Twas funny enough. The usual jokes about fat people, thin people, pedophiles, white people, black people and yellow people.. and mooncake - ofcourse.
Soho is a funky little area. Streets of extremely hip galleries, interspersed with overpriced antique stores, gridded by steep lanes on which stalls selling everything from sandals to bananas to live crabs lean on a 45degree angle.
Upon detatching myself from the umbilical chord so seemingly stretched between us, I ventured off alone.... in search of a good pinot gris. What I found was a german subtitled screening of a Fellini film with Frauen in the title, and an Italian pinot grigio that despite its promise was stale.
Nevertheless, when the heavens decided to flush their drains on Hong Kong only minutes after the glass was poured, the wine took on several more hues of salvation than that which was expected of it.
And what follows comedy, white wine and Asian autumn? Semi cooked street chicken in the era of 'bird-flu' (which I might add was delicious, even if twice cooked (upon request)).
Fed and cocky with residual alcohol I decided to turn home, via the more romantic route - across the harbour on a ferry. Walking along the overpass down to the pier the signs are direct, "no hawking", "no spitting", "no walking on the left", " no entry", "no exit". Halfway along however was a caveat, an embodied exception to the rule... I asked him are you from Hong Kong?
"Yes" he nods. Then shows me his wares - handmade folded paper figurines. One is a clown, the other a clown fish, the last a series of coloured round balls... obscenely overpriced but I am a sucker. His smile combined with the very likely chance that the ferries had finished for the night made the extra walk alright. It made the non-utilitarian quality of my purchase redundant - for he made me smile.
There were no more ferries. I like to think that when I passed him that second time, with caricatured bad posture and crippled feet, I made him smile too.
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