Hong Kong Entry #7

Whats going on everybody the last time we talked was Saturday and since then I have had my first junk boat experience!  Luckily it was on the largest Junk Boat in Hong Kong, the Angus!!

 From the Dream Careers crew Michelle, Melissa, Alexia, Amanda, Ross, Chris and myself all got on along with Stanley my co-worker and Amanda's boss who both helped in getting us on the trip.  This boat is unreal it takes 120 people max and has water slides, diving board, karaoke, dance floor, mahjong, banana boating and wakeboarding.  There are literally 4 levels to this boat one of them being a rooftop area and they also had kayakes, and rafts to use!

It was a really neat experience we took the boat from the Sai Kung Promenade dock area to this area of a bunch of islands.  They anchored the boat in the middle of all these Islands and basically stayed here all day.  It was awesome, there were beaches that you could swim to on the islands and the food was great.  It costs each person $450 HK but included all activities raffles, all you can eat and all you can drink (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and lasted from 10:30-7:00 so it was well worth it.  I will admit it took me two times to get up on the wakeboard but the last time I actually did it was last July so its been a while.  They had a large selection of liquor on the boat, everything from beer to bloody Mary's.  Aside from just about any drink you could want they also had a large selection of food.  The food was all cooked right there and consisted of homemade potato wedge fries, fresh grilled fish, chicken nuggets, steamed veggies, rice mixed with egg and veggies, noodles, some chicken wings that were awesome and some other chinese food that I just ate and have no idea what they were.  Aside from all that food they also had a popcorn machine and a hotdog roller, and tons of snacks/chips all over the boat, so no one went hungry.

Ross and I with the Captain of the Angus!

 I literally did everything I could on the boat because I didn't want to miss out on anything.  I first just sat in the sun for a little and had a few beers then I jumped off the top and board a couple times and swam in the water (which was super salty).

 After swimming a little I had a few more beers until lunch was ready.  I ate my weight in food then laid out up on the top deck for a little to digest.  After digesting we decided it was time to wake board, out of myself, Chris, Ross, Michelle, and Stanley who were on the same wake boarding boat, Ross was the best at wake boarding out of all of us.  Michelle who had never been before got up for the first time which was great to see!  After we all had gone wake boarding we went back in the water and decided to swim to the nearest beach.  At the beach we met a couple other people on the boat with us who actually live in Hong Kong and speak English we shared a couple beers.  Chris, Ross, and myself decided to explore a little on the Island which ended when we realized that we could not get very far due to jagged rocks and thick thick vegetation.

  When we got back to the part of the beach where everyone was chilling we saw that they had buried Melissa and built her a new sand body that was pretty interesting to say the least!! lol (unfortunately I did not have my camera so I have no pictures of it).  When we ran out of beer we swam back to the boat and had a little more to eat.  Then somebody got the idea to play beer pong and that is exactly what happened, the teams ended up being Brit's vs. Americans with teams of 4.  (I know very weird)  Now we were playing with these big thick plastic drinking cups and only 6 per team (thank god though because the ball just bounced off most of them!) Well the bad news is we ended up losing to the darn Brit's on the last cup. I had 2 of 6 as did Chris and Michelle had 1, unfortunately Ross couldn't help us out at all! (I know if I had NickZ and Jez on my team it would have been over before it started!)  Well anyway that pretty much ended the boat trip.  When we got on the bus both groups of new friends sat together on the bus and had a big sing along which I can say and I'm sure you all believe me I was a big part of! lol  When the bus dropped us off in Central we were hungry so myself and the other Dream Career peeps went to a a place that I hold very dear to my heart....Subway!!! YEAP!

 Now they didn't have as many toppings as they do back home, but it was still delicious!! So Pumped!  When I got back to City University I had just  got settled in my room and Ignacio came in and asked where the track I had been running at was.  I started to explain then I did the unthinkable after an entire day of drinking, I committed to go run with him!! I guess I just figured after a full day of stuffing myself a workout couldn't hurt.  So we ran for 20 minutes did some sit-ups and pushups and got a nice sweat in!
Work on Monday was really mundane, I just worked on my Capital Formation project for Andrew.  I submitted it to him he made some additions which I added and then sent him the final edition.  For lunch Daniel wanted to order from this place that does this grilled chicken with rice lunch box, so against my better judgement I ordered as well.  The chicken was as I suspected very fatty, however the meat that I did eat was very tasty!  I liked the taste of it, however I will not be ordering from there again.  After work I tried making it home to the health services because I am coughing up some junk and probably have a sinus infection, however when I got there I realized they close at 6.... bummer.  So from there I walked up the hill, sweated my butt off as usual, took a shower then met up with Ross, Ignacio, and Mike for dinner.  We decided to head to Dan Ryan's and I got a Burger again! And it was just as good as last time!
Today was a much better day at work I started off by doing a little job search and coming across a couple openings that I applied to.  After lunch Andrew called me into his office to have a discussion with him. He looked over the Capital Formation deck and said thank you and you did a nice job.  Then he asked me for my next project what I rather work on, Private Equity or Back Operation and IT.  I had no idea what the latter was so he explained it to me, basically its all the technology and more that enable electronic trading to work.  It's the stuff that lets trades on the NYSE shown in Shanghai in less than a nanosecond!  I told him I wasn't sure and he told me he could send me both of the older files so I could mull it over for the day, and I said okay. However as I was about to get up to leave he picked up my resume and started going over my experience and asked me what my dreams were what I saw myself doing.  I told him that I really enjoyed my Marketing experience at Cambridge Credit Counseling Corp. (thanks Thom! opened my eyes!) and that at one point I had considered going into PR in the financial industry, so that I could utilize both of my majors.  He said that was a terrific idea and there was a lot of demand for that and if that was the case then I should just work on and study the Private Equity stuff because it would be a lot more beneficial to my career.  He also said that James Heimowitz the President and CEO of the Asia Pacific division based in Hong Kong was a close friend of his and that would be a easy introduction.  He told me that his goal was to make this internship as much as a guidance and help toward my career as possible.  I thanked him and told him how much that meant to me. (Great guy Mr. Miller)  He told me to study about PE for 24 hours and tomorrow afternoon we would meet again with Sylvia Poon who I would be helping update the PE deck.  So that made today go from a good day to a great day.  After that meeting I felt great and relieved, I had finally put things I enjoyed doing together and started creating a career path for myself!!! very exciting and relieving.  From there the day at work just got better. I was reading through a Dream Career email about our guest speaker tomorrow David Fernyhough from Hill & Associates, and realized that he is based in Hong Kong and also into investigative finance, just like the people Jamie was looking for the Kroll case.  So I had Jamie look at him and he said that he was perfect for an upcoming position at Kroll, and he told me to forward his profile to him and Andrew! I had just found my first Candidate at Global Sage!! (very cool)
For dinner tonight I just had the Homey kitchen, chicken nuggets, broccoli and rice.  I did my laundry and that was the basis of my night. I skipped the tasty tuesday tonight because they went to some chain steakhouse and I did not feel like spending a bunch of cash for steak, or waiting till 9 to eat!
Anyway thats it for today! Adios!

