft had a friend he went to college with that lived in HK and he showed up at the hotel about 30 minutes after we got there.  We headed straight to the peak, a mountain top overlooking downtown.  The views were awesome, if a little hazy (evidently from the pollution from the nearby factories:

View from the Peak over HK
After the peak, we headed down to the central part of downtown and walked the streets for while.  It really is amazing how much the city looks like any other big city in the world.  Lots of people.  All trying to get somewhere.
Later that night we headed out to go to dinner and a club.  It was pretty dead when we got to the place (Armani something) about 10:30.  By midnight it had picked up quite a bit.  We had a 5,000 HK dollar minimum bar tab to drink in order to get the table.  At first I was worried because it took the 3 of us an hour to drink the first bottle of vodka with red bull and/or tonic.  However some more locals joined us (friends of my friends friend, if that makes any sense) and we quickly accelerated our intake.  At the end of the night they were bring out bottles two at a time.

Earlier in the evening (2 bottles down…6 to go)
It was a pretty late night, getting us back into the hotel at 4 AM for a 6 AM wakeup call (delivered by my wife, who was the only one I as sure could understand me after sharing 8 bottles of Kettle One with the 8 people we were out with).  A little fuzzy for most of the next day, but made my flight to Sanya on Sunday with no problems and spent the day recovering on the beach and in the sun.