Valbonne

Even going for a quick and casual lunch in this part of the world seems to take you to breathtaking locations.  You easily find yourself sitting in spots that would be lauded in your hometown as being some "world class" location which was "famous" around the world.  Yet here, it's just another spot amongst many, lost in a crowd of beauty.

After catching up in Biot, Maya and Adam decided it would be nice for all of us to go to Valbonne for lunch.

It was very pretty.  Sitting in the town square having just a casual lunch felt like something out of the set of a movie.  We ordered our food and drinks, lounged in our chairs, enjoyed the sunshine and just enjoyed the atmosphere of a place that seemed to have the ideal balance of business and quiet.

The area felt quite "English" compared to other places we had been and so we weren't surprised when Maya explained that Valbonne had experienced a lot of English migration over the last few years.  Apparently these English expats had decided that life in this village in the south of France was nicer than living in their rainy suburbs in the UK.

Valbonne did feel a little bit too perfect though.  It's a stretch of a complaint, as it was a beautiful place to wander, but everything seemed to be near flawless.  The streets in Valbonne were kept impeccably clean.  The buildings were well manicured.  Everything seemed to have a place and everything was in its place.  Even the town's layout was set out on a near perfect rectangular grid.

It made everything easy though.

Walking around was easy.  Finding things were easy.  Getting to  and from lunch was easy.

Given all of that, my complaint is probably better described as an "observation" rather than an actual complaint.

Biot

Maya lived close to the town of Biot with Adam and their kids.

It is a picturesque town sitting on a hill in the south of France.

It is so stereotypically French, you feel like you've been hit on the head with a baguette by a wine drinking mime.  The mime would of course be wearing a beret and holding a wheel of cheese as well.

Todd and I drove over to see her early in the morning, finding parking at the bottom of the hill (again....) and climbing to the top to see her.  We sat in the middle of the town square, eating bread, drinking coffee, eating cakes, talking, eating the local socca (a local chickpea flatbread).  It was a relaxed way to soak up the essence and atmosphere of this tiny French town.  For outsiders like Todd and myself, this lifestyle was incredibly attractive and an absolute world away from the usual hustle and bustle of our respective homes.

Walking around the narrow streets, it was strange to think of the three of us all together in this place.  It was lovely to be able to visit her with Todd, it had probably been over ten years that we had all been together in one place.  Each of us had gone in different directions in life and had found ourselves in very different locations and circumstances.  Todd was now in Jakarta.  I was in Hong Kong and Maya was in the south of France.  Three dramatically contrasting locations.

I enjoyed walking through the town.  The quiet of the place was lovely, more so for me given the usual constant noise I live with in Hong Kong.  I don't think there would have been even the briefest of moments that the three of us would have considered it possible all those years ago, that the next time we would be able to all catch up together would be so far away from where we started.

Very weird place

After eating lunch at Gourdon, we decided to move on.  We still had quite a bit of time, so we went back to the map.  The town of St Paul de Vence was kind of on the way back to Biot.  Why not we thought.

The drive down the mountain from Gourdon was fun.  I probably drove too quickly, but twisting down the narrow roads is just so enjoyable.  I'm not sure if Todd agreed with me on that.  We got down into the valley that we had been looking down at from Gourdon and found ourselves in front of the town of St Paul de Vence.

It's a weird place.

At first, walking into the town we thought we were just entering into another one of the quaint French towns in the region.