Great Video of some of the Hong Kong Experience thus far!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCzF9fY3UvI

Check out this Video its made by one of our staff Maya Mueller.  Its a great look into some of the fun we have had thus far on our Hong Kong adventure!
WNEC Lax and the Bruins are represented by me in this video!

Videos Upload Problem

Just realized that my last post which was suppossed to have a video of Mr. Wong's in it didn't work.  For some reason the Blogger server isn't letting me upload videos so you will just have to check them out on my Facebook page!

Hong Kong Entry #6

Let me start off by saying screw blogger and that I can't believe I'm actually here writing on this thing again after I swore it off!  Heres the back story fyi, I decided not to go out on Thursday with everyone because I was super tired, so I figured I would go to bed early and catch some extra zzz's.  NOPE in reality what really happened was I ended up skyping my Father on his new Ipad for an hourish.  I was happy to see his and LG's face.  However I eneded up writing a long blog entry and staying up till around 1:30.  When I was done writing I went back and started entering pictures into my blog.  One of the pictures I was entering was not working so I clicked it and pressed the delete button on my computer.  Now a pop up screen came up and said blah blah blah (I didnt bother reading b/c I figured it just was asking me if I was sure I wanted to delete the pic)  Yes or No  I clicked Yes and then my entire entry was gone!!! Furious like what the heck?? Really blogger you make it possible to delete the entire blog from the upload section? So dumb!  So thats why I have not gone back and wrote all the stuff that happened since.  Anyway let me try to remember all the stuff that has happened since...

My desk week two and already stacks on it!

So work on Wednesday was okay, as was Thursday.  I found out the big project I have been working on for my boss, that was supposed to be due on Thursday was actually not due till Monday because his meeting with the CSLA Capital Vice President was moved till Monday.  So that was good news it actually made me relax a little and since then I have been doing really well on it.  This girl Jingjing who I work with actually helped me get a interview as a equity analyst so that was really great.  Weather or not I get the job that was really nice of her and I would like to get her something as a thank you, any  ideas??  Mom this is where you come in!! Your great at this!  One of her friends works in the same building and is looking for a intern equity analyst.   Myself, Melissa, and Chris went to get lunch at Vole which is this little grocery store place that you can make awesome salads or they also have a large variety of really good sandwiches as well.  There is also a Chinese food section which I stay away from because I eat enough of that everywhere else.  On thursday I got the Thai Chicken Panini which was really good, it had a nice little kick to it!  I also had a cup of soup, they always have a soup of the day which I usually get.  The soup of the day on Thursday was Asparagus, it really was not to bad either I enjoyed it.  For lunch I have been alternating between salads and sandwiches.  My only problem with there salad making area is that they have this deal where you get three fillings/toppings for your salad and it costs $38 HK, however if you don not follow that deal and decide to put extra toppings on it, the salad jumps to like $1000 dollars so quick.  Not literally a 1000 but it becomes like a $10-$12 dolllar salad in US $.  Well anyway we got our food at Vole then headed back to eat at the office as usual because its comfortable and the best view.  To our delight we had the honor of having lunch with our founder and CEO John Wright, he came in and sat and had his lunch with us.  His lunch looked unreal good, grilled blackened salmon with asparagus from his Chef.  (I was wicked jealous)  As we were talking to him I realized what very cool guy he is, he entertained us, with his humor and told us a couple stories that I can't repeat haha. He is super smart as well before founding global sage he was the Deputy News Editor at the Wall Street Journal.  To give you a sense of what kind of guy he is I will tell you what he did for his birthday party.  Jaimie Souter one of my co-workers told me that for his 50th birthday about three months ago he rented out the top part of our hotel the pointy glass area.

John rented ou the top section right under the
pointy part!

