Great Leo, although it ended rather foolishly for me — eating a balut, kissing a bloke, playing the bongos and erm, calling Doris the wrong name.

I’ll update this with more later.

It’s later.

The day started off with a few shandys and larger tops in LFK. Not much action here. A bit of banter:

Me: “I can’t believe what I did!”
Snoop: “What?”
Me: “I found a website that has the entire storyline to Star Wars Episode III. I loaded it but then realised and closed it, but not before I spotted an important part of the story.”
Snoop: “You’re going to tell us?!”
Me: “Yeah, Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader!”

Boom boom.

We moved on to The Old China Hand, and instantly realised that all Leos should start there. Breakfast with Hey Ya Sambucas? Yes please.

We spotted Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park, you know, the computeer geek guy who steals the eggs. See!

We also saw the youngish English bloke who was there for our last Leo. Last time he was utterly Dannied and couldn’t walk or talk. This time he wasn’t so bad, and came over for a ‘chat’:

Snoop: “Big night?”
Him: “Big year!”

We started the new craze known as Makati Missions. Each of us in turn had to leave the OCH and go up to the bar in Makati, buy a sambuca, get a photo of you drinking it and bring the glass back. By the time I had my turn, I think they had caught on:

Me: “Hi, could I have a ….”
Waitress: “Sambuca?”

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Got my photo, but then she tried to collect the glass. I gave her the “look at that!”, pointing over her shoulder and tried to pocket the glass. She caught me, but let me take it after I gave her My Word As A Gentleman to bring it back.

Here’s the proof. You can see, two lads messed up. Can you guess who? Caspar the Ghost had a Jack Daniels and The Village Idiot went to the wrong bar and got the wrong drink.

Gunther loved the missions:

Me: “I’ve got a new mission…..”
Gunther: “I’ll do it. Whatever. Let me do it.”

We paid up, after a bit of air guitar and singing with a cowboy, and went to Makati to return the glasses. After that it was over to Mes Amis, via a girlie bar (”Hello Shaky!”, “Hello Snoop!”, “Hello Sebastian!” — that was Gunther’s psuedonym for the day — “Have we been here before?”) and then only one word describes it: dispersal.

I headed over to Hong Kong’s Phoenix Nights, also known as Cinta J, where a mate was having a rugby end of season dinner. Erm, things are a little hazy now. I remember singing The Lassy. Also the bongos. I don’t remember being given an honoury rugby shirt for my song. Don’t recall singing the Irish national anthem (I’m not even sure I know the words!)

Some other lads went to get some more food, others went to The White Stag, others to Devils and others to Dusk ’til Dawn. Then followed many messages saying “Where are you?” but that was it, dispersal.

I ended up in DTD with Doris for a while. Apparently Olive the singer told Doris to take me home as I was a little worse for wear. So she did, but not until after I’d had a balut:

a fertilised egg with a partially developed duckling, which is eaten boiled. Balut is a very nutritious snack food, which most Filipinos appreciate. However, non-Filipinos generally take a bit of convincing before taking their first bite.

Too right, take a look!!

For the non-Filipino, an adventurous spirit, a desire to explore the unknown and the ability to be open-minded are essential to the enjoyment of balut. A combination of saltiness and tartness, softness and crunchiness, a sensation of sweetness, the degree of resistance to the bite, the viscosity and stickiness are the rewards.

Well I’d had some adventurous spirits, so I tried one. Not my favourite taste I have to say. However, I did have the hoooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwn all day on Sunday.

Balut and penoy are traditionally considered aphrodisiacs

Now, during the day, an Old Friend had got back in contact via SMS. Yes, Old Doris. Alas, I called Doris by Old Doris’s real name, while we were, er, getting intimate. Not the best move. Egg.

More egg, as that’s about all I can remember.