New Year’s Eve 2014

There were a few choices of New Year's Eve parties this year. Everybody had a party, but I could not go to most of them. I had to work on the actual New Year's Eve, so all the parties on that day were out. Kevin's office had their party on Monday. Both Lily & I were available that night, so we went to that one.

Office New Year's Eve parties are rarely that good. They are mostly a bunch of people who work together all getting a little drunk and trying not to embarrass themselves. Plus, an office is never the best place to have a party.

This party was at the Langham Hotel. I guess Kevin's company had a good year.

The Langham Hotel is a real luxury 5 star hotel. A lot of hotels claim to be 5 star, especially in places like China. I saw a hotel in China that could not possibly be more than 2 stars calling itself 5 star. The Langham really is 5 star. It looks like a luxury hotel inside and out. The same company owns the Langham Place in Mong Kok, which I could walk to from my tiny apartment, but the Langham Hotel is the original, and easy to get to by MTR.

Kevin's company also booked some rooms at the hotel. Not for an office orgy, but so people could stay the night if they got too tipsy and keep networking long after the party ended.

After the main party started to die down, some of us went up to one of the luxury suites. This was a very nice hotel room. I will never be able to afford a room like this. Even if I could, I would not want to. Even if I were a billionaire, I would have a hard time justifying a room like this when I can easily stay in a normal room.

This hotel room was bigger than my apartment. It had all the stylish decorations you would expect in a 5 star suite. Everything was in all the fashionable colors, whatever they are this week. This was the kind of room where presidents and rock stars stay. It was not the presidential suite, but in a lesser hotel, it easily could have been. We stayed in a nice hotel for Christmas, but this suite was fancier. The bathtub could easily fit four or five people, but this was not that kind of party.

We stayed up all night talking and drinking champagne. I'm not much of a champagne fan, but it was New Year's Eve, or actually New Year's Day by this point. The business people talked about business while the plus ones, or in my case, plus two, talked about everything else.

After the party, Kevin, Lily & I went back to our tiny box apartment. It was a far cry from that luxury suite.