Sunday 21st May 2017
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| By the harbour in Hong Kong |
Hi everyone,
How time flies! Last Sunday was my first full day in
Hong Kong and now the week is over and I am writing on the airplane on the
first leg of my long haul back to Madrid. I am on the impressive Emirates
B888-300 Boeing flight which will cross over parts of China and Indo China and the
whole of India and Pakistan until it reaches Dubai and which will take 7.45h. It’s
very cool to be flying over places such as “Mandalay”.
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| My flight route from HK to Dubai |
Also the Emirates flight lets you know when it’s time
to pray hahaha. I didn’t pray, but was up at 4.45 local time and the flight
left at 8am. From Dubai I shall take another 7 hour long Emirates flight which
should get me to Madrid, all going well, tonight just after 8pm local time.
It’s been a great week with lots of experiences but now I cannot wait to return
to Spain, my family and home.
So let’s start from last Monday 15th. The
exhibition I was coming for, Critical Communications World, wasn’t starting
until Tuesday and we had hoped to decorate the stand on the Monday but found
out it wasn’t allowed. Thus I had a whole free day to myself. It rained all day
– as it did a lot of the week, although it was warm and humid – and I stayed in
my small but perfectly equipped hotel room (BP International Hotel on Kowleen
Peninsula, opposite HK Island) and worked, mainly on fine tuning our
international press release and sending it out.
At about 5pm I ventured out, got out some HK Dollars
(approx. 7 or 8 dollars per euro) which I would need as a lot of things, like
taxis and the metro can only be paid in cash. My destination was the Victoria
Peak overlooking the HK skyline. For that I would have to take the famous Peak
Tram up to the top. It was built over a hundred years ago and is one of the
musts to do in HK. Thankfully it has been renovated over the years by Swiss
engineers, who are the worlds’ experts on funicular cars hahaha. It was,
however, an amazing piece of engineering for its times.
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| Peak Tram |
There are pretty long queues to get into the 2 old
carriages but the wait was worth it as you ride past the towering skyscrapers
of this mega city. Once at the top you walk straight into a shopping centre –
that is very common here – but thankfully I found my way outside and was able
to enjoy the views and the greenery on the mountain top.
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| The ugly and big shopping and leisure centre at the peak |
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| The view at the peak as you get off the tram and come through the ugly shopping centre. |
It was wonderful to be there, but not that much fun on
my own as there was no one to share the experience with. Even so, I enjoyed
walking along the HK trail in the mountain spying the skyline of HK. Then,
before it got dark I went up to the Peak Sky Terrace, once again using my
octopus card, as I did with the tram.
There you are at the very top of HK. Unfortunately it
was raining and cloudy so the views were not as good as they should be. However I still loved every moment of it. I
even had my photo professionally taken for a lark; the one below.
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| My paid for picture at the top of the shopping centre. Loved the moment. |
I then wandered down through the gigantic shopping
hall – how I hate them – to find somewhere for dinner. I chose a Chinese restaurant
as I was eager to taste the typical HK dumplings; the “dim sum”. My place was
laid at a table overlooking the skyline of the city. What a pity I was on my
own. I was, of course, given chopsticks and had to ask for a knife and fork
(sorry, never could handle them however many times I have tried).
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| My Chinese dinner at The Peak |
The dinner was delicious as you can see in the photo.
But I had to curtail it a little to join my colleague
Miquel who was in town after dinner with a customer and we were to meet at Pier
7 by the Central Harbour to take the 5 minute ride on the Star Ferry to
Kowleen. Hong Kong is on the Pearl River, a tributary of the South China Sea
and apparently Hong Kong means the harbour of fragrance. Taking the Star Ferry
is perhaps the number 1 thing to do in HK and it’s a lovely experience watching
both skylines of the two islands it joins. Little did I know but I would take
the famous ferry at least 5 times but each time I marveled at the views.
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| On the Star Ferry for the first time. |
The ferry is used by the locals just as much as it is
by tourists. It’s cheap and I always paid using the proverbial Octopus card –
very useful indeed.