Turns out that this town was a bit different.  St Paul de Vence was a popular haven for artists from around the world and was also full of celebrities who wanted to be around other "artistic" people.  We did our usual thing of walking around and trying to find the best things to see in this small town.  There wasn't really all that much to see.  There were some viewpoints to see some of the surrounding region, but nothing as nice as from Gourdon.  The town itself was quite small and there wasn't too much special to go and see.  As we were walking and talking, one of the artists who was sitting and painting by the side of her gallery looked up and exclaimed "that's an interesting accent" in a very distinctive Australian twang.  This artist was herself an Australian from Sydney.  She had been living in St Paul de Vence and painted glow in the dark paintings using a variety of luminescent paints that really didn't seem that safe to be handling.  We chatted with her for a bit and she explained to us a bit more about the town and some of the grim realities faced by the residents.  It was still a "real" town with residents, but it wasn't really a working town anymore.  There was no butcher, boulangerie or market within the town anymore, high rents had forced all these shops out.  This meant that the older folk living there were now reliant on being taken out for shopping trips.  She pointed out an old man who was walking his cat on the edge of the town's walls.  Apparently this happened every day, he would wake up, get drunk and then take his cat for a walk.  There's something very odd about seeing someone taking a cat for a walk and the cat in question seemingly agreeing to this arrangement.  No leash, no rope or any other form of connection... just an old man walking with his cat slowly following.  She also said the walls of the buildings were full of arsenic due to earlier construction using poor quality materials.  Apparently this arsenic was poisoning the residents (though she didn't explain why it was then that she decided that it was still safe for her to stay there).  It was a grim overview of the town she was giving us...

Then things started to get weird....

She started to tell us about her art, and how there were cosmic forces and dreams that inspired her and gave her visions (her pictures were nice, but the Australian Aboriginal influences were undeniable, a fact she refused to acknowledge).  She began to mix in scientific words into very unscientific topics as she described her artistic process and why it was that her work was so powerful.  She mentioned eddy currents and magnetic forces which was an immediate and gigantic flashing red light for me.  She told us about her rejection of money and finances, whilst then telling us in detail about her sales to Qatari royals.  There was a constant contradiction to her which I found incredibly interesting, yet startling at the same time.  She finished everything off with an attempt to cold read the both of us, having decided that she wanted to read our palms.... of course.  She then proceeded to give us her in-depth cosmic assessments of our characters.  It probably would have been a far more intriguing and amazing insight had we not been talking to each other for close to an hour... it's not really all that insightful a "reading" when you've already been quizzing someone for that amount of time.  Still, it made me think about how often something like this would work on other people and how she genuinely seemed to believe all of this.

It was getting late.  We said our goodbyes to the Australian artist, who for all of her peculiarities was very nice, and went back to the car.  It was a very strange town.

High up in the South of France

Sadly for all of us, Phil couldn't stay with us any longer.  He had to head back to the UK, so he hopped on a train at Grasse and headed to the airport at Nice.  We wanted to drive him there, but with there was a visit from Macron and Xi Jinping in the region which meant that the traffic in the area was very uncertain.  Going by train seemed to be the more secure approach, so we said our goodbyes at Grasse.

Todd and I had all day free until we were to catch up with Maya and Adam later in the evening.  With all that time, we decided to keep driving north.  Looking at the map, we noticed the town of Gourdon.  It seemed to be in the perfect spot for us to visit before looping back around to Biot.

The drive up to the town was itself worth the trip.  The road was long and windy, and the elevation increased quickly to take us up the mountain.  In the distance, we could see the town on the other side of a small ravine.  We stopped the car by the side of the road to take in the view of this small town perched on the top the mountain.  It looked like something out of a story.

Once we arrived at the Gourdon itself, the views were just as impressive.  We were able to see all the way down into the valley (and Maya later explained to us that you could even see Biot from up there).

This was as good a place as any for lunch.

We sat down at a restaurant with the best view and ordered some French classics.  I went with the coq au vin, which of course tasted even better than the normal because of the location.  Todd sat into his chair looking happy with his chicken stewed with mushrooms.  As I ate, I looked at him with a bit of jealousy as he was able to wash down his food with a cold beer.  I wanted a glass of rose to go with my food, but I had to be responsible since I was driving.  Iced tea for me instead.

After lunch we kept walking for a little bit.  The town of Gourdon is very small, so you can walk most of it within half an hour.

We took in the views for a bit longer, found our favourite spot near a big tree, then decided it was time to start heading down the mountain.

This whole region is so much nicer when you have a car to take you everywhere.

