St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.

So of course ML and I just had to go to our favorite Spanish tapas place and demolish a bottle of wine (sentence not done yet) before heading to McSorely's for some scotch, a lot of ale, and a little rugby.

Crowd was thick, but my ethnicity got us a table and drinks in under 10 minutes. I'm not sure how many people know this, but almost all the bars in Hong Kong that cater to the expat crowd have Filipino wait staff. It's because we speak better English than the locals.

All you need to do is go up to the server you think is Pinoy, introduce yourself as a kababayan, and voila! Great table with two ales and two Jacks magically appear.

I used to do this a lot in NY too. And it would impress the hell out of my Argentinian classmates. I'd walk up to a Pinoy maitre d' and get us a through the velvet ropes while the New Yorkers stood in line.

Having a Philippine passport does get you in some places faster.