The Star Ferry from Central Pier 7 left us at Kowleen
pier and here we had to walk back to our hotel; about 20 minutes as the metro
combination involves as much walking underground as over ground.
Even walking is a problem with so many people on the
pavements; it’s very crowded. After all, 7 million people live in HK with the
smallest amount of space per person in the world we heard. Traffic is
horrendous, so taxis are not practical unless you get lost or it’s very early
in the morning. Unlike mainland China, you do not see bicycles here which
surprised me, although there were some in the lesser populated Lantau Island. Everywhere
there are signs on what not to do for every possible situation which drove me
mad.
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| There were telling you what to do and mostly not what to do were everywhere. |
HK may not be communist, from its history of being a
British colony, but I must say it seems like a very strict “nanny” state. Some
of the people, here, mostly officials of any kind can be very abrupt and quite
rude when telling you what to do or not to do. That’s the one thing I hated
about HK; otherwise, non-official type people were lovely and very helpful
whether they knew English or not and many did not. I should add that
surprisingly, HK is quite clean and you can see there is a clear effort to
diminish pollution although it might be a losing battle. The loos are very
acceptable too (that’s important for me hahah) and in general everything is
very well organized; maybe even a bit too organized for me – nanny state again
I’m afraid but, then again, it can’t be easy to govern HK. Who am I to judge
after only havong spent a week here?
My other impression was just how gaudy, kitsch and
over the top the local taste for fashion, jewelry etc, is. The HK people just
love neon lights and the favourite colour must be either red or yellow. I found
it too much but of course, without it, HK would not be HK.
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| So much gaudy taste in HK |
Miquel is great with maps and we got there walking
through the pretty Kowleen Park where we even saw an open air swimming pool with
people bathing at 11pm in total darkness!
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| People swimming late at night in a public pool! |
I had to walk to and from Kowleen Station/Piers from
our hotel in Austin Road by Nathan Road or Jordan Road many times and each time
I got lost as there is so much construction going on and Google Maps couldn’t
always keep up. I have to say I got lost when I was on my own; not with Miquel,
a real wizard getting round HK on foot or by metro. If you have Miquel in town,
you don’t need a guide hahaha.
We were late back at our hotel as we nearly always
would be as getting around in HK is so time consuming. The next day, Tuesday,
would be challenging and what I had really come for and I needed a good night’s
sleep. Thankfully my jet lag was receding.
The exhibition we had come for was starting that
afternoon and would last until Thursday evening. We were up early, took the
free shuttle bus to the Airport/Asia World Expo express station at Kowleen and
were at the Expo by 10ish. We were carrying all the stuff we had brought from
Spain and had bought locally in HK which was a bit of a burden.
This was what our shell booth looked like just as we
began. Miquel looks a little forlorn in the middle of the picture haha,
wondering what it would look like in the end.
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| Arriving at our empty stand with all our stuff. |
We had to put up 8 gigantic adhesive posters on the
booth panels for which we had been given smaller sizes, so we had to do our
best to make sure no one noticed haha.
And here we are putting up the posters made by my events agency,
QuintaEsencia. Thanks girls.
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| Having fun decorating our stand. |
Once they were up and looking good, we started on the
rest. We did a guessing game, a sort of low cost marketing tool to get
customer’s details.
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| Our guessing game. |
Most popular would be our Spanish food and wine corner
offering ham and Rioja wine. After all we were the only Spanish company present
and had to fly the flag so to say.
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| Our Spanish food and wine corner |
Everything looked ok and well ahead of the start of the
exhibition which on the first day was from 4 to 8pm.
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| Our finished stand. |
But our food and wine corner was inaugurated before
anything else when the Chairman of the TCCA, Mladen (can’t remember his
complicated Serbian surname) came to taste the Rioja with Miquel.