He themed his party after some Audrey Hepburn movie so every body got dressed up for it.  Then he hired geisha girls for everybody at the party.  So when you or you and your date arrived you were greeted by a Geisha girl who was with you all night.  She sat at your table, talked to you and waited on you.  Jaimie told me the guys loved it but the women had raised eyebrows. These girls are not Prostitutes they are like asian models. He spent a big buck on his own party which is super bad ass.  John also told us to have his assistant schedule a dinner at his house and when we asked him during the week or on the weekend he said "Well on a weekend we will all probably end up passed out drunk on my floor, during the week you might be a little better behaved.  Whatever you want to do, I prefer the passed out one but its up to you guys want to do."  So we said okay and as we continued to eat he totally changed his mind and said "you know what have my assistant reserve a junk boat instead!"  A junk boat is a huge party boat that you just have a good time on and go to the Islands!  So thats pretty sweet, I'm pretty excited to party with the boss!
One story that I forgot to mention from Wednesday night that just came to me is that a few of us were at dinner eating and Amanda who works later than us because she gets to go in later ( she has the best internship, event planner.  she got to plan a concert for Lil' John in Macau!" walks in.  Now outside it was raining and super windy because of the tsunami in the Philippines.  She orders her food and then comes over to us to sit down and says "literally the most embarrassing thing in my life just happened to me!"  She then began to proceed to tell us how when she was walking across campus she was holding her laptop in one arm and umbrella in the other and a all of a sudden a huge gust of wind blew her dress up so it was over her head!!!!  The worst part is that there were people near her.  Now the funniest thing is that she didn't know what to do because she obviously didn't want to get her computer wet so putting it down on the ground or putting the umbrella down wouldn't work so she tried like shaking or something hahaha.  Finally she said she put her umbrella down real quick to pull it back down.  Priceless.  Now when its super windy we just say there is a "Windy Amanda" warning so ladies dress properly.  After our dinner on Wednesday we had  our speaker series event in which professionals come and talk to us about their experiences how they got where they are and so on.  The one this past week was named Siju Daniel and he is the managing director for FXCM Asia Limited.  He was a interesting speaker and I am really happy I went and was able to talk to him after his talk as well.  Thursday night I didn't do anything.  I went for a run and worked out which was good, Michaels gift to me once again is great!  Before and after running I did a lower ab routine (reverse crunch, flutter kicks, leg lifts, scissors), a push up routine (regular, wide, diamond, fingertips) and pullups on the soccer goal (knuckles in, and out till fail) It was a great workout and I felt great after, except my calfs which were burning because of how many freaking hill there are here!   fyi      high humidity + running up hill = multiple calf cramps throughout the night!
After my run I showered then went down to dinner which here at City University is always interesting.  First off let me tell you the menu is like reading friggin brail  its so confusing and I never know what to order.  Then there is always stuff on the menu that they don't ever have available, super annoying!  So I usually just stick with fried rice because its easy to order and its consistent.  The only issue is they run out of it a lot so sometimes you have to be adventurous.  I have been asking for tuna sandwich which is on the menu for the past two weeks and they never have it.  Finally on thursday they had it available so I ordered that plus a side of vegetables and rice.  Homey Kitchen is what they call their cafe which is interesting.  Ordering your food and waiting to see what you actually get is always a fun adventure, because first you have to order off the menu of hieroglyphics then you try to tell a lady who can barely understand you what you want!  So when my dinner was finally ready I wasn't super shocked to see that  the side of vegetables I ordered was really just warmed up damp lettuce.  I guess to get the broccoli I was supposed to say "mixed vegetables" but now I know!  After dinner I didn't really do anything except video chat with LG and Dad and then write a blog entry that got deleted!
Here is funny story #2 for this blog entry ( I like how neither of these stories are about me!)  As I was video chatting Lauren and my Dad, my Dad told me that Laur did something super dumb that week.  Apparently my little brother has been going to golf camp all week and Lauren had to pick him up from it.  On monday apparently mike and his other campers and the Golf Pro were all on the 18th hole when all of a sudden they see this little Chevy coming down the cart path!!! She thought it was a little road.  I guess my mom had told her she had to pick him up in back and Lauren thought this is where she had to go!! (I was literally crying I was laughing so hard!)  Poor Mike was humiliated, I really don't blame him! She had to do a K Turn right near the green to turn around after the Golf Pro asked her what she was trying to do.  This guy definitely thinks she retarded because then on Tuesday Mike was didn't go because he had a bday party, however my mom forgot to tell Laur so she went there and was frantically searching for Mike everywhere until the Pro told her he was not there.

Friday was a pretty good day as well, I just worked on my project all day trying to get it ready for Andrews meeting on Monday.  Also it was Andrew's 50th birthday so we sang to him and had cake in the afternoon.

 I also bought him his lunch because I did not have a gift or anything to give him.  Also at work I received a call from Jingjing's friend who wanted to have a little interview with me after work with her and an associate.  The interview went well it was very unformal and more of just a feel out session.  After the interview I bolted home to get ready for the eventful night!  We planned on going to Mr. Wongs at night and meeting Stanley and Coco from work. I had never been there but heard great things about it and let me tell you they all lived up to it!!! The place is awesome, its all you can eat, drink (beer) for $50 HK!!! Such a great deal its not even funny and Mr. Wong is the man, real fast talking little guy, very funny.   We also learned a new skill, how to pop a bottle cap off with a chopstick!!! I have a video of us doing it which I will post later at some point.

Getting unreal with chopsticks!

I taught everyone how to play international drinking rules throughout the night which helped everyone get a little buzzed
Mr. Wongs really just set the tone for the rest of the night which I will admit did get a little sloppy for me but we had a blast! However when I woke up today I was useless so that was annoying but whatever.  Nick, myself and this kid Alex from Jamaica did our bar hop again with international rules.  We also danced up at the Azure or skybar again. (keep forgetting to take pics up there!!!)

Sierra Nevada in HK!