Lovely smells

The last few days had been exceptionally fun.  Being able to spend so much time with Phil, Todd and Maya was itself worth the cost of the trip.

Maya and Adam had some errands they needed to run, so Todd, Phil and myself decided to go for a bit of a drive.  Looking at the map of the region, we noticed the town of Grasse on the upper edge of this Cote d'Azur region.  Why not we thought?

The drive turned out to be far more fun/dangerous than I thought.  The roads were narrow, windy and poorly sign posted.  I had become accustomed to driving on European roads as a result of my last trip to Italy and I was now very aware of the fact that if I was to have ever become a race car driver, I would have wanted to have been a rally car driver.  I had a great time twisting and turning up the mountainous roads (at a decently fast speed), but I'm not so sure Todd and Phil had as much fun.  Still, we made it safely to the town of Grasse, found a parking spot (in what later turned out to be a terrible spot to park) and went out to start exploring.

Grasse is a bit higher up, so it is another one of the beautiful French towns sitting on a hill.  The slow slope gives a lovely view of rooftops which slowly descend into the valley below.

Once we were further inside the old town itself, we found an old town that felt like it needed a bit of care.  There were plenty of towns like this around the world that have been dressed up for the purposes of tourism, but Grasse felt like it needed a bit of work to be done still.  The buildings needed repair, paint was chipped and there was a bit of grime everywhere.  It wasn't a terrible thing to see, as it was more of a unique experience.  It felt as though this looked closer to the original than the more manufactured towns you would see closer to the coast.

We walked up the hill towards the centre of town.

As we walked up, we saw lots of free parking spots which were much closer to where we wanted to go.  We briefly went through the mental struggle of whether to turn back and get the car before we realised we had gone too far.... after all the cheese, we probably needed the exercise anyway.

We reached the top and the main part of the town.

Grasse by itself probably isn't that amazing.  There are prettier towns with nicer scenery.  What Grasse has is a history which makes it very special.  It was the centre of France's perfume industry and it still holds itself to be the world's perfume capital.  None of us are all that interested in perfume, but this seemed like something unique to look at.  We went to the Fragonard perfumery and signed up for the free tour.

I don't think I had ever read or learnt anything about perfumes prior to this visit.

It was a relatively enlightening experience, seeing how the different products were made.  These perfumes were all made with natural products, so a considerable amount of effort and resources went into the extraction process for each of the base scents.  Seeing the work put into slowly drawing the smell out of a flower or some other herbs made me realise and understand where the value was in these products in comparison to the mass produced products made from chemical compounds.

As part of the tour, they let us take part in various "tests" of our noses to see how well we could identify the different base smells which were used to create all the perfumes that were made.  There were a couple of girls on the tour with us who seemed confident in their abilities.  Our first set of tests was to try and identify the various underlying smells in different perfumes.  With prodding and a bit of help, we were able to start picking out how various fragrances were constructed.

The tour then moved on and we were taken to look at different vats and machines used in the process of fragrance creation.  We reached the end of the tour and we were  given our final test.  We were given ten different smells and we were asked to match them up with the correct name tags.  We all started the test and I was quickly shocked by how difficult it was to link a smell with a name.  It was an odd feeling.  I "knew" the smell.  I could clearly differentiate the smell from the different smells.  But when it came to the point of trying to identify "what" that smell actually was, that was a significantly more difficult task.  The first five or so we thought we had quickly, but the last few... those were tough.  We put in our selections and waited for our tour guide to give us our grades.  Phil, Todd and I all scored the same.  The girls on the other hand were much lower.  The look on their faces told the story of their shock.  These three random guys all had better noses than them!

One incredibly surprising thing for all of us was the complete lack of any allergic reaction.  All of us to an extent have suffered from hay ever or some random allergies over the years towards things like scents and fragrances (or so we thought).  We all went into the perfumery with a slight sense of concern about whether we would be reduced to red eyed, sniffling creatures trying to hold back our sneezing.  Instead.... nothing.  No reaction at all.  Todd had been struggling a touch with some hay fever since he arrived in France, and he found himself feeling better inside the perfumery than outside.  It made me wonder how much of our allergies are triggered by other less natural irritants as opposed to the natural world around us.  Everything in this perfumery was naturally made and of the highest quality, and yet we were all fine.  On the other hand, maybe we just had incredibly refined noses which reacted positively to the quality of the products....