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| Inaugurating our stand with the Chairman of the TCCA |
But not all things were alright. Poor Miquel had cut
his finger with the Ikea knife we had bought when he was about to cut the
chorizo. It bled a lot and I went with him in search of first aid. Before
finding it, the head of the Finnish pavilion, guided us to two nurses on their
booth. They were there with a policeman and other colleagues to represent their
community where they all used “critical communications” the sort shown in the
Finnish pavilion. They were so sweet and bandaged Miquel’s finger very
efficiently.
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| Miquel after having his finger bandaged by the Finnish nurses! |
We then invited them over to try our wine and ham and
of course they came. I got talking to the Finnish policeman, who, by the way,
was extremely dishy hahaha. I asked him what the main crime was in Finland. He
told me that this Nordic country has the lowest crime rate in the world which I
can believe. And here I am with the guy, enjoying the moment on our stand.
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| With my Finnish policeman. |
It was a long day, but lots of fun, trying to drive
traffic to our small stand at the back, but we managed it. One good thing we
did that morning was to secure a better location at next year’s event which
will take place in Berlin (nice). In fact we were the first company to do so!
When the fair finished we took the express train back
to Kowleen and from there we went straight to a dinner engagement in Harbour
City. One of Genaker’s partners, Kevlin from Singapore, would be hosting the
dinner at a great Italian place called Al Molo which I think means by the
harbour in Italian.
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| Al Molo restaurant. |
Also with us was Ariel, Genaker’s distributor in the
Philippines. So we were a very international team.
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| My dinner partners at Al Molo |
I should mention that David and Nabil from Genaker,
based in Barcelona, arrived on Monday night and got to the stand on time to
help us with the decoration the next morning.
The location of Al Molo couldn’t have been better, the
skyline of HK island with all the lights at night. The food too was out of this
world, expensive but worth splashing out on as I would write in my Tripadvisor
review. I especially enjoyed the dessert, my first in HK – it’s not a very
cultural thing to have desserts with meals in this area of the worldL
I think the best photo of myself in HK was taken there
by a kind passerby and it’s the one I chose to illustrate this week’s blog. The
look on my face tells you how I was feeling.
We walked back, once again guided by Miquel but even
so it seemed that each time we took that walk we always went a different way.
It doesn’t help that all streets look just the same with their bright neon
lights advertising all the brands in the world.
Once back in my room it was midnight, rather late if I
was to get up at 6.30 the next day and especially as it was daytime in Spain
and I wanted contact with my family and had to answer some emails. Oli had
arrived in Stavangar that very day. We could not have been further apart.
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| Oli after having arrived at her hotel in Stavangar in Norway |
The next day would be Norway’s national holiday. She
sent us this photo with some Norwegians all dressed up in their colourful
national costume. Apparently they had to climb a huge rock which took some
effort.
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| Oli with her Norwegians on their national day |
I also had to respond to Airbnb enquiries and bookings
and I got quite a few this week. In fact I think all the weekends are fully
booked from now to August apart from my birthday party weekend. I can’t believe
my luck. The people who booked that night were from Bordeaux, a group coming to
take part in a martial arts competition in Villaviciosa de Odón! I must say our
guests are very varied in many ways. But I like it like that.
I woke up on Wednesday morning after just 5 hours
sleep. We were at the fair by 9, ready to open it. That day we got some quality
visitors as we did every day actually.
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| Our busy stand on Wednesday |
We also got a visit from a representative of the
Spanish Commercial Office, a young man called Julian from Granada. We had
contacted the Spanish consular services in HK to alert them to the fact that
we, Genaker, would be at the fair, the only Spanish company taking part. So
Julian came along and after being obviously satisfied with what he saw, he sent
along his boss, the Commercial Attaché, the next day haha.
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| With Julian from the Spanish Commercial office in HK |
I got bad news at the end of the day at the
exhibition. It was from my ex Nokia friend and colleague, Keka who lives in HK.
I was to stay on for the weekend with
her at her home in the “new territories” in Lantau, but she wrote to say she
was in hospital with a suspected virus and advised me to look for alternative
accommodation. I was sorry for her of course, but gutted. Firstly I could not
change my flight to leave with my colleagues on Friday morning and secondly, I
had nowhere to stay and would have to try to extend 3 more nights at my hotel
which was not cheap. I would have to deal with that later.
