Posh Week

On Tuesday, I met my boss and one of my work mates - who happened to be on a roadshow through Asia - for a drink at fancy Ritz Carlton. I got there a bit too early and thus was sitting on my own in the lobby and really felt out of place. One lady cast her you-do-not-belong-here-look at me. I was therefore glad when my colleagues arrived and we had a really good time. It was sort of strange to see familiar faces in a completely unfamiliar environment. When I was about the leave the hotel and fancily dressed woman came out of the elevator. Outside the hotel, she all of a sudden asked me whether I wanted to share a cab with her. I thought, how stingy can she be: staying at the Ritz Carlton but not ready to pay for a cab ride on her own. Also a bit short of cash, I then asked her where she wanted to go. And she goes like "Dunno, just some bar". And I go "Well, I have to go to Sheung Wan (which is rather close to Ritz Carlton)". She seemed surprised, "Sheung Wan? What were you doing at Ritz Carlton then?" I answered, "Well, had a drink" and was about to ask her what she was doing at the Ritz when it dawned on me... Another lesson learned: Not everybody who comes out of the Ritz Carlton really stays there.
On Thursday night, Jeff, Philipp and myself went out for dinner. We decided to check out a sushi place in Central. Philipp, as sensible as he is, asked for the menu at the door to check the prices first. Then they sent like the most gorgeous girl in Hong Kong over to the door, and somehow the prices didn't matter anymore :) What's more, we decided that we would come to this restaurant every Thursday. We kinda had second thoughts after we were presented the bill... (and the girl had ended her shift long ago).
Japanese food again on Friday, this time in a restaurant inside the Grand Hyatt Hotel (no worries, I didnt rob a bank, just got invited). The highlights were king prawns coated with little shrimps and second to nothing... the kobe beef. Never have I eaten such goooooooood meat. At night, Jeff, a colleague of his, Philipp and me went to Tribeca. Depending on how the guy at the cash box liked our faces we paid between 140 and 200 honkies to get in, but then got an open bar in exchange. Of course we wanted to get our money's worth... ;) To tame our boozy stomachs, we had a large breakfast at the Flying Pan. On Saturday night, we randomly met German interns. One of them, Christian, did his Bachelor's degree in St. Gallen as well. With them was a cheeky local girl called Gigi. After lots of waiting (it seemed like ages), we decided to part regardless (!). Looking for a nice bar, we ended up at the Insomnia bar, where a Filipino live band plays every night. And they were really, really good. We left early regardless; our bodies were craving for sleep.

Expensive and crazy weekend!

On Saturday, Ruth showed me some more shopping places (yeah, I blame it all on you, Ruth), first the Landmark building with all the exclusive brands such as Louis Vitton and the rest of the posh stuff, bit over my budget. She then took me to Stanley at the very south of HK island. There was a nice market. And yeah, the Chinese are really good at faking stuff, good on ya fellas. On Sunday, I then went shopping on my own. First I went to Tsim Sha Tsui, to have a suit taylored. It's really cheap here. You wouldn't get a decent suit from the rack for that money in Switzerland. After that, I went on to the Ladies Market in Mong Kok and again the Night Market in Jordan. Not a good idea, I bought heaps of stuff, got even talked into buying a fake watch. Now, I'm the big pretender :)
Ok, that was the expensive part of the weekend, now comes the crazy one. Remember, I told you about the Hey Hey club on Thursday. Yeah, Filip, my flatmate, met a girl that night, who turned out to be a crazy stalker, no kidding. They met before I left for shopping, and she was still there, when I got back at night, and didn't want to leave... Well, I went to bed coz I had to work the next day. They would go on fighting in Cantonese and once in while she would start whining. Finally, I managed to fall asleep wearing earplugs. But all of a sudden she was standing in my room and scared the shit out of me! Apparently, she didn't get what she wanted from Filip and was now settling for less. Aaaahhh, get the hell out of my room crazy b.....unny. She went on whining to Filip for another while, and finally, finally, we convinced her (only verbally, folks) to leave. Then I had an earnest word with Filip. Why the hell couldn't he just kick her out? What was the problem? He then revealed that she was from a rich and powerful family and that she had threatened him. Whaaaat?! Don't wanna get slaughtered by the triads, man! Well, we then both went to bed, but I didn't sleep much. Funny enough, the next morning, when I left for work, there were to old guys peering at our building with binoculars. Scary, aye?! But probally only two old voyeurs. I hope!

