Terms of Endearment

Everyday we have breakfast in the hotel restaurant partly because it is convenient but mostly because it is free! There is a nice fountain at the front of the restuarant and the breakfast buffet is pretty good. The staff is friendly and always there to assist in whatever you need. After this things take a darker turn. There is a music track that plays in the background and it is relentlessly playing the same song over and over again. People are talking and eating so you don't really pay that much attention at first.

The next thing you know, you are plowing through your breakfast like it's the first meal you've seen in a month. Faster and faster and you have know idea why. Then you realize subconsciously you are trying to get out of there as fast as you can to avoid hearing that song again.

Yesterday, I finally asked one of the waitresses about it and she told me it was the theme from Terms of Endearment (a perfectly awful and depressing movie with Shirley McLaine from the early 80's) and that the song was a favorite among the wait staff therefore they just press the repeat button on the CD player. These people are insane.

Or perhaps they have a little bit of mad genious in them. I guess if you play the same song over and over again the table turnover might go quicker allowing them to squeeze in more and more guests. Whatever the reason, I will never again be able to hear that horrible song without thinking of Hong Kong.

By the way, for those of you keeping score, it is sunny today and there is actually blue sky showing through the clouds. Of course it would happen this way, we are leaving Hong Kong today.