Girl and City

On Saturday night, WAF and I went to M2 where my friends from TheBusinessSchool, MBB and SFG, had a table with some of MBB‘s friends. The club had a decent-sized dance floor and an even more decent-sized crowd. On one side of the dance floor was a raised platform upon which Lady Gaga-esque back-up dancers (I think they were paid dancers) were shaking their booties to top 40 hits. All night long the booze kept flowing, we had an endless supply of Grey Goose vodka and Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey. Amazing!

LAC was a friend of a friend’s and arrived a little after we did. I saw him standing next to the table with nowhere to sit, so I asked the two girls beside me to scooch in so he could have a seat. I hadn’t even been introduced to him or gotten a proper look at him, and the opened-up seat wouldn’t be beside me, so it was clear I wasn’t doing it to sit next to him and flirt. I was just being nice. I knew what it felt like to arrive at a party and only know one other person and stand awkwardly on the outside. He did notice me for my nice act though, and half an hour later, when a seat opened up next to me, he sat down and introduced himself. It was only at this point that I noticed how cute he was. He was Cantonese but raised in L.A., and now he was working in Shanghai. He spoke Cantonese, English, enough Mandarin to get by, a bit of Spanish (because of LA), and a bit of French (because his grandparents were living in Ottawa). We were only chatting harmlessly for a few minutes when WAF came over to ask me if I wanted to go dance. I assumed I would excuse myself to the dance floor and come back in a few minutes, but he surprised me by getting up and taking my hand. He was coming with me? I led him on the dance floor and when I turned around, I saw that WAF had not followed us. A few minutes later, she appeared with MBB‘s best guy friend. Apparently she had felt the need to grab a dancing partner at the last minute. I couldn’t blame her. Unfortunately, MBB‘s best friend was not into her at all and barely danced; his disinterest was so immediately obvious that I don’t know how she got him to go to the dance floor with her in the first place.

LAC was not a great dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he didn’t create his own rhythm to interfere with the music. Nonetheless, I avoided the dance floor most of the night and we just sat at the table, talking and cuddling. WAF was miffed that I found arm-candy so quickly, but I wasn’t worried that she would be able to find her own. By some strange twist, she couldn’t, and almost ended up making out with my friend, MBB.

LAC wasn’t very talkative and I noticed that he asked very few questions about me. But I had no doubt he was into me because he asked for my number very quickly and was physically keeping me next to him. Maybe he wasn’t a talker but his actions told me enough. He was among the hottest guy I’ve ever picked up, and he was also among the sweetest. When I couldn’t find my clutch¹, he walked around the whole club with me twice to look for it. He didn’t seem as concerned as I was, but in the end, it was still he who found it. He asked me to go outside with him, and we sat outside the club for a long time just talking. When he kissed me, he didn’t try to stick his tongue down my throat. Instead, his lips were soft and surprisingly gentle. (more…)

1. I had left it with MBB and they had moved tables and I couldn’t find the new table. [↩]

I arrived in Hong Kong a few hours ago, and already, I’m impressed. Hong Kong is busy, yet so much less chaotic than China. I’m staying with FBB for a week, but I will only see him for one night, because he’s traveling for work right now, and then he’ll be going to Shanghai with friends for the weekend. I had to go to his work place to pick up his key from a co-worker. A strange arrangement. Even stranger is getting to know someone through their apartment, before even meeting them. He has meticulously prepared for my arrival, giving me incredibly detailed instructions (to get to his office and his condo), and even left a HK SIM card and subway for me so I wouldn’t be left stranded. His condo is gorgeous, like most buildings in Hong Kong. It is a super high-rise, the likes of which I’ve never seen in Canada, and has marble floors not just in the lobby but in the apartment as well. It’s in an excellent location, with a convenient store right downstairs, and is only one subway stop from Central. I can’t wait to start exploring Hong Kong!

But Shanghai is still on my mind.

