Carpe noctem

Seize the night! Night's in Hong Kong, and the night-life here are a lot longer than in Finland. I stay up longer, and I party* longer.
*NOTE: In my case to "party" means a prolonged evening drinking beer in a good company, not time spent in a nightclub dancing to upbeat music and fooling myself to thinking I look good by doing so (only happened once).

For some reason it is easier to stay up long here. I don't really understand it myself but usually back in Finland I would drop out around 2-3am after a "party". However here, we can continue easily until even 5am, sometimes to 6am - AND still take a bus home and arrive around 6-7am (latest I've arrived home, I think, is around 09:00). In Finland, this would've been totally out of the question.

Of course it helps that many places are open really late here. Meaning there are actual bars that close as late as 6am. After which you can just go to the closest 7/11 and get a few additional cold Tsingtao's and head for the nearest park or something.

Aside from partying, my sleeping rhythm has changed too. While in Finland I would require a steady 8 hours of good sleep to survive a day, here I can manage with less. Just last night I slept only for 5 hours and I'm still live and kicking. Fun.

Anyway;

Generally the night-life in Hong Kong is very nice. People are and act much smarter by average and I never feel threatened in any way. The prices of the normal places we go to are not that much different from Finland but I've been getting good intelligence information on some more local places where the prices should be a lot more "reasonable".

General population of a typical Gweilo-bar is:
- 30% native Hong Kong/Chinese people
- 68% Island Monkeys and other Gweilo's
- 2% Philippino-band.
- A random number of service personnel

Groups of people consisting of local people seem to be very nice and decent, and there for honest fun while the Phillipino-band just plays their every-night-the-same-set-of-songs. The Island Monkeys usually concentrate on making as much noise as possible and make indecent suggestions to the local women, Phillipino-band female vocalists, and the poor unsuspecting waitresses of the bar - thus making me very, very sad if ever I was mistaken as one of them.

Of course all the local women, the Phillipino singers, and the bar maids are really happy to get a Gweilo's attention! I mean, who wouldn't? Seriously, it's probably really nice to know that there are still 50-year-old red-faced foreign men, speaking drunkish-gibberish, who find your 20 year-old exotic face and slim body attractive;
and who think that you would find that Pride of Darwin, King of the Gene-pool, Alfa-Male, Ruler of all Creation, and in every way a Prime Specimen of Human Race equally attractive.
...And imagine the thrill to be reminded of that every damn single night, for at least ten times. It must be awesome!

Do these people actually think the women here like that? I mean, seriously? How clueless you have to be to think that?

I don't know. Sometimes it just pisses me off I suppose.

Anyway, I am going to Finland in less than 3 weeks. I will try my best to avoid any drinking houses there since I'm painfully aware that they show the very worst of human behavior, especially that of Finns - whom of course are really, really great and all that! Yes, Finns are the best people on this planet. Go Finland!

I know the bar culture in Finland well enough to know I should avoid it. Going out with friends is still ok. Just not to bars. Not too much anyway.

NOTE: Gweilo is a Cantonese name for "foreigners". It used to be a negative word to describe Europeans and Americans but these days it is quite neutral, and in common use.