There are few liquids in the history of mankind more palatable than Japanese draft beer, which is why I recently found myself skipping buoyantly off to one of the many Japanese restaurants that dot Causeway Bay.
It was the tail end of the Lunar New Year so most of the mainland factories had been shut down for a few days, delivering a rare blue sky over the town I dig so much.
I was halfway through my first frosty mug of Japanese nirvana with an old friend from Singapore before he launched into his obligatory Manchester United spiel. He brought up their contentious win over Lille in the Champions League the night before and made a reference (again) to manager Sir Alex Ferguson's genius. 'Ferguson's a perpetual whiner,' I told him. 'So what else is going on?'
He quickly changed the topic to exit strategies. 'Whose exit strategy?' I asked. 'Yours,' he replied. 'You would be pleasantly shocked at what they are doing in Singapore these days.'
Although he was born and raised in Singapore, he had been gone for long stretches and often condemned the nanny-state it had become. But he returned home a little less than two years ago to a place, and a government, that he hardly recognised.
'They are hungry and accommodating,' he said. 'It's the antithesis of Hong Kong.'