Hong Kong Entry #10

Ni Hao!  So I left off last telling you guys about last Saturday!  All of the weekend as you can imagine through Saturday was awesome!  However Sunday was sooo cool and one of the best days by far!  So basically myself and a few others, Chris Denton, Alexia, Amanda, Michelle, Melissa got up at 9:00 and met Stanley at the TST train station at 10:30ish.  From there we took a bus to the same area where we loaded up on our junk boat adventure and had McDonalds Breakfast.  Then we took a taxi up this mountain on these narrow one lane roads to this park area.  Now the plan was to hike through this mountain area and end up at this not well known area where could cliff jump. To see where we were planning on cliff jumping click here!  The area is Sai Wan and is a really nice place to hike, you get to see tons of scenery and the hiking trails are paved out with gravel and have steps on the very up/downhill areas.

  However the trail can essentially go on forever.  We started out on it and along with quite a few other groups who were on the trail.  I was taking a bunch of pics on this first leg.  When we got our first view of the first beach of the day my camera was working fine.  However then when we finally reached the little town in front of the beach with little local type restaurants my camera would not work!!! (I am still wicked mad about this, the camera is a Sony and only 3 weeks old!  It will still take pics however I have no idea what I am taking pics of because the screen is just black!  The worst part is I did nothing to make this happen, no drops, no water on it nothing it just crapped out!!!! It was a huge disappointment as I missed out on some real epic photo opportunities.)  Luckily other people I was with had cameras so I am featured in a few.  The first beach had quite a few people on it, however the only way to get to it is via hiking or by boat, many people drive their boats or yachts to the beach and spend the day there and eat the local food for lunch.

  We stayed at this beach for about an hour, until we decided we should be on our way.  Before our depart I acted as Stanley's personal photographer as he got in multiple poses along the beach! lol  Then we bought some water and headed on our way.  Little did we know that the area we were looking for was very close by to that beach and should only have been another half hour hike.  

The Dam

What happened was that we came to a section in the trail and ended up going the wrong way.  When I think about it, it was a really dumb move, instead of following this stream to where we were supposed to cliff jump we went up this mountain area!  Apparently the coordinates Stanley had matched up on a map with the direction we chose however in reality they were way off.  We ended up hiking 2 hours away from where we were supposed to be.  However it was worth it as we saw some of the most beautiful landscape scenery I have ever seen!  On our hike we found out we went too far because we came to the next village (which I honestly believe had a population of maybe 15 because there were like 5 houses) and met this expat Australian guy who was in retirement and making and selling surfboards.  Apparently he makes some part of the board for a bunch of major surfboard companies.  He told us that we were way off and would have to back track if we wanted to get to the cliff jumping area.  At this point we got together as a group and had to make a decision, should we head back to the cliff area, or just spend the remainder of the day at the nearby beach which is said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in Hong Kong as it is very hidden and secluded.  We decided that we would go to the beach and do the cliff jumping another time.  We asked a local which way to this beach and he said we could go two ways back the way we had come or just go this other way through this wooded area.  We took the opportunity to go the new way to see landscape and scenery we had not previously seen.  This was a mistake as this pathway was pretty much not a path at all and there were bugs everywhere and monster spiders which I freaking hate!  These spiders were literally so nasty looking, they made huge webs and were long with a bunch of colors and big fangs.  There were a few that were literally as big as my hand and this part of the hike was honestly a nightmare!

 So we ended up turning around and heading back the way we came which was much faster anyway.  When we got to this beach the first thing we did was buy a ticket for the boat ride home at 6 because that way we did no have to hike all the way back and then take a taxi to the bus pick up area.  The boat would pick us up at the beach and take us all the way back directly to the bus pick up area near the docks.  After that we just went and hung out on this beautiful and quiet beach! The water was so clear and fairly warm, it was