Meanwhile I had some good news. It was from my
potential Swedish customer, a fiber network operator in Spain, who wanted to go
ahead with a plan we had discussed. That was great except there is not much
time. All has to be ready and done by 2nd June and I was here in HK.
But it was good to know that after the PR project in HK I had another one to
work on. On Saturday I had a conference
call with them and on Wednesday next I shall be going to see them in Barcelona
– funny my 2 customers are based thereJ
All that happened just as the exhibition was closing
for the day and on the express train back. We took the shuttle bus back to our
hotel which was a wrong decision as it got us back so late because of the
horrendous traffic. We had a quick shower and change and were on the street
again at about 9pm. We refers to Miquel, David and I. Miquel wanted to show us
the Soho area and especially the amazingly long escalators, the longest in the
world, up to the top, past all sorts of tempting restaurants and bars. They are
called mid-level and high-level I think and they are just great. Soho was
really special and worth visiting.
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| The escalator in Soho |
We had dinner at a Greek place. I was tired of
Chinese, David not too keen on it either – plus he had lived in Greece – and
Miquel didn’t seem to mind. He had already been there with his customer the
night I took the tram to the Peak. The place was called Santorini and we loved
it. It was so relaxed and the food was good. Here are my 2 dinner companions at
our table that night.
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| David and Miquel at dinner at the Greek restaurant Santorini in Soho |
From Santorini in Soho, we made our way down towards
Central which is just huge. Miquel wanted to show David the iconic Bank of
China building, not the tallest on the HK Island but the best known.
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| The iconic Bank of China building lit up at night. |
We walked and walked until we got back late to our
hotel and there began my battle to extend my stay for 3 nights. At reception
they told me it was fully booked but to try the web. Once in my room I went
online only to find there was just one room left and 22 people looking at it!
My fingers trembled as I made the booking but it was successful. No it was not
cheap but now at least I was not on the street with my suitcase in HK! I was
shattered when I finally went to bed with only 5 or so hours ahead of sleep for
the second night in a row and another long day at the fair. But I had to carry
on and carry on I did.
Thursday was the last day of the fair and it was a
good one, although we were all tired, partly from the jet lag I imagine, not
only the long nights and the long days on foot on our stand. It was busy again
and very soon we received the visit of the Commercial Attaché as Julian had
promised the day before.
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| With the Spanish Commercial attaché on our stand. |
We also announced the winner of our sweet jar guessing
game. There were 207 sweets in the jar and the guess of the nearest figure
would win. I was very happy it was one of the Finnish paramedics, Mikko, the
one who had been involved in bandaging Miquel’s finger on the first dayJ When we went to tell him, he and his colleagues came
to our booth for the photo and of course for some of our wine and ham.
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| Mykko the Finnish paramedic who won our guessing game. |
At 5 all stands had to be taken down. This time we
were 4 people and we did it quite quickly. Here we are in the middle of it.
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| Taking the stand down on Thursday with the team. |
We left after 6 with all our possessions, especially
the stand posters to be kept to use again. It was a nightmare getting back to
our hotel as everything was packed. We eventually did so by metro and once
again had to rush as that night we had a dinner arranged by an important
customer of Genaker’s. It was to be at the Victoria Peak which pleased me as I
didn’t think I would get to go there again and also because it meant both
Miquel and David would experience it too.
We had 20 minutes to get ready. I spent 10 of them on
the phone to Eladio who was in Montrondo for a fraternal meeting. It was
strange for me to be in HK and my husband in Montrondo.
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| Eladio in Montrondo |
We took a taxi to the Peak Tram station but just one
look at the queue made us take another one to the top, Victoria Peak, Our
dinner date with Patrick and Peter was at a very American type joint called
Wildfire with great views from the Peak. Before eating, we had a photo session.
We were also celebrating an important agreement which for obvious reasons I
cannot disclose here or anywhere. I do know though, that Miquel and David will
never forget that night.