Intensive week

On Monday, I started my internship with Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong. The office is located in Central Plaza, an amazing building. I work on the 59th and it has more than 70 floors. So to handle all the people they are several lifts serving only a certain range of the floors. For instance, I have to take a transfer lift first that shoots me straight up to the 46th from where another lift takes me the the 59th floor. Crazy, aye? My first working day was pretty easy. As nobody had time to do a proper introduction, I tried to get acquainted to the department's business reading older presentations. Tuesday, however, was already the first day I had to work late and stayed in the office till 9pm. The superior of our boss was coming from Germany to get to know the Hong Kong office. So everybody had fire in his/her... And I could contribute with something I'm pretty good at: fine tuning Powerpoint slides :). In the evening, Ruth (a uni mate from Switzerland, who is doing an internship in HK as well) took my to the Night Market introduced me to the HK shopping culture.
On Wednesday evening, I joined in for an afterwork drink with the "young talents" of the Swiss Chamber of Commerce at the FINDS bar. It turned out that the general manager and the marketing officer were Swiss. They kept offering us free drinks and as polite as we were, we kindly accepted. What's more, they invited us for the next evening. That Thursday night was really crazy. First, we had so many free shots at FINDS that any reasonable thinking was put out. It was then when we decided to move on to the renown Hey Hey Club and were even prepared to pay 160 Honkies entry (stupid!). We stayed way too long which left it marks on the following day...!

First days in Hong Kong

After an eleven hour flight I arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday afternoon. The customs and passport control were as simple as it could be, I was really surprised. I then took a ride on the Airport express to Hong Kong Island. It was the most modern train, I've ever seen, just amazing. From central station, I took a cab to my flat for next six months. The cabbie had a real laugh about how I pronounced the district he was supposed to take me, Sheung Wan. I then asked how it was pronounced correctly, he just laughed even more.
At the flat, I was soon welcomed by my flatmate Filip. He is a Hong Kong Chinese, but grew up in Sweden. Once I had settled in, we went out for dinner at I already outed myself as a newcomer: I drank the tea that was meant for washing the cutlery :). At night, we met Filip's Swedish friend Torste and Catherine, a local girl. We went to Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong's Party district. There are bars and clubs one after another and masses of people. Lots of Westerners of course, but also a lot of dressed-up locals (see and to be seen, I guess). However, we didn't push the limit, had a couple of drinks and went home fairly early.
Today, we went to Mong Kok for dinner. It's a shopping paradise. Won't be the last time I went there, for sure. He had hot pot all you can eat style and we ordered so much meat that we really struggled. In the end, they kicked us out. Tomorrow is my first working day. I wonder what it's gonna be like.

London, Baby!

On Wednesday, I headed for London as I booked my outbound flight to Hong Kong from London with Oasis Hong Kong ("We are the first and best long-haul budget airline!"). In the end, I saved like nothing as all the costs to get to London (ride to Basle, flight with EasyJet to London, train ride from London Stanssted to the city center etc.) offset all the savings from the low budget air ticket. I haven't even calculated the opportunity cost of the waste of time :).
Anyhow, I used this opportunity to visit my AIESEC mate Ara, who started his masters at the London School of Economics last fall. It was great to catch up with him. As it was my first time in London I had to do the standard tourist program and visit site such as Westminster Abbey, the Parliament (including watching the House of Commons and Lords debate), Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace etc.
The city is not only as expensive as it gets, you really get ripped off everywhere. I didn't wanna play this game and did my sightseeing tour the hard way... without a map :) - yeah, they should be for free, damn it! Well, I ended up wasting plenty of time on the Tube to get from one site to the other switching lines like crazy just to find out that the sites were right next to each other. If you think that was not too smart a move, you're proooobably right! I could also pimp up my profile coz I went to the L-S-E! Ok, I only took a picture, but could leave a mark by breaking a plate in the campus cafeteria. The most interesting site in my eyes was Camden Town, a special place and hard to describe in words (check out my pics once their up).
On Friday evening, I finally left for Hong Kong, my home for the next six months, hooray!