Today I really did nothing I went with Ross to get lunch at Dan Ryan's in the mall, the burger I had was actually one of the best burgers I ever had! Real good, big juicy burger with cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup and mustard with fries, slaw(i didn't touch) and a pickle spear! Very American! While we were at the mall I did buy a towel for tomorrows big boat day.  I also got to video chat with Michael, my Faja and Momma from their hotel room in Long Island.  Mike has a lacrosse tournament there this weekend.  Aside from that I didn't do anything.  Myself, Ross, Ignacio and Mike just sat around and showed each other our friends on Facebook and watched funny videos on Youtube.  We decided not to go out because we were all too tired and tomorrow we have to get up early to go on our party boat.   (Not the one my boss reserved)  My co-worker Stanley got us on this one and its was about 60 American for all you can drink, eat and wakeboard.  Apparently we go to a couple beaches too, so I'm looking forward to that a lot! Well goodnight all talk to you soon!

                                                  Meet Mr. Wong! Interesting Guy!

Hong Kong Entry #5

So Monday I woke up did my normal thing, which is wash off to wake up, get dressed then head down to meet Chris and Melissa at breakfast.  One funny thing that I don't believe I have mentioned is that at breakfast they literally offer french fries everyday.  Breakfast is buffet style, so they always have some sort of meat, they alternate between scrambled and fried eggs, some sort of french fry (either waffle or skinny) dim sum (chinese appetizer basically), a few cereals, milk, orange and apple juice, either banana or apple, toast and oatmeal.  Pretty much everyday I take the egg, meat and french fry and put it on the toast and make myself a breakfast sandwich.  

Work on monday or the first day of our second week was by far the worst day yet.  The reason being it was super stressful!  I was given a project by Andrew Miller (my boss) to update the fundraising deck for Thursday.  Andrew and the rest of my team basically cover Private Equity, Fundraising, Venture Capitalists and a few other non specific accounts.  Well on Thursday Andrew has a high profile client coming in to meet with him and he asked me to update the Fundraising deck for that meeting.  Basically what this is, is a packet or power point printed with statistics, graphs, predictions within the fundraising sector.  Andrew sent we the one from last year and asked me to update the information in it, so it was up to date for the client.  This was a serious burden on my day because as I was doing research for it I could not find all the same statistics from the year past.  Now because it was for a client and due so soon I was freaking out and gathering as much information on Monday as possible, however as I was reading and gathering I was not what information I was even going to put in my deck.  By the end of the day I was really freaking out and I almost had my first ever panic attack, however I managed to avoid that and get through the day.  

When we got back home on Monday we all got changed and met at dinner for our event for the night.  The event planned on Monday night was to go ice skating down at Festival Walk mall!!  A bunch of us ended up ice skating and we had a blast! I did not need to go for a run because I literally got a work out skating.  I was dripping with sweat by the end of the night.  One weird thing about their free skate here is that so many of the kids take figure skating lessons that in the middle of the skating rink people were doing figure skating moves which is super dangerous!  The are spinning with one leg in the air, if that skate makes contact with someones body it could do serious damage, especially in the neck area.  However we skated for a hour and a half and had a blast. I was the second best skater in the group next to Chris my co-worker but he is a Canadian so that is kinda an unfair advantage if you ask me!

After figure skating we grabbed a bite to eat then hit the sack.  Today I woke up and felt less tired than I did yesterday simply because I went to bed earlier.  However at breakfast I was a little stressed because I knew I would have to go in to my daily morning meeting with my team and talk about my progress with my team and boss.  I had essentially gotten nowhere the day before except for the fact that I gathered a lot of information.  However as for organizing and getting an idea of which of that information I would use I had not gotten anywhere.  However meeting time came and it was my turn to talk and as I was describing what was going through my head and what I had done my boss was very understanding, he said that I had so far done a good job and he even specified certain areas that I could exclude from my deck.  So leaving the meeting I actually felt better which in turn made my day better.  At work I found out from Vanessa our front desk lady that a tsunami is headed our way from the Philippines.  Our hope is that it will end before the weekend because on saturday we have a group hike, and on Sunday myself, Melissa, and Chris were invited to a boat party from a co-worker of ours, the same one who invited us to dinner last friday.  The boat party costs $450 honkie and include all you can drink, eat and wakeboarding so this is going to be a blast.  He even let us invite some of our friends who did not work with us.  Also this girl Amanda who is in the DC (dream careers) group was invited on the same boat from her boss!  In total there will be 110 people partying on this huge boat, so it should be a blast.  

At work I worked on my project, yet I was also asked to sit on in two phone interviews that Jaimie Souter and Sotoko (dont know her last name) on my team had.  This was great to add as experience because they actually asked me to take notes as well.  At lunch Jaimie and I went to the same place and we got to talking about my future and I told him I was all done with school and wanted to work in Asia. He actually told me that I should work for Global Sage and that he would start including me in on more client stuff, which I thought was really considerate and thoughtful of him.  

After work we all headed home to get ready to meet for our tuesday event which is TASTY TUESDAY where we try different local cuisine.  Today's TASTY Tuesday was what they call hot pot!  It's a restaurant where you go and sit at a round table.  In the middle of the table are two electric stove tops.  From there your table decides on two types of broth or soups to have on each stove top.  The soups or broths are placed in pots and on the stove tops and begin to heat.  Meanwhile you choose the meats, veggies, seafood etc. that you want for the table.  When the pots get hot you put your foods in them and wait for them to cook, then you eat them.  Here are two videos of our Hot Pot dinner!!

After Hot Pot which was located in Mong Kok by the way we just headed home and here I am writing my blog! I am wicked tired and can't wait to go to sleep!  It sucks I am passed the time in my life where I can take naps in the middle of the day...DANG!! lol  Ah well just going to have to start going to bed earlier.  Tomorrow should be a pretty generic day, breakfast, work, lunch, work, workout/run, dinner, then we have a speaker tomorrow because Wednesdays are always speaker series then bedtime again.  Well as always thanks for reading! Hasta Luego!

And to all my followers I am very sorry that my blog is boring right now with out pics and videos, I actually had a bunch of pics and 3 videos I have been trying to put into it. However all of a sudden whenever I try to upload them they upload then never show up.   It is really aggravating because I want to share my adventures.  If anyone has any ideas or knows why this is happening I am all ears thanks!