Cote d'Azur

I woke up with a cracking headache.

The jet lag was fine.

The headache from all the absinthe was less OK.

The three of us dragged ourselves out of our rooms, changed and went downstairs for pastries and cafe au lait.  The sugar and butter from the pastries made me feel better immediately.  With the first sip of the coffee,  I was quickly reminded about how poor French coffee was.  The caffeine helped, but it still always surprised me that the French seemed to make such poor coffees given their love of all things gastronomical.  It was a bizarre oversight in an otherwise spotless resume.

Maya arrived a bit later in the morning to see us looking more dishevelled than she expected.  I'm sure she thought we were just tired and jet lagged.  Maya suggested we go for a drive along the coast.  Her idea was that we drive to either St Raphael or St Tropez and then drive back to our place in Juan le Pins.  With our heads feeling the way they were, we decided that St Raphael was clearly the best option (being of course the closest of the two options). 

St Raphael is a beautiful seaside town.  It was a spectacular day and the waters were crystal clear.  We put our feet into the water to see whether it was warm enough yet, but it was still a touch too cold for us to contemplate swimming.  That didn't deter the braver though, and we saw the occasional person slowly wading out into the waters.

The fresh air and the sunshine were the perfect cure for my headache.  I breathed in deeply and I immediately felt better.  It seemed to give me more energy and I felt like the excesses from the previous night were being beaten back.

We didn't stay too long and continued on our trip along the coast.  Before we left St Raphael, Maya managed to drive us down a one way street the wrong way, but thankfully we all survived.  As we drove further, we saw numerous signs for one of the Allied landing beaches during WWII.  I've always read deeply into WWII history, so this was interesting to me.  The others agreed to stop so that we could go and have a look at the landing spot.

There was nothing particularly "historic" about the place other than an old landing craft and memorial near the carpark.  The beach itself was different to what I had seen before.  Growing up in Australia, we are used to sandy beaches.  Over the last few years, I had even been to a few pebbly beaches, but this was different again.  At this beach, the pebbles were the size of your palm.  Were they even correctly labelled as pebbles?  Stones was probably a better description.  It was a stony beach.  As we stood there, when you listened you could hear the sounds of the pebbles/stones as the waves washed them up and down the shore line.  With every wave in and out, there was a low rumble, a rustling or crackling of the stones.

We kept driving.

The scenery was beautiful.  It was at times quite barren and all of us talked about how much it reminded us of parts of Australia.  Even the muted colours of olive, red and brown seemed to be something we were more familiar with.  We reached some very impressive rock formations and decided to climb around on them.

Maya was terrified of the heights, so she let us guys run further out to explore.  We wandered off and took our photos, then started to climb up and down some of the higher rocks.  Todd did his usual daredevil thing and managed to crawl into some unimaginably dangerous spots, dangling with one arm as he took some selfies.

The size of everything made me think more about Australia and the red rocks reminded me of the red ochre.  I hadn't expected this type of landscape to be here as I had expected more temperate surroundings.  When you think of France, you think of green fields and forests.  You don't really think about rocky outcrops and shrubs.

As we left, we had one more stop before heading back home with Maya.  We went to Cannes, mainly because there was a cake she wanted to buy for dinner.

I remember staying in Cannes several years ago when I was backpacking in the region.  It still looked the same.  We climbed to the top of the hill overlooking the town and looked out at the expensive hotels and boats in marina.  For such a wealthy and famous place, Cannes still had a relaxed atmosphere that I really liked.  It wasn't yet time for the festival though, so like the previous time I visited, it was very possible that I had just picked one of the few quieter times to visit.

