Travels of a Grey Cat: Happy New Year!

I have never been a big New Years person. I did my share of parting in my 20's but for the past few years, since Mr. Grey Cat almost always is working, I have spent it with my friend and her family. I honestly can't even remember what I did last year, but I know it wasn't much. This year proved to be a different story. This year I celebrated the New Year, in true Hong Kong Expat fashion and partied 2012 away in Lan Kwai Fong!

Lan Kwai Fong is an area in Hong Kong consisting of primarily two streets (Lan Kwai Fong and D'Aguilar) that close in on each other forming a rectangle. It has become an area full of restaurants, bars and clubs and is one of the cities hot spots. During the evenings and weekends it is usually closed to traffic and becomes one large party. If you live or are visiting Hong Kong it really is something you should do at least once.

I met one friend for some pre dinner drinks then we made our way to a nice restaurant, where we were meeting several others. After a delicious meal we wandered out to the streets. It was a bit after 10pm, which is early by HK standards so we were able to get into one of the clubs. We chose Insomnia, which had a lived band playing. They were quite good and kept the crowd dancing. After a bit of time my friend wanted a smoke so I stepped outside with her into the biggest sea of people I have ever seen. Literally out the door there was barely any room to move. The bars and clubs were hopping and if you hadn't gotten in to one by the time we did, you were out of luck. But that is OK, because the street was a big party too!

After ringing in the new year, I decided to leave in time to catch the 1:30am ferry home. Back in Canada everything would be closed by then and even most transport would have stopped, but not Hong Kong. The party was just warming up! I have never in my life seen so many people trying to get into the area. After a tragic accident in the early 1990's that resulted in 20 people dying and hundreds of injuries due to crushing the police have implemented very strict crowd control. We are not talking a few officers blocking the entrance or exit, but hundreds of police with barricades, even riot gear, herding people in and out, which stretched for blocks! They keep a firm hand on it but were never intimidating.

Of course I did not have my camera with me, but I did have my iPhone and lets be honest, it was New Years Eve so I had a bit to drink as well. So here are some not very good photos that I took on the walk down to the ferry.