By Charley Mallon, on October 1st, 2011
This spring I went with a friend to visit Hong Kong and attend their famous annual Rugby 7’s tournament. I had never been to Asia before and had always had a fascination for the Hong Kong/British history. We spent 8 days there, five sightseeing and three dedicated to the Rugby matches and all that entails.
I found the city colorful, exciting, crowded, clean and filled with the energy one associates with NYC. For monoglots (look it up) such as ourselves, we found the area easy to traverse (including a side ferry trip to nearby Macau) and the natives friendly. We stayed on the mainland side in Kowloon, but found the subway system quickly and inexpensively took us anywhere we chose to roam. We found an Irish Bar quickly, but enjoyed eating the tasty local fare in many of a local hole-in-the wall.
7’s Rugby is an abbreviated version of the regular 15 a-side version and is Hong Kong’s largest sporting event with 20 national teams competing. The 40,000 seat stadium is filled all three days with visitors from all over the world, many vying with each other for the most outlandish costumes. As expected, the All Blacks won. The USA put in a subpar performance. And, the beer………………
We were joined by some friends from Boulder who were there for the festivities, including one businessman who “just happened to need to stay a couple of days in Hong Kong” on his company paid business trip to China.
Great matches, exciting city, wonderful people (long plane ride). I’d recommend it to anyone.
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