After the long day, Maya suggested we go back to her home to rest up before dinner.  We suggested going back to our place in Juan le Pins first to get our car, but in the end we couldn't be bothered.  Back at Maya's place, Adam and the kids had already arrived and they were setting up for dinner.  Adam had brought out the raclette grill, which made me extremely happy.  Neither Phil nor Todd had ever experienced the simple joy that is a raclette dinner, so we spent the first few moments teaching them and showing them our own personal preferences.  I had never done their style of raclette before using the home grill and having vegetables and meats to accompany the cheese.  I had only eaten it in Switzerland, and there it was eaten much more simply with only potatoes and pickles.  I quite liked their approach though.  As much as I enjoy the simpler Swiss approach to eating, I'm still culturally Asian and Australian, so having the variety of vegetables and meats to accompany the melted cheese suited my palette.

Adam was very happy to have us all over and he pulled out bottle after bottle of champagne for us to drink with dinner.  The fizz and sweetness of the champagne complemented the cheese well, cutting into its richness.  The kids had their fill and wandered off.  I reached over and took the remaining food off of their plates.  Why let it go to waste?  Eventually, the adults also finished.  I sat back and kept drinking champagne with Phil as Todd and Adam moved onto a brief interlude of coffee.  The kids seemed to have a sixth sense for what was happening as they suddenly reappeared.  Perfect timing by the kids for dessert.  Maya had taken us to Cannes specifically for her favourite cake from the region, a "Tarte Tropezienne".

It was kind of like a sponge, but much firmer.  The filling was a thick, almost custard like cream.  Maya added a serving of fruit to it which was needed given how sweet the cake was.  The soft texture of the fruit also helped to balance out the hard and crust like texture of the cake.

Thankfully, we had decided against driving our own car up to Maya's place.  After several bottles of champagne I was feeling nicely buzzed, and none of us was in any state to drive.  We called a cab to take us back to Juan le Pins.

Antibes at night

It was starting to get a bit late, so Maya had to take the kids home.

Phil, Todd and myself had no desire whatsoever to end our night early.  We were together and out in a foreign country for the first time ever.  We were going to enjoy our night.  Juan le Pins felt dead.  It was the wrong time of year to be looking for a party, and even then, the closed nightclubs and bars in the area looked dated and tired.  We did what all good travellers do these days and consulted google for the best place to go.

Everything we read pointed us towards Antibes.

It was a short 30 minute walk, so the perfect amount of time for us to build up a bigger thirst.

Antibes was still quiet, but it was at the very least more active than Juan le Pins.  There were a few bars and clubs open, and more importantly there were actually people who were out socialising.

Since we were in France and we have no concern for our health and wellbeing, we walked straight into an absinthe bar and started pounding back the drinks.  There weren't many people in the bar, but we loudly determined that we would bring it to life.  After a few absinthes, we were laughing and joking like always.  You would never have guessed that we hadn't been able to catch up for so many years.  More people were probably attracted by the noise and the bar started to fill up more.  One of the employees who was standing around decided that there were now enough people and began to play the piano.  This was good timing.  I started to tip him so that I could choose my own songs and our experience was now complete.  Absinthe, piano, friends and poor decisions.

I can't remember how many absinthes we had, but eventually we found the bar's collection of funny hats.  Dressing up in those hats was the sign that it was time to move on.

We moved further into the centre of Antibes and found some more standard bars.  We had some beers and then some wines, but nothing was memorable.

The combination of jet lag and drinks was starting to have an impact on us, so we decided to start walking back to the apartment.

Juan le Pins

The entire purpose of the trip was to visit Maya and her family.

