What wonderful adventures my nights here are turning out to be. They almost make me feel alright about sleeping till 4 P.M. the days after them...

Last night started with a rooftop party of international kids atop Wei Lu towers, a dorm located in the housing projects of HKU. It's strange, but most of the international kids here don't really seem to want to associate with us Tufts kids. Sure, we're a predominantly male group who already knew each other and had friends before we came to Hong Kong, but I can't help but wonder if I should write my president a letter blaming him for the situation. 

After a rather awkward hour there, we left for LKF in search of Sense 99, a bar where they just pass around lots of musical instruments and everyone joins in. It was way off the main strip, in a run down section of town. There was no pounding music and obnoxious glowing neon sign to show us where to enter. The only indication we had found it was a sign about 2 inches long next to the button we had to press to be buzzed in. After climbing two long shoddy flights of stairs, we found it. The two floor loft had a makeshift bar in one corner with two big coolers holding the beer. The air was thick with the secondhand smoke of the punky, beatnik crowd that inhabited the place. I, in my Banana Republic knit and collared shirt, immediately felt self-conscious and way out of place. Though we saw the instruments- a drum kit, a guitar and a bass (both alreday plugged into amps and ready to play), as well as a few random bongo drums and cowbells- no one was playing any music, and the last thing I wanted to do way put myself out there in front of these people. But Pat sat down and started playing guitar. After a few minutes, I joined him on bass. Then, the coolest thing happened. One of the beatniks sat down and started playing drums for us. A guy joined in on the cowbells. Two girls started doing the bongos to our song. Then Greg took the drums over and some guy started rapping in French over us. Beatniks started gathering around and taking pictures of us playing. After about an hour and a half of jamming, we got a round of applause from our audience as we stood up to leave.

It was such a surreal experience, but nothing less than I would expect of Hong Kong.