HK Entry #4

Ni Hao! Well its been a few days since I have posted and quite a bit has happened!  I should start off by saying even though I have been partying my butt off on the weekends, I have been working out!  Pushups and sit up in my room and I have gone running and will continue to do so! lol  Well I think I left off on Saturday last.  Saturday was a great day I dropped my dress clothes off at the mall and while I was there I bought two new shirts from Nautica, V-Necks!! Now for anyone who knows me that is a big step for me because I never where V-Necks.  However I actually like these and they look okay on me,  the V is not deep at all so they are acceptable to me.  When I got back from the mall I decided to go for a run because I knew I would be drinking all night again and if I did not do some sort of physical activity I would feel like such a good for nothing.  I thought I was going to have multiple people to run with because many have told me they would run with me however the only one who has come each time is Melissa my co-worker, I give her credit for coming out with me because no one else is running and like my Dad always says its easy to skip out on workouts!  The first time we ran we got lost because I thought I knew where I was but all the buildings look the same so we ended up not where we thought we were.  So this time we decided to just go down to this track that is about 5 minutes away from our dorms and run around the track so we would not get lost.  We had a event that night and the bus left at 6:00 so if we got lost and missed the bus we would miss out so the track was the safest bet.  I didn't have the best run of my life I was dragging because I was dehydrated from the night before, but I did get a good sweat going and I did a couple laps with pushups, sit up and pull ups on a soccer goal.  I want to thank my brother Michael again for getting me Nike workout tracker its awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone!
After we finished our run we jogged back to the school to get ready for our event.  I showered and shaved quick and threw on one of my new v-necks and headed down to our group rally point.  When the bus got to the school I was surprised with how comfortable it was, it was a much nicer and more comfortable coach bus than any I have been on back home.  Our tour guide was a wacky and very funny little Chinese lady who cracked some pretty funny jokes throughout the night.  We started off the night by heading back to the Temple Street Market where we had previously gone during the week.  We stayed there for about 45 minutes, during this time Ross and myself decided we were going to get some watches!  I ended up with a fake Daytona Rolex and Ross went with the bootleg Breitling.  

My Daytona

Something funny about this trip to the market was that we found another section to it that had a lot of adult things haha.   Lets just say there were a lot of instruments being sold!  Here is a little glimpse....

Nice  Elephant Schlong Thong! (D'Angelo would Love this haha

So we left the market after about 45 minutes then headed to the famous JUMBO Floating Restaurant.  Now when they say Jumbo they mean it, the thing is huge.  It's actually in the middle of the bay so you have to take a little ferry over to it.  I uploaded many pictures from our time at the JUMBO restaurant on Facebook including the list of food we ate.  They served us a multiple course meal with different types of seafood, and dessert which was my favorite part because it was Mango custard. (delicious)  The neat thing about this restaurant is that because it is on the water it gets real fresh seafood, because the fishing boats dock right up to it and put the seafood on it.  They even let you go down to where they keep the seafood and see it all,  the fish and other edible marine life are all kept alive until cooked to keep them as fresh as possible.  

After eating at JUMBO restaurant and taking pictures we got back to our bus and headed to our final destination, the photo area on the mountain where you can see all of Hong Kong Island metro area, the bay in the middle and mainland on the other side.  There are many huge houses on this mountain as it offers one of the most beautiful views you can find.  The pictures I took do not do this site justice because it is way more striking in person.  Its unreal to see the water in between the two parts of Hong Kong its definitely a must see!  Another neat thing was that from this observation area we were lined right up with my office building which was cool because I was able to show all my friends where I worked and what a nice building it actually is, with a incredible view!  My building is the tall pointy one in the picture below.

After taking a bunch of pictures from this amazing view, we headed back to City University.  My friends and I planned on going out in Lan Kui Fung again as usual, however I had no idea what was in store for the night to come.  When we got back I layed down on my bed b/c it was about 11:30 pm and we planned on leaving at 12 because everyone party's so late here, so I decided I would take a little power nap. However about 10 minutes after I laid down I got a text from Ignacio asking me if I was willing to drop a little extra cash to get a table at the hottest club in Hong Kong... Dragon-i!! Its the "hot-spot" club in Hong Kong that the rich, famous, beautiful and numerous celebrities go to.  However it is very expensive and if you don't know someone you may not even get in. I was also told by Ignacio to put a button down shirt on and change my shoes because it was a no sneaker policy.  (This place started sounding like a not my style kind of thing but I changed and decided to give it a chance) Luckily Ignacio new a girl who was going to get us in and a table in the main room, however we needed to be there by 12:30!! This was a stretch for us because were 3 trains and a 40 min commute away.  Of course we ended up not getting there on time and only 3 of us were getting in right away. The people working the door were being douches and kept not making us wait, then they decided that only 2 out of the 4 of us waiting could go in next.   So my roommate Nick and I decided that we really didn't care anyway and we let the others go in, and we went to do our own thing.  Well boy did we make the right decision!  The other guys spent about $300 American on boos (which other people were drinking on them! We spent waaaaay less than that and had just as much if not more fun!  

Nick and I decided that we were going to do our own bar crawl starting at one end of the street and working our way down.  Before we got started Nick introduced me into international drinking rules of our crawl, 3 main rules.  

Rule #1  - If the big hand on the clock was on the right side between 12 and 6 you had to hold your drink in your right hand.  If it was on the left half in between 6 and 12 you had to hold it in your left hand.

Rule #2  - When your drink was on the table it had to be at least a fingers away from the edge at all times.

Rule #3  - Whenever you put your drink down you must double tap in on the table first.