Todd and I arrived at Nice airport earlier than we expected, we had told Maya not to come and meet us but we knew Maya well enough to know that she would ignore us and come to the airport anyway.  It had been a rougher flight than we expected.  The flight time was over 7 hours long and when we got on the plane, something felt amiss.  We soon realised that the plane we were on really wasn't a long haul plane, but rather it was a small short haul plane that had been pressed into this longer route.  I'm sure that from a mechanical stand point, there is no problems with this approach, but the interior of the plane was severely lacking.  The seats were uncomfortable and there was almost no entertainment.  Looking at the maps and the flight path being taken, it became clear to us that this was meant to have been a much shorter flight, but the embargo on Qatar by the rest of the Arab states was forcing it to fly a significantly longer route.  Since we were early, hungry, and also waiting for our friend Phil who was also coming, we decided to get some lunch first.  As we sat eating our quiche (we were now in France after all), we saw two small platinum blonde children run past.  The kids had clearly arrived.  Maya soon followed as we jumped out to surprise her.  Catching up with old friends you haven't seen for years will always be one of the best parts of traveling.  We all sat down and chatted for a while before Phil then arrived and we repeated the whole process again.  The four of us had grown up together at boarding school and yet somehow remained friends for all these years.  It had been many years since we had all been together in one place.  Probably over ten years in fact.

I went over to pick up the hire car and then followed Maya as she drove us to our hotel.  We had decided to stay around Juan le Pins as it seemed like it was both close to things to do, as well as being close to where Maya and her family lived.  After we settled, we went for a walk down the beach.

It was perfect.  There aren't many times you can truly say that, but this was one of them.

The sun had started to set, so we ordered a bottle of rose and caught up on all the crazy and mundane things that had been happening to each of us recently.  The kids on the other hand ran around on the beach...

The last time we were all together, I'm fairly sure we were huddled up freezing in some dingy cafe in Canberra.  Over ten years had past and we were now all sitting on the beach on the Cote d'Azur. watching the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea.  You really never know what direction life will take you no matter how much you try and plan it.

Giant teddy bear

I was feeling jet lagged.

I'm certainly not old yet, but there's definitely the feeling of getting older.  Playing contact sports becomes more difficult, recovering from a bender takes longer, and the getting over of jet lag is definitely harder than when I was younger.

I was in Doha.  Well... I was at Hamad International Airport in Doha, waiting for my next flight.  I was off to the South of France to visit my dear friend Maya and her family.  Flying Qatar Airways had provided the best route.  We were arranging a big group meet up, and good fortune meant that Todd was able to get a flight from Indonesia that landed in Doha about an hour before me.  We would be able to fly onto Nice together on the same flight.

I started to walk around the airport to look for Todd.  He couldn't be far away.  The wifi seemed a bit spotty as I struggled to get online so that I could whatsapp him.  I'm really not sure what we did before smart phones became ubiquitous in our lives.

As I walked around, I saw a teddy bear in the distance.

A gigantic teddy bear....

There's something about being sleep deprived when you see these sorts of things.  It messes with your brain a little bit as you question whether or not you are actually seeing a gigantic teddy bear or if instead you have started to lose your mind a bit.  My sense of reality seemed to warp a bit as I stood in front of this gigantic teddy bear.

I eventually found Todd, who was also standing near the giant teddy bear.

I needed to get my mind straight, so we went to get some coffee.  We were in Arabia (technically speaking), so we went to get some Arabic style coffee.  It was nice to be able to pour the coffee from the dallah, something I hadn't done for a few years.  Arabic coffee is prepared differently to in the West and it's much lighter than you would expect.  I find it much closer in taste and consistency to a strong tea.

After a few refreshing cups (paired with some baklava and dates), I immediately felt better.  Soon enough, I would be swapping the dates and coffee for pastries and cafe au laits.

Madness in Guangzhou

For reasons unknown to me, Guangzhou has a team in the Hong Kong Premier League.  They are a big budget club, so their presence in the Hong Kong league isn't entirely welcome with the local Hong Kong fans.  Over the last few years, I've started going to Kitchee games with Charlie.  He has brought a level of passion to the games which is astounding, transplanting the English style of fan support here to Hong Kong.  It's been successful too as the crowds for Kitchee have steadily grown and even the local fans becoming more vocal.