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| David and Miquel at the Peak for the celebration dinner |
It was a bit windy and there was slight rain and it was
the first time I had felt cold during this trip. The food was superb and
included fish and chips. Yes it did. The dinner was a celebration of an
agreement and finished late. We took the peak tram down for Miquel and David to
experience it. Then it was another long walk to Central station to take the
metro to Jordan road. We recharged our octopus cards for the umpteenth time. I
also recharged my local pre-paid sim card which has been very useful here.
Once back at our hotel it was time to say goodbye to
Miquel and David as they would be leaving with Nabil early the next morning. Of
course, I was staying on for 2 more days; on my own. I owe this trip to Miquel,
my first customer and ex Nokia colleague who has now become a firm friend. I am
so grateful to him, my first customer, not only for bringing me here but for
inspiring me to become a freelance Communications Consultant. I hope I have done them justice helping with
their participation in the exhibition. As Miquel says, it’s a “win win”
situation and I could not agree more wholeheartedly.
That night I slept like a baby until 9 am. I went to
have breakfast which is not included in the room rate and costs 20 euros and is
nothing special. As I mentioned before, this is a very strict country, in many
ways and often for silly little things. I had problems persuading the breakfast
staff to let me take a cup of coffee to my room or get a take away for some
fruit. They drove me mad and the last two mornings I had breakfast in my room
by buying nescafe, milk, croissants and fruit wherever I could find them.
I spent Friday morning winding down and chillaxing in
my room and also beginning to work on the new project. I had booked two tours, an afternoon tour of Lantau
Island that day and a Harbour cruise on Saturday night. In between time I
planned on doing some shopping.
The tour people came for me earlier than scheduled at
around 13.15. I was to join other tourists on the same trip, some from my hotel
and some from others. Thus the tour began with visiting various hotels before
our little bus was full of tourists like me. It seems to me that most tourists
in HK come from India, Philippines, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand which
makes sense. There were some English people too but not one Spaniard did I see.
We set off for Lantau, the biggest island but actually
a peninsula. It’s where the New Territories are (newly inhabited area next to
the border of China) and is still quite sparsely populated.
There are 260 islands or so in HK but only about 4 are
inhabited. Lantau, although the least populated (hundred thousand plus) is the
biggest and I like this fact: it is half way between HK Island and Macau, the
ex-Portuguese colony, just about 40 miles or so away and easily reachable on a
fast speed boat.
The suspension bridge to get there is bigger than the
one in San Francisco! The population will grow since the new airport was built
there and you can already spy lots of ugly high rise buildings which will spoil
the beautiful terrain full of mountains, beaches, cows and dogs. There is even
a Disneyland now in Lantau – hate them tooL
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| Beautiful Lantau Island as seen from the Big Buddha |
Regarding the beaches, we were told there are sharks
everywhere on the coast and quite a few deaths caused each year. Recently they
government has put anti shark nets in nearly all of them. That piece of
information put me off any bathing in the sea at all hahaha.
Our destination was the famous big Buddha aka Tian Tan
Buddha. It is a huge bronze statue of the Buddha Shayamuni which was built
quite recently and located above the Po Lin Monastery. It was built by the
monks who, by the way are decreasing – with just 15 or so of them left. They
did it with the big money donations they get from tourists. However they are
finding it difficult to recruit new monks these days as young men are not keen
on becoming celibate or vegetarian. Who can blame them? I was bowled over by it.
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| The Big Buddha |
For the record it is 34
metres high, weighs over 250 metric tons and was built from 202 bronze pieces.
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| By the Big Buddha |
I noticed our guide using both the metric and imperial
system and that seems to be normal in HK. I was told they also use the Chinese
system.
We then visited the monastery which is in a pretty
amazing location nature wise.
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| The Monastery |
We even got to see the monks praying, something I had
seen years ago in Shanghai.
From Po Lin Monastery we made our way to the nearby
village Ngong
Ping. Here we were supposed to see one of the last traditional
fishing villages left in HK. It’s one of the last because of “over fishing”. We
learned that only 1% of fish consumed in HK is local and that most of it comes
from Japan and Indonesia. Even the fresh water is imported but from China.