Every rule violation  that was caught meant that you had to drink two fingers worth of your cup.  Well lets just say that I never got the hang of Rule #3 and it was not my friend!  We went to multiple bars and had a absolute blast.  

We met tons of new people and shared many laughs and songs. We stayed in the bars till about 6 am lol and decided to call it quits.  When we were looking for a cab something very interesting happened to us... we both had our first interaction with a prostitute.  As we were walking to find a cab a female approached us and kept asking us if we wanted to go somewhere party or hang out.  She was very persistent and would not leave us alone so we decided to just out run her haha. We sprinted down the street because we knew she would not chase us in her hight heels lol.  We finally got found a cab and headed back home, we got into bed about 7 am.  When I awoke later on Sunday it was 3:15 in the afternoon!  From there the rest of the day was worthless,  the most productive thing I did all day was my laundry.  My friends and I did go get dinner at the mall and walk around a little but thats about all I did all day.  I was pretty disappointed in myself because I wasted a full day, (aside from laundry) other people in the program went to the beach and had a fun day so I was a little jealous of that. So I vowed never to waste another day that I was here.  Well its late and I need to go to sleep, adios amigos!

Entry 3 (Saturday June 18)

Nǐhǎo!! That is hello in madarin!  Sooo since we last talked quite a bit has happened I'm going to have to try to update this more often so things do not slip my mind!  Let me think..

Okay so thursday was a pretty good day except for the fact that it was pouring outside all day, lol.  However even though it was raining, it was a sunny day because the BRUINS DID IT BABY WHOOOOO!!!  I'm so jealous I did not get to watch it live, however at work for the first two hours I was really useless because all I was doing was watching the GameCast on ESPN and updating my Twitter and Facebook, haha.  Champs!!! I get goosebumps just thinking about it.  7 Championships for Boston Sports since 2000, my teams, WOW we Boston fans are blessed!  From there work was great the Bruins won I got to sit in on a candidate phone interview with one of my co-workers which was really neat too.

 So as I was saying it was raining all day here, thats because right now is the rain season so it rains almost everyday ranging from 5 min to all day.  We have not had a day that rained all day luckily so far.  They categorize the rains here too, which is kind of interesting.  There are  3 rains, Amber, Red and Black.  An AMBER rain is just a average rain, your normal average joe type thing. A RED rain is a bit harder and the very young school children will actually have school cancelled. A BLACK rain is like a different story apparently you can barely see, when it is a BLACK rain all school is cancelled and you are supposed to stay where you are, so work can be cancelled or if you are at the office stay there till its done.  I have not seen a black rain yet but I'm told i will.  It is also typhoon (which is like a hurricane i guess)season and people at work tell me I will almost certainly be here for at least two typhoons!  At work Chris and I had lunch at this sandwich place that we both decided really wasn't that great.  They loaded my chicken sandwich with mayo which I also hate along with fat.  I complained about it later on, during our train ride home and Evonne our other intern who is from China (mainland) asked me if I am a picky eater... I told her no there are really only two things I hate Mayo and Fat and unfortunately its everywhere here!  

So our event on thursday was to go to the avenue of the stars, which is where they have the Bruce Lee statue!  I originally planned on wearing my new Bruce Lee cut off shirt so I could take a pic in it with the statue, however the Bruins won so there was no chance I was not repping my Bergeron shirt (thank you Tara) and my B's hat, and with my Livestrong Nike Sneaks (thanks again Tara lol) I was covered in "BLACK AND YELLOW", looking freeeesh, haha.  So I decided to put my Bruce Lee shirt in my knapsack my Mom packed (thank you Mom ;) ) for me.  At the avenue of stars which is along the Bay there is a laser show every night at 8pm.  However us at Global Sage got there late b/c we went home to change from work first and ended up missing it.  However the train ride to the avenue of stars was hilarious because I had Melissa use my camera to make a video of me singing that song from the Little Mermaid to this couple on the train(which I dedicated to Tanya Chiari, she loves that movie).  The reason this idea came about though is because idk why but there is so much PDA in China (Tara's kind of place! lol) and every time I'm on the train there is a couple like holding each other or making out.  So I thought this video would be funny.  It came out alright but I think I'm going to practice and maybe try it again. 

So we missed the light show and I decided to take the Bruce Lee pic another time because it was raining a lot.  So from here Maya one of our staff lead us to this place where she said we could eat and drink.  So we get to this area where there are a ton of restaurants and go into this one building that on the elevator buttons are pics of each restaurant so you know which level. We go to this bar on the top floor that is supposedly an American type bar with food.  However let me tell you this menu freaking sucked and I was really pissed.  There were like 10 things on the freaking menu, no burgers however it said burgers and they had 3 fry options only 1 of which you could get with the meal, even though they were all the same price??? Like wtf so if I wanted these skinny fries with black pepper (which I did) I had to order just fries???! I was not a happy camper.  So I order my fries they were okay but I was still starving so I did another round of ordering and got a chicken sandwich which also kind of sucked b/c the chicken was little chicken poppers instead of like a piece of chicken!  However they did have a good beer deal promotion going on which we took advantage of.  It was 6 of these "Blue Girl Beer" bottles for 140 Honky, which is a good deal.  For the promotion they also gave us sick lighter and a laser pointer/flashlight, Ross took the pointer and I got the lighter.  We went to a different bar after for a drink but I was wicked tired so myself and a few others went hope at like 12:30. 