WAF and I stayed with The Girl was Goosed for five days and she was an absolutely fabulous host. The first night we got there, we went on a pub crawl that was themed “Around the World” with mostly expats. The first bar was an Irish bar, not that exciting, but I wasn’t going to complain about free food and drinks. We then went to an Australian bar, Dada (I don’t know what part of the world this was supposed to represent), and finally an insanely cool club called D10 Departure Lounge. It was shaped like an airplane, with a flight attendant that opened a sliding door and little airport windows looking out onto the hallway. It also came complete with overhead cabins, a first class area (VIP lounge), and a luggage hangar (dance floor and DJ area). During the pub crawl, WAF and I met ShanghaiShorty, a very cute Shanghai-boy who grew up in the U.S. and was visiting Shanghai for the summer. He was not very tall though, so although WAF was flirting with him first, she told me I could “have” him because she didn’t want a short boy. I started chatting with him at Dada and realized he was actually two years younger than us. I don’t normally like guys who are younger because their perspective on life is still undeveloped and I can’t stand trying to have a conversation with them without breaking their naivety. Unfortunately, he was the rule, not the expection, but he told me he liked talking to me, and I was pretty tipsy, so I stuck with it. There weren’t any other good-looking Asians on the pub crawl anyway. Although he didn’t make a move on me at Dada, we sat together on the bus on our way to the last stop, D10 Departure Lounge, and he put his head on my shoulder. Not the manliest move that’s ever been made on me, but again, I had to remind myself that he was a 20-year-old that didn’t party much in Shanghai and couldn’t even legally drink in the U.S., so meeting a girl in this context couldn’t have been a practiced act. When we got off the bus, WAF kept flirting with him, and when he went to buy another drink for me at the bar, WAF started grinding him. Instead of moving away, he danced with her, right beside me! I was miffed, but I didn’t care enough to do anything about it. He was really cute, but other than that, not a great catch – if he was more attracted to WAF, she could have him.

After I moved away, he came and found me, and asked me to go dance with him. I don’t know what happened, why he didn’t just go dance with WAF, and I was reluctant to be his ‘second choice’. So I asked him nonchalantly, “What do you think of WAF?”
“She’s pretty wild,” he said, “But not my type.”
“What is your type then?”
“You’re my type.”
It sounded like a line to me, so I pressed him a little more. “Why?”
“You’re fun, energetic, interesting. I like you.”
That was enough for me. With a last swig of champagne, I let him lead me on the dance floor. I knew that by appearances alone, WAF was hotter than me. I’m cute, but I don’t do sexy very well. She does sexy. So first impressions at a club, WAF is usually always picked up. I always expect her to be noticed first, and she is. I never expected that anyone who noticed both of us would pick me over her. (more…)

It’s 7:30 AM. I’m sitting in the common room of our hostel, eating Nutella on toast. Well, their version of Nutella at least.

24 hours ago, I was just waking up with a dull hangover, after a night out with my trip-mates and 50 other hostellers.

Rewind.

We had finangled our way onto the train, after being bussed from terminal to terminal at the airport, looking for the train station. Our luggages were huge and awkward, so we had to take up six seats for the four of us. Vin Diesel asked for some Spanish lessons during the ride, and I obliged, teaching him the most important phrase of the trip: ¿Dónde está el baño? (Where is the bathroom?) (more…)

It’s amazing how crazy things can get when you’re with some of your closest friends and you know it’s going to be your last time out together and you just don’t want the night to end. What was supposed to be a night-in with some Thai food and a board game turned into a fancy dinner, clubbing, strip club, and a very late night (or early morning) shisha session.
My night in numbers:

• Number of cigarettes: 5
• Number of lesbian kisses: 2
• Number of lap dances: 1
• Number of unattractive strippers: 6
• Number of attractive strippers: 1
• Number of slices of pizza: 3
• Number of units of alcohol: what do you think?

(more…)

“What is that smile? That is a boy-related smile, isn’t it? Who’s the boy?”
“Actually, there are two. A Norwegian boy and a German boy. Both ridiculously cute. I can’t decide between the two, so I’m going home.”

This was the exchange BI and I had on Saturday night. She bumped into me as I was leaving The Club. I must have had a stupid grin on my face, because she guessed right away that it was boy-related.

“Why don’t you just pick one?” BI asked incredulously.
“They’re leaving tomorrow, what’s the point?”
“That’s even better! You should take advantage of tonight.”
“Believe me, I have had enough attention tonight to last me months. I’m good.”
She could see that I meant it, so she let me go.

I went home feeling particularly pleased with myself. Sure, I was flattered by all the attention I had received, but I couldn’t be too attached. Because it felt too good to be true, it couldn’t be real. And I wanted to walk away before something brought me crashing down to earth.

Rewind back four days and I’m standing in the middle of a crowded banquet hall, greeting forty-four students from eleven different countries and glad-handing eleven advisors (professors that accompanied them) from their respective business schools. It was the beginning of The Case Competition, and I, as one of the main organizers, was feeling relieved to see that everyone had made it and that Opening Ceremonies went without a hitch. I had been planning this competition for months, emailing back and forth with their advisors and business schools, so I knew their names by heart and was only now meeting them in real life.
They were an incredibly friendly group, not to mention astoundingly good-looking. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we had invited a group of international vampires as opposed to business students. (more…)