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| The monks praying |
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| One of the fishing boats at the village in Lantau |
It is one of the few villages left with houses on stilts. It seems people still live in
them. I was fascinated.
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| Houses with stilts still in existence in the fishing village in Lantau |
We also saw another, much more modest, temple and a lot older too. Here we
experienced placing joss sticks by the Buddhas and making a wish. It was a nice
moment.
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| The temple in Ngong Ping in Lantau |
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| The Catamaran ferry we took from Lantau back to HK |
It was freezing on board, thanks to the air conditioning. That was a bit of
a problem everywhere reallyL
I arrived at Pier 5 and walked the short distance to Pier 7 to catch the
Star Ferry to Kowleen. I never tired of the views of both sides of the city.
This time, instead of walking back to my hotel, I went to have dinner on my own
and I chose the Italian place, Al Molo, right by the harbour where we had been
with Genaker’s customers. I got a privileged seat outside overlooking the city
buildings.
Also I would finally get to see the
symphony of lights. It is supposed to be a light performance which is in the
Guinness Book of Records but honestly it is nothing special. With a name like
that, I was expecting a lot more.
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| Dinner alone on Saturday night by the Harbour at Al Molo |
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| Symphony of lights |
Saturday was my last day in Hong Kong and I was determined to make the most
of it. It started with home-bought breakfast in my room thanks to the kettle
there. Saturday would be a day for shopping; after all I hadn’t done any since
I’d been there and that’s what HK is supposed to be all about. Well advised, I
went to visit Stanley Market on the other side of the island of HK; the south
side. A guide called Frances told me to take
a bus nearby. It was a double decker one (English of course) where I used my
octopus card and it took about an hour. There was lots to see on the way,
including the beaches with the shark protector nets.
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| There are shark protection nets like this one on nearly all of the beaches in HK |
Stanley market was nice as I had been told and not too big.
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| Stanley Market |
I also walked along the Stanley promenade and saw Murray House.
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| Stanley Bay from the Promenade |
The other market I wanted to see was The Ladies Market which I got to by
metro, the Mong Kok station.
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| Mong Kok station |
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| The Ladies market, a lot of rubbishy stuff really |
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| The flagship hotel in HK, The Peninsula Hotel |
Once at the Hotel I joined what looked like an endless queue for afternoon
tea in the lobby while a live orchestra played music from above. It was
majestic.
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| Afternoon Tea at The Peninsula Hotel (The Lobby) |
It was past 4 in the afternoon when I had to attend to a conference call
with my new Swedish customer and a Spanish colleague of his. They rang my
Chinese prepaid number after a few attempts. Meanwhile, I finally got a table
and using sign language, so as not to interrupt the conference call, I ordered
full afternoon tea. This is what it looked like:
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| My mouth watering afternoon tea |
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| The metro |
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| The Chinese boat I went on for the Harbour cruise |
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| The Chinese boat I would have liked to go on. |
I was back at Kowleen by 9ish and this time did not get lost finding Nathan
Street on my way to the hotel. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw an M+S on
the way and in I went to buy fruit for my journey today. I also bought
chocolate and quite a lot of it tooJ
Once back in my hotel, I finished packing, had a shower and washed my hair
and went to bed as early as possible as I had to be up at 4.45 a.m. this
morning.
Everything went smoothly and I am now writing mid-air looking forward to my
stop in Dubai to stretch my legs.
So, guys and gals, I’ll leave it there now and try and get a few winks,
aided by the glass of Reisling just given to me by a charming Icelandic air hostess
who I confused with being from New Zealand – flags are similar and she’s in the
wrong part of the world hahaha.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my tales of my trip to Hong Kong. If you’ve been there you will be reminded of
your time or times there and if you haven’t maybe I have inspired you to go.
So, my friends and readers, all the best until next time.
Cheers from “up in the air". Masha
PS You can see the full set of photos of my trip here.
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