Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week

So Frank Sinatra sang, but tonight was pretty happy and unlonely, thanks to a random chance (redundant, ack) meeting in an elevator.

No, I haven't found my Canadian expat soulmate (YET), for whom I'm still on the lookout.

Whoa, I'm drunk!

Yep, it is I, drunk.

Lemme backup.

Last weekend I finally met the person living on the same floor as me (there are only 2 units on this floor in this tower) and I said, "Hi, I'm hk" and she said "I'm Penny and I'm moving out today" and then when I returned from whatever I was doing that day, I found her card and one of the coupons for free dinners the building gave us when we moved it under my door. And so she invited me to her housewarming party today, which involved champagne with her 3 other friends at her new apartment down the street and a VERY, VERY expensive dinner at this molecular gastronomy place in Wan Chai. (It really was alarmingly expensive, and so it made sense that there were empty tables at a place that only had seating for about 50, I think, but then again, I'm totally housed on the wine pairings, so I could be off.)

Anyhoo. Her friends were nice and she was nice, and did I mention the wine pairing with the chef's menu? Six mini glasses of wine = one drunk hk. Not to mention the other small Asian women at the table.

One thing I've learned over and over again here is that the answer to the question "Where are you from?" is inevitably multi-layered and complex. Tonight there were:

1. U.S. guy who had been in Singapore for 2 years before coming to HK 4 years ago
2. Korean girl who moved to Germany at age 8, worked in Korea for 2 years before moving here a year ago
3. Singaporean guy who lived in the U.S. for 2 years before coming to HK
4. Singaporean girl who lived in Switzerland for a few years before coming to HK
5. me

Even the chef, who says he is self-taught (damn), hails from London but lived in Canada before coming to HK, where he works for an acoustic equipment company during the day but somehow works as a chef at night. Yeah.

The dinner was stupendous. The Wagyu dish was possibly the best meat dish I've ever tasted. Beluga caviar on a crisp little pastry thing. Hairy crab souffle and the traditional ginger tea chaser -- but the chaser was frozen with liquid nitro, so you picked it off the chef's spoon with your fingers. And of course the wine pairings were fantastical.

A note about the wine -- it hit me hard because I didn't get much sleep last night. Why is that? Er, because I was supposed to meet friends of a friend at the metro station at 7:15 am this morning, and -- wonder of wonders -- I got there on time, only to stand there stupidly for 30 minutes while no one else showed up. I finally got on the train and tried to get to the ferry to the island we were hiking by myself, but failed to get to the ferry on time. At 8:15, the friend called, very apologetic, saying that she and her boyfriend had overslept. Argh.

So after missing the ferry, I turned around and got back home at 9, and completely wasted the day away playing Word Mole on my Blackberry (addictive, strangely so) and watching crap on TV like the end of Closer (hello, bad and unrealistic dialogue and delivery! Yes, I'm talking to you Natalie Portman) and Anaconda II: Search for the Blood Orchid (which was oddly enjoyable and really kind of good for what it was). Until I went to dinner with aforementioned international folks. With whom I had a shiny, brilliant, drunken time.

And that was my Saturday. Now must go to bed (first drink water) and also not throw up, as going to hike tomorrow with coworkers. Involves ferry ride. Ugh. Bed. Go to. Must.