Charlie and Andy both decided to bring another element of English (and more broadly European) football culture with them and decided that we should all do a true away day when Kitchee played in Guangzhou.  This was something I had never done before, but it was appealing enough an idea for me to agree.  We booked tickets on the newly built fast rail and sped off for Guangzhou.  In true English fan fashion, the beers were out already as we waited for the train to arrive.  The train ride itself was incredibly fast, less than an hour.  The Chinese fast rail system is a wonder of the world and its ability to connect the country to an absolute marvel.  By the time we arrived in Guangzhou, I was already feeling very buzzed.  The day had barely begun and we were in a taxi headed to our hotel. our good sense now gone as we argued all the way there about some nonsense I can't even remember anymore.  At the hotel, Charlie managed to convince the girls running the club room to give us more beers (a terrible idea) as we dumped our bags before heading to the game.  We arrived at one of the ugliest sporting grounds I've ever seen.  We weren't meant to take drinks into the game, but that didn't stop almost all of the Kitchee fans from sneaking their own drinks into the game.  A wide area of seats had been set up to keep us away from the Guangzhou fans and there was a large police presence which seemed to focus only on ensuring the Kitchee boys didn't cause any problems.

The police looked at us nervously.  There couldn't have been more than 150 of us (probably less to be honest) but they seemed to fear a riot could start at any point.  We screamed at the other fans and we had a drummer keeping up a constant banging drone.  Kitchee quickly went up 2-0 and the abuse from the Kitchee fans towards to the Guangzhou fans was relentless.  They tried to ignore us, but as Guangzhou clawed its way back to 2-2, something clearly snapped with them as they finally started to yell back at us.  The wives and girlfriends of the Guangzhou fans seemed particularly annoyed at us, as they led the screaming.  It was then, near the end of the game that Kitchee broke their hearts with a late winning goal.  We roared and all charged towards the field, the police were smart enough not to stop us, and the Kitchee players came running to us as we all celebrated what would be the winning goal.  Then we ran towards the barricades keeping us from the Guangzhou fans and started to yell at them.  They looked sullen as they responded with some meek yells, but they knew it was over as well.  The score finished up 3-2.  The Kitchee players came over to us and thanked us for making the trip over.

Things weren't completely over though.  The police may have thought separating the fans during the game was a good idea (it definitely was), but they hadn't given any thought to how things would be AFTER the game.  Both sets of fans were still leaving out of the same exit, and so there was an inevitable confrontation.  The Kitchee boys whooped and cheered as they walked past the sullen looking Guangzhou fans.  For some of the Guangzhou fans, this was too much as they started to itch for a fight.  They started screaming back and challenging the Kitchee fans to a fight.  One Guangzhou fan even pulled out a retractable nightstick and started to threaten the Kitchee fans.  At this point, Andy casually walked over, all 6'4" of him, and just started to look at the guy.  Very quickly the nightstick was put away and the loud screaming stopped.  As a final insult to the Guangzhou fans and players, as Andy, Charlie and I drove away in our taxi, the driver just happened to drive us past the players entrance to the stadium.  We opened the windows and screamed "KITCHEE" at the Guangzhou players and their families as we went by, with retaliatory screams from them following us as we left the scene.

We made our way back to the hotel in time for the happy hour in the club lounge.  Charlie had planned everything well, and we had worked out that paying slightly more for the room meant that we had the unlimited food and drinks on offer in the club room.  We made ample use of this, adding to an already drink filled day until we decided we wanted to go out.

We made our way into the Guangzhou evening, starting out in a party area, before finding some dive bars to continue the night.  The night continued to descend into anarchy and it was only by a miracle that I managed to get at back to the hotel in the early hours of the morning.  Even then, it wasn't without some resistance.

I'm not sure how we managed to wake up the next day, but we did.  We dragged ourselves over to the club room where the manager was seated at her desk.  A smile ran over her face as she saw the three of us enter looking for food.  We must have looked terrible.  Later, as we checked out of the hotel with her, the smile crept back across her face as she commented to me in Cantonese: "the three of you went very hard last night didn't you?"

Yes.... we certainly did....