Club CeTop

The next day, I wanted to try to see some more ancient sites. I wanted to find temples and things like that. I went to the tourist agency and found some brochures on what to do in HongKong. The lady at the tourism office said that one of the neater temples to check out was the Tin Hau temple. So off I went. The Tin Hau temple was pretty easy to get to, and a pretty neat sight to see. I was expecting something bigger, after seeing all the enormous cathedrals in Europe. However, this was a really neat temple, and was still in use. There was incense hanging from the ceiling in these curly-spring like shapes. Each ‘spring’ was about 2 feet tall, and if the bottom ring was unburnt, it was about a foot and a half wide. The incense hung from the ceiling, and the spiral burned upwards. I’d say each one looked like it might burn for about 5 to 7 days. There must have been 30 of these going along with hundreds of other candles and different types of incense and fires. I picked up a book of Buddhist prayers that they had out for free. At least I hope they were free.

I got back to my room and checked my e-mail, and there was a message from Jane Tan. She said that she was headed out to a club called CeTop, and said that if I’d like to join, to give her a call. Awesome. I called her up, and she said that there was one glitch, she had lost her wallet, and now couldn’t go out. I told her that I’d pay for the club if she wanted to go, as I was just excited to be heading out. She could tell I was eager to go, so she said she would be able to find enough money to go out, and to meet her in town in a little bit.

Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm not any bit of a fashion person. In fact, anyone who knows me well, will likley make a smart ass comment about me lacking any sense of style. All the same, I wanted to look sharp at this club, so I decided to dress up. The only thing was, all I brought was sandals and running shoes. Netiher of which look sharp. So, I decided to head out and get a pair of shoes. Didnt matter exactly what they looked like, I wasnt fussy. I just wanted something other than running shoes or sandals. Well, I should have known this was going to be tough when I went in to the first shoe store and asked the guy if I could try on one of [held up a shoe]. He looked at my feet, went in the back, brought out the rest of the crew working there, and they all laughed at my feet. Then he said no. This was going to be tough. As far as I can tell, a size 44 (largest anywhere carried) is the same as a size 11 here in the states. A 41 was about a 10, making what I needed (a 13.5) about a 51. Every shop I went to had only up to 44. Everywhere I went, I had a small gathering of tiny-footed chineese shoe salesmen laughing at my feet. Finally, I found a place with size 46 Addidas. They were hightops. I dont do hightops. I bought them anyway and crammed my feet in there.

I met up with Jane in Lan Kwai Fong, and went to an Irish bar to have a few drinks before going out to the club. We started talking about parties and clubs and the music scene in general. It turns out that Jane is in the middle of putting together a party that she is going to throw in the end of the summer. She’s working with a group in the US to bring over some talent for the party, and the group is none other than 2Tuff. 2Tuff is the group that we had worked with to throw our last party. Small world.

About 11:30 or so, we decided to head to CeTop, which turned out to be right around the corner, although you’d never know it. You walk to the door, and there’s a small chalkboard up that says “CeTop 9/f” Its in plain white chalk, nothing fancy. Unless you knew that CeTop was a bit of an underground club, you’d never know it was there. You walk down a narrow and rather dim corridor, and get to an elevator that takes you to the 9th floor. Voila. Its one floor of this building that’s transformed in to a club. There’s some funky booths that go around the edge, a neon bar, a good sized dance floor (capable of holding maybe 80 people) and a DJ booth. The music was what ever the DJ felt like playing. When we got there it was housey sort of techno, later it was D-n-B, then some dance-like music (which none of us liked) and then some heavy trance. Every time a new DJ came on, the atmosphere of the club changed.

Inside the club, Jane introduced me to a number of people, including a guy named James and his younger brother. James was a DJ from London (although he had a dayjob as well) and had spun with such names like Grooverider and others. He did a quick set while we were there and he was pretty good. James, along with all the people we met that night were really cool. I’d say 95% of people in the club spoke english. It was to the point that you might forget what city you are in. I got along really well with Jane. I was so happy that she offered to take me out clubbing. She was such a cool and fun person to hang out with as well, I couldn’t have asked for a better person to go clubbing with, or to hang out with in general.

Another neat thing about CeTop, is that you could go upstairs and the whole roof is turned in to a balcony. It was a nice night to be out there, sipping on a beer, meeting people, talking about travels and music, overlooking one of the most incredible cities in the world.

We stayed at CeTop until a little after 5am. I figured this was OK. I was leaving in a couple of days, if my sleep patterns were off, I’d be suffering from jetlag anyway, so it wouldn’t matter.

Further adventures of Joe