Warning: Alcoholic Weekend Ahead!!

Tomorrow see’s the start of another Hong Kong Rugby 7’s weekend where the best in the world gather together to test their skills and outwit their opponents. Oh yeah, there’s some sport on too but apparently no one goes to the Sevens to actually watch the rugby!

Skills to be tested over the next three days include:

The ability to not spill your beer

Pre-breakfast Pimms drinking

Beer jug stacking in the South Stand

Your ability to go to the bathroom in the bathroom

Staying dry (pun intended) in the South Stand

Not passing out before midday

Your ability to find your way home afterwards

Whether you can even remember who won the event

The annual Sevens tournament here in Hong Kong is probably the largest and most alcoholic weekend of the year and makes New Years Eve look like an Amish barn raising party. Well, what do you expect when the world of beer drinking rugby fans descend on the country for three days of fast paced action both on and off the field?

Over the years many of us who have lived here long enough have a plethora of outrageous stories to tell either from our own experience or from others misfortune. It’s the time of year where hospitals are on constant standby (not for the players of course!), where the local police just have to take a back seat and let it all happen and where bars and restaurants look forward to one of the most lucrative weekends of the year.

It’s a weekend of beer, wine, Pimms #1 and Champagne with the annual 7’s after party again sponsored by Louis Roederer and with the Sevens village plying revelers with New Zealand and other wines from around the world. Consumption of beer in the stadium is phenomenal with average consumption figures put at 220,000 pints of beer, 60,000 glasses of Pimms #1 and 10,000 glasses of wine! Now that’s a party!

Expect to see the usual fancy dress with guys dressed as nurses, superheroes and the like whilst the girls wear very little at all and what is worn is short, and very tight! It’s not a time to wear your Sunday best as it will, inevitably, get ruined throughout the course of the weekend - and you're more likely to see birthday suits rather than tailored suits!. My fancy dress is the same every year – the Scotland rugby kit! Why does no one take you seriously wearing it?!

This year, I will be going but not in fancy dress and I hope to take it easier than other years! No, I won’t be waking up in Admiralty bus station in my underwear again or attending the after party in a white mini-skirt and boob tube as was the case a few blurry years ago. But I will have a glass of wine or two, maybe a Pimms or two and certainly a beer or two and actually watch the games. After all, that really what this weekend is all about, great rugby, great sportsmanship and great times!

See you at the Sevens!!