Hong Kong Reunion with Ravi... and his tennis racquet

The farewell committee (above, left to right: Calvin- roommate extraordinaire, Nori and his baby boy Kobe, Moms, Tracy getting his head slapped yet again, me and my girlfriend Colette, Ashley, and my little sister Carrie)


I was really trying to smash their heads together to see what sound it would make.

Hello everybody!


Thankfully, I made it to Hong Kong--- when I checked into the airport at LAX, my name wasn't even on the list!! Apparently, American Airlines never sent over the confirmation to Cathay Pacific in time, and hence, my entire itinerary was wiped out! Everything worked out after about an hour of mayhem, though, and was just a timely reminder that a good attitude about these types of things (which are inevitably going to happen again) is absolutely critical to having a good time on this trip.

I arrived into Hong Kong, where I met up with Ravi Choithramani, an old friend of mine whom I haven't seen since I left Hong Kong at the age of 16. Not much has changed, really. I still swear at him with the few Hindi words he taught me back in the 7th grade, and he still swears back at me with the few Cantonese swear words I taught him (honestly, the credit should really go to my Uncle Ed, who laid a solid foundation for me!)

Funny story about Ravi... Back in the 7th grade, he had a huge crush on Andrea Doak, and we would always tease him about his inability to ask her out. (Then again, at that age, we all had our various issues with asking girls out as I was no Rico Suave either-- but enough about me.) We made a bet, that if he didn't ask her out by the end of 8th grade, he would have to surrender his Prince Graphite 110 tennis racquet to me. Back then, the Prince Graphite was the real deal (Andre Agassi and Michael Chang both used it to whomp some serious ass) and carried some major street cred amongst the tennis cognoscenti so this was a heavy wager that (we hoped) carried a lot of motivational weight for Ravi. Needless to say, Ravi never asked her out by the end of 8th grade and gave up his beloved Prince Graphite to yours truly, which I would later use to stomp some serious US Open ass myself (ok, fine, Schurr High School Varsity was about as far as my tennis career went.) I kept this racquet over the years and right before I left for Hong Kong, I decided to bring this with me to give back to Ravi as I was sure he'd get a kick out of it as well. (Picture below) How does that song go again, "Reunited and it feels so good......"



As we have both since discovered through Facebook, Andrea Doak is now married to somebody not named Ravi. Sorry bud, if only you had asked her out, perhaps things may have turned out differently!