Friday morning was by far the hardest day to wake up so far I was so tired. However, of course it was a super busy day at work.  I had a meeting with Andrew Miller my boss and he assigned me a project to do, I have to update there Private Equity deck.  It's basically a macro and micro look at the PE industry, key companies, key players in each company, what they are producing and so on.  If I complete this well it will look really good on my resume.  Andrew is a great guy with a lot of knowledge and I asked him if at some point I could as my DAD always says " pick his brain" and he said absolutely and that we would have lunch and he would also invite us all to his house for dinner.  Andrew also has German Shepherd named Sheila so we have that in common, and his son is picking up Lacrosse!!! I also have something in common with my co-worker Jaimie Couter who I got to sit in the interview with on thursday, we are both Vinegar lovers for salads hahaha, random but it came up at lunch when he got a salad for lunch and was using it.  He said he loved the states because they have vinegar in all the restaurants.  I told him I would have to get his address and send him a bottle of the one I use because I had a salad on Friday for lunch and used the vinegar they have here and its just not as strong, kinda sweet which is weird.

But anyway so I got a new project on top of a bunch of other stuff, but I decided I really like what they do at Global Sage its like the perfect mix of Finance and Marketing. I love how you meet new people everyday and your job is to promote them to huge companies.  So I think I will talk to John Wright the Owner/CEO what I have to do to perhaps end up at Global Sage.  Friday was a busy day for us at 4 we had a field trip over to the Bloomberg building where we were sent to learn how to use the Bloomberg system for our research at work.  That place is sooo cool, they have huge salt water fish tanks with everything living and they give you free food and drinks!  They have this area when you walk in off the elevator and its a space of like aisles of snacks and foods and refrigerators stocked with drinks, for free! This is the best pic I could get because they do not allow picture taking for some reason, so this was covert ops!

The lesson at Bloomberg was very interesting and you can use their service to find all kinds of information from stock returns, company info, people bio, weather updates around the world, to where to eat, which is why there service is so expensive.

                               (The above are Sweet Dynasty pics which i took holding my camera!)

After Bloomberg we went home got changed then went back on the train to meet a co-worker of ours Stanley Suh (real good dude) who invited us to come out to eat and meet some friends of his! So we went to this place called Sweet Dynasty, the food was great we all ordered a dish we wanted then the whole table shared everything which is very common here. I didn't mind to much but I would have preferred to just eat my dish b/c it was awesome spicy prawn (shrimp) with walnuts and green beans!  After dinner Ross and myself headed back home to get ready for the night and we wanted to go pick up Ignacio and Mike before we left.  They all had to shower which I already did so I just took a nice little nap to get ready for the long night!  We left at about 12 which is perfect because we were out till 5!!!! Yes they do it late here.  We went to Lan Kui Fung again and had a absolute blast.  We went to about 4 bars and stayed at 2 of them Skybar again and Liquid the longest.

(This is a pic of part of skybar, not the outside, I have not taken any outside pic from there yet b/c it rains everytime! I will tho!  If you look a bunch of the dream career crew is in the pic! my camera flash lit this place up! cause its dark in there)

  These were like real clubs so everyone is dancing and going nuts, I literally had a soaking wet shirt from sweat! (and a drink someone spilled on me lol)  However the night was successful we had fun and I made a CONTACT!  Another American who struck up a conversation with me at the bar trying to order drinks.  He is a Private Equities manager at a firm called AR Capital in Singapore (which is the fastest growing country in Asia Pacific).  He gave me some great advice and asked for my email so he could introduce me to some people to help find a job out here.  So that was very exciting for me.  This morning I woke up and I had a email from him! So I wrote him back thanking him and we will see what comes of it.  Aside from writing the email and this blog thats all I have done so far today, o and I loaded my pics on my computer now I have to upload them to facebook which I hate doing.  But after I finish writing this entry I am taking my dress shirts to the dry cleaners to be washed and I am going to do a few loads of laundry here.  Tonight we have an event which I will tell you about later on.  So for now I say goodbye! Or zài jiàn in Mandarin!

Hong Kong Entry Number Yee (2-Cantonese)

(你好) Néih hóu everyone! That means hello and is pronounced like "lay ho".  The last two days have been quite exhausting but fun to say the least.  So as I mentioned in my last post myself and the three other interns at Global Sage all showed up to work and found out we were not suppossed to start till the 14th of June!  So yesterday was our first day, we got up just like Monday and met at breakfast except this time we left about 10 min later so say 10 after 8 am.  Well let me tell you that was a mistake!  The subway was wicked packed, soooo many people! Luckily the subways are very clean and have air conditioning otherwise it would have been miserable.  On monday we made the commute and got there with 25 min to spare, yesterday we got to work at exactly 9 so we just made it.  One funny thing about the subways during the week (and I will try to get a pic of this at some point)  is that there are actually workers who are hired to simply push and move people along in the subways.  They point traffic in the direction to walk and will actually even gently push people on the train; to squeeze as many on as possible.  
Work was great though, we got there and were greeted by the office manager who toured us around the office, introduced us to everyone and also gave us our key cards and itinerary's for the week.  The first day was quite a few  meetings and introductory lessons about how things work and such.  The office took us out for lunch to a traditional Chinese Dim sum meal.  (I did not have my camera the first day so I didn't get any pics of dim sum but next time I go I will def take pics)  What Dim sum for those that do not know is a bunch of foods in small portions that everyone at the table shares and it is served with teas.  It was delicious let me tell you, I did not have anything I did not like except... for the bbq chicken foot.   The chicken foot I did not really enjoy because there is more bone then meat, and the meat has like a fatty texture and if you know me then you know how I feel about fat.  However everything else was delicious!  After lunch we got right into working and it was sort of a wake up because in the morning we were just learning then all of sudden we were right in the mix!  
After work we met up with a bunch of the other interns at this bar in the Festival Walk mall call Danny Ryan's and had a beer then we all went back changed out of our work clothes and got ready to go to our program.  Yesterdays program was really neat, we went to the Temple Street Market and had a seafood dinner at one of the street restaurants.  The way the street market restaurants work for those of you who do not watch the TRAVEL CHANNEL lol is the people cook the food in the small restaurant kitchen inside and you eat outside at little benches.  It was really good we had clams, prawn, noodles with shredded chicken, spring rolls, fried rice, bbq chicken and of course beer!  After dinner we went through the street market where you can find just about anything and bargain for almost all of it.  They sell everything from rip off iphones, watches and handbags to paintings, kids toys, trinkets and tea sets.  I bought a sweet Bruce Lee cut-off t-shirt that I will be wearing on thursday when we go see the Bruce Lee statue.
Today I woke up and was pretty damn tired, work is tiring...shit I need to go back to college so I can take naps again!  I had my first team meeting with my team and my direct supervisor Andrew Miller.  Andrew had me reading and learning all about Private Equity today because thats where I will be doing most of my work this summer.  First I read about the industry and how it works as a refresher from school.  Private Equity firms or PE firms invest in securities in non-publicly traded companies.  They can do anything from act as venture capitalists and invest in very early stage ideas and companies they feel will work well and make them a lot of cash.  They can also buy portions of new companies that need capital or old companies that they may restructure or merge with another company. They can also sometimes find a publicly traded company and for example if the companies stock is trading at $10 per share they may offer $12 to all shareholders and buy the company, take it off the market, restructure it, merge it, develop it and then put it back on the market with a $18 IPO (Initial Public Offering) and make a profit.
After I understand the market I need to learn who the key players are in the market as in PE firms and their personnel.  What Global Sage does is essentially personnel placement or "Head Hunting".  Except they do it on a strictly executive and management level.  They are hired by firms to find the best personnel and get them to leave their job to go work for their client.  So knowing the "key players" is essential.  So today was a huuuuge reading and learning day and it seems tomorrow is going to be the same.  I did have the pleasure today to talk to the President and owner of Global Sage John Wright who is a great guy, the dude is hilarious!  He was making fun of Chris and I because we paid Dream Careers (the program we are hear with) to introduce us to Global Sage and then work for free.  However he did say "lets see if we can't get you guys working on something real so you can have a real worthwhile experience." so thats exciting.
After work I went for a run with Melissa one of the other Global Sage interns (she plays Lacrosse at University of Arizona) Chris was supposed to run with us to but he backed out last second (which I will give him shit tomorrow for) to take a nap and drink.  So Melissa and I just ran, I got to use my new Nike/Ipod workout tracker that Michael my little brother got me for my graduation.  It worked great we ran for 30 minutes and 3.5 miles. However I got us really lost so we had to jog back which added another mile and a half to the run.  The good thing is that I think we recruited some other people to run with us next time, my friend Ignacio said he wants in too and Alexia and Chris better make up next time!
Well thats it for this log! 拜拜 bāai baai (goodbye) my friends 

First Post from Hong Kong

First off let me start off by saying that United Airlines blows! They delayed my flight to Chicago which made me barely make my flight to Hong Kong and I was not able to get any food or anything in between!
Also they charged me an extra $400 for one of my bags, 200 because it was too heavy and 200 because it was too big!  The inflight food also sucked!  Then when we landed it was pouring in Hong Kong and they must have left my bag in the rain because all my clothes in the bag were soaked!
However that was all made up for because after dinner we had a blast we went out to the Lan Kwai Fong area where there are tons of bars and it is really hopping over there.  I made a bunch of great friends already over here everyone who is in the program is friendly and easy to get along with! We went to like 4 different bars and had a blast at all of them, my two favorite bars that we visited were the Russian Vodka Bar which was an ice bar and something that I thought was pretty neat.  The other bar that I really enjoyed was the skybar its on the roof of this huge building and the sites are AMAZING!  Whats really neat is you can go into any of the bars (most without cover or much of a wait) and get a drink then take the drink out to  the street with you if you decide to leave!
On Sunday we had lunch in Festival Walk (where I tried duck which was okay, the meat was very tasty but there is a lot of fat and bone) and did practice runs to and from our internships so we could get the timing down and be ready for our first day.  Im working with three other interns and they are all very nice, I have made good friends with one of them his name is Chris and he is from Canada.  I really like Chris because he hates the Canucks and is also rooting for the Bruins to win!  So we all planned on starting our internship today June 13, 2011 so we got all dressed and got there nice and early however when we arrived at work they told us that they were expecting us tomorrow haha! So we ended up having the day off which was actually good!  I made use of my day off I went down to this tourism place called China Travel Services and applied for my tourist Visa to Beijing with Tara.  Then Chris and I met up with a bunch of the other people in the program and had lunch at this American Burger place, I got a buffalo chicken sandwhich which really hit the spot!  Then we went over to IKEA to get some hangars and other things for our rooms.  When we finally got back to our dorm area I realized that the lady at the tourism company never gave me my passport back!  At this point it was about 10 after 4 and the place closes at 5 so I got on the train and headed back over there, once I got there the lady told me the Visa place keeps the passport until I pick my Visa up, so I really rushed back for no reason.  However the Visa place was in this area called Mong Kok, I knew there was a market there in the evening so I went over and shopped for some souvenirs for the family, it was really neat I got to barter with the locals. ( I'm sure they still beat me in the end but it was fun anyway).  After dinner the whole Dream Careers crew did a scavenger hunt in this place called festival walk which is a huge mall right next to the campus we are staying on.  The mall is so cool it has every store you could ever need in it and a ice skating rink and a movie theatre.
The subway system here in Hong Kong is unreal and better than anywhere else I have ever been, it is very clean and the longest you have to wait for a train is 3 minutes.  The trains take you just about everywhere in Hong Kong so a car isn't even necessary.    So tomorrow is my first day of work and we are also going to a night market and traditional chinese seafood restaurant so look for posts on those coming up!