Hong Kong Entrepreneur's Tour - Day 1

Hong Kong was a blast! I was there on the 14th to the 21st June, and it was indeed one of the more enjoyable times of my life thus far. The hotel was awesome, the food was awesome, the company was awesome and it was just awesome :) But after a whole week there, even in all awesomeness, I guess I should be proud to say, that it felt good to be back in Malaysia. Really. After all there's no place like home. I was hesitating to document day by day about Hong Kong like I did with the London trip because it would take forever and unlike the previous trip, I'm not on holiday now. But I think I shall, because, well I like wasting time typing everything out. Haha so be patient with my lengthy detailed entries, or you can just look at the photos =)

14th June 2008

My day started off at 5am. Freaking early in the morning, but tar college is far from the airport. Thomas was so kind to offer to accompany me to sentral in the taxi even though I didn't ask (thanks!), just in case I get some weirdo taxi driver who might rape me and kill me in the process. Yeah I know its paranoia, but after that encounter with the rude and reckless taxi driver, one can't be too careful. After all, it wasn't even dawn yet, the streets are quiet and the skies still dark. We went out to the hostel gate, and there was NO taxi. I thought it hadn't arrived so we just waited patiently, but after 15 minutes it seemed like no taxi was going to come. I then called the taxi company I booked the taxi with and she told me the taxi had gone away. I was like @#$%^&*!! I'm only a few minutes late!! And they called me to confirm before that and I confirmed with them. Yet the taxi went away before I could get to it!!! The taxi company arranged to get another one there, so we waited. It was still early thank goodness, so we just sat down outside the front gate and talked. I was so glad to have company really, a wait on my own with that kind of start of the day would have gotten me cursing otherwise. haha but it was all good. We got a very amicable taxi driver who was damn funny, and full of randomness to the point where I would just roll my eyes, look over at Thomas who was as blur as I was, raise my eyebrows and stifle laughter because the both of us had no idea what in the world the taxi driver was talking incessantly and so enthusiastically about. I thought I was talkative, you should have heard this man talk. Told me to buy sunglasses and SPONGEBOB of all things from HK. The only downside was that he didn't want the air conditioning on coz he said it was too early in the morning and wound down the windows instead.

I met Eric at sentral, and we took the express train to the airport. We were the first to arrive, so we waited for the rest who came soon after. It was amazing how we've only met during the workshop and final competition, but these people already know how to tease me! LOL. damn ke lian lah innocent me. hahaha. But it was also amazing how easily we could talk to each other. It felt like a nice start to a nice one week holiday. =) After checking in, we went to Mc Donald's to have breakfast. I had an apple pie, while most of them had proper meals. The gold team (I forgot which one of them) put their docile WORMS that were covered in shit right in front of me!!! on the table!!! eek! Not exactly an appetizing sight. The flight took around 4 hours, and we met the Vietnamese team at the airport before getting into the bus that took us to the hotel.

Hong Kong Airport

Mah Tsing Bridge, taken as we were in the bus

Once we reached the hotel, we checked in and was given two lift cards per room but only one key. Which indeed proved to be quite a hassle, even when we were able to leave it at the front desk. My room number was auspiciously 1025, which was exactly my birth date. Oct 25th. lol coincidences of coincidences! Once we checked in, relaxed and freshened up, it was time for the first event, the welcome dinner. The food was really good, and it was the beginning of a week full of spoiling ourselves with great food. Goodness knows how much weight I put on in that one week. I felt a little sick around three quarters through the dinner, unfortunately, and had to retreat to my room to take some medicine that i brought along just in case. When I came back down to the dining room, they were giving speeches and briefing us about the week's programmes. It took awhile for the medicine to work, and by the time I felt okay, the dinner was over. Which was, in a way a good thing, I was ready to explore Hong Kong. Only thing was, the gold team had to practice, the bronze team wanted to study, and Eric says he is SLEEPY coz he missed his afternoon nap.

The welcome dinner

Nevertheless, Eric agreed to accompany me to just walk around nearby. We were in Tsim Tsa Tsui, an apparently high class area where we might be able to spot celebrities. Unfortunately, I didn't see any, but like a friend pointed out "even if you did see one, you probably wouldn't recognise him/her". It was a really nice place, the area where we were staying, with lots of touristy spots. We took a couple of photos, but my camera couldn't adjust to night mode, and even though we tried all sorts of modes with eric's cam, the lights of the city beyond the harbour just couldn't be captured on camera that night. I did manage to get a nice shot of it in the later days though, which was a good thing. Hong Kong is a nice place to be in, but seriously, its not photogenic. It's really hard to capture a good picture of the place, or maybe I'm just too amateurish a photographer.

At the harbour, just in front of where the ferry stops

That's the huge shopping mall, harbour city just behind me, which is connected to the hotel. It would be an awesome place to shop, provided u have the money lol

This was one of the cool things I saw on the first day in HK. The steps were lighted up and moving pictures/video/advertisements were run right on the staircase! It might have looked silly for us both to be taking photos of a staircase, and there were people giving us weird looks, but hey, you don't see things like that back home. I'm a tourist so I have every right to take photos of staircases! lol

There's this huge chandelier in the hotel, so I wanted to take a photo with it =) It was right next to the room we had a seminar a few days later, which seemed to be almost fully booked on most nights with high school graduation ceremonies. I'm guessing it's a popular spot for occasions such as those.

Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel!!! Our accommodation for the week. It is an absolutely fantastic place. The rooms are big, the blankets so soft and cozy, we have fruits served on a platter everyday, and you can even order different kinds of pillows if you want! I know Eric tried almost all the different pillows. LOL. I was satisfied with the original feather ones.

We were walking around the vicinity and came across this vendor who was demonstrating the use of this really cool wallet where it operates by a few strings and all you need to do is place the note on it, then flip it close and open it from the other end and ta dah, the note will be well secured. It was really cool, so Eric and I decided to split and buy 3, 3 each, as they sold it in "buy 5 free 1". We thought of going back and getting more after that, in the days that followed, but unfortunately never got around to doing so. It would have been a pretty cool gift to give to people.

After awhile, we decided that it was time to go back into the hotel. I went to the front desk and they told me that the key wasn't there. I guessed that Elizabeth was probably still out and she forgot to leave the key at the front desk so I just hung out with Eric and Pretib for awhile. It was awfully nice just talking.

A little past midnight and I went down and asked the hotel receptionist to send someone to open the door for me and I went back to my room to sleep. That was the end of day one in Hong Kong.