Drinking

Christmas comes but once a year, as does the company Christmas party. We were meant to be at the rooftop bar of Wooloomooloo, an Australian steak restaurant on the 32nd floor of a building in Wan Chai. As a cautious sort of person, I'm not sure that one should mix staff parties, alcohol and great heights, particularly when the safety barrier at the edge of the 32nd floor isn't that high.

However, this potentially interesting exercise in health and safety was rendered moot by the weather turning cold (by Hong Kong standards) so instead we went to Wooloomooloo in Central, on the ground floor of a building. Same bar, less of a view of the city.

I have no memory of last year's Christmas party. I think I was out of the country, but perhaps I was just incredibly drunk. Similar looked likely this year: there was a constant restocking of my drink, and I began to lose count of how many gin and tonics I'd had. This can be a worry; generally these days I seem to be non-functional the next day after one, so four or more present quite some risk. On the other hand, it's free alcohol.

All the local Chinese staff vanished after an hour, as they had to have dinner. This surprised me a little; given that a local organised the party, and given that I've never met a local who wasn't obsessed with having dinner instead of getting trashed on company booze, I would have expected them to have dinner laid on, rather than enable division between the locals and the expats. Ah well. I ended up having a long chat with a co-worker who came to Hong Kong at the same time that I did, and then escorted her to the station. She flew back to England with BA - perhaps the strike will bankrupt them and she'll never come back.

Then I went back to the bar for a last drink with the remaining stalwarts. By now the bar was nearly empty: three of us remained, now that drinks had to be paid for. To keep the mood seasonal, the staff were playing AC/DC; nothing quite says Christmas like "Shook Me All Night Long". We talked about the reformation of Stryper (the band got back together, rather than Henry VIII dissolving the monestaries of Stryper, if that would ever make sense) and then I went home to profitably waste my time on my Xbox. Happy Christmas!