US sailors strike lucky in Lang Kwai Fong

While in port, the carrier strike group's approximately 6,000 crewmembers will have a chance to participate in friendship building and community relation activities. That's what the rather stiff press
release from the USS John C. Stennis public affairs office said about the visit of its of sailors to Hong Kong this week.

The kind of activities they had in mind for the boys from the USS John C. Stennis carrier, USS Antietam, USS Preble and USS O'Kane, were "painting social centres, sorting and packing donations, entertaining kindergarten aged children, landscaping, and clearing shrubbery". (http://www.c7f.navy.mil/news/2007/july/53.htm). Right, but everybody knows what they really get up to in Hong Kong don't they? Let's just say that it's difficult to squeeze your way into a bar in Wanchai while they're in town.

The lads above are pictured getting into the spirit of the Lang Kwai Fong Food and Beer Festival, an annual July weekend of expensive booze and junk food designed to part tourists (and not a few locals) from their cash. OK, that's a bit cynical, but it is an expensive and overly plastic place to hang out; Wanchai (on any other weekend than a visit by the USS lads) and Tsim Sha Tsui are a much better bet. Lamma Island is a better bet still, but then I'm biased there.

Here are a few more shots from the two-day beer fest: