On the 31st of October 2009, I was sat at the highest point of Hong Kong island, in the dark dressed as a post apocalyptic nurse. It was 5.30 am; there were no vehicles, people or life of any kind to be seen. And it was cold. My companions: The Mummy, The Panda, and The Spirit of the Forest. I hasten to add at this point, that these are real people in costumes, not merely figments of my imagination. For the record: I did not spend Halloween alone, on a mountain, hallucinating.
Anyway, you may well be wondering, what the fuck were we doing there when we could have been in a lovely cosy club dancing like idiots? And at that point we were asking ourselves the same question. The way I remember it is thus: by 4.30 we had grown tired of the garden of earthly delights that was Hong Kong’s nightlife.
The obscene numbers of revellers had meant that police barricades were set up, and moving from one bar to another without losing all of your friends was a triumph that could move you to tears. I believe the Spirit of the Forest put forward the notion that the view from The Peak could be quite pleasant and soothing, to general murmuring and grunting of agreement. We loaded up with booze and hopped in a taxi, giving the simple command: “up”.
The taxi driver promptly swung towards the peak, and began playing Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen very loudly, to the great joy of everyone involved. Spurred on by this audio delight, when we arrived at the traditional tourist spot, we regarded it with distain and collectively yelled: “higher”.
As the taxi pulled away back down the hill, we all realised there was no way down for us until morning. At first we distracted ourselves by swigging from our respective bottles, looking at the undeniably incredible view and making expansive, pretentious statements about how good it was to be alive. This self delusion didn’t last long, and things took a more resourceful turn- we all agreed the thing to do would be to light a fire.
The Panda went to hunt for wood, The Spirit and I began collecting flammable materials, and The Mummy looked mournfully at his bog roll bandages that had taken quite a hit from the night’s activities. The fire took an inordinate amount of time and effort to light. At every failed attempt we drank deeper from our bottles, so that by the time it was lit, we all passed out around it on the grass.
We were awoken by a very angry Cantonese voice. From my bleary worms eye view on the floor I could see a man approaching pointing at something. I looked around to see what it was: the fire. As we all regained consciousness his extreme displeasure became increasingly apparent. Apologising and sort of bowing in humility we attempted to put the embers out by stamping on them. We beat a hasty retreat after that, beginning our decent into reality.
After walking for about two years we finally reached the tourist spot and the promise of a taxi. But to our horror, standing in our path, were hundreds upon hundreds of cyclists. Their many eyes followed us, aghast as we calmly walked between them: hung-over, slightly burnt around the edges and still wearing our now filthy costumes. To be faced with all those healthy, toxin free people was almost more than I could bear, but we made it to a taxi and I felt safe once more.
It was decided that the only logical thing to do that morning was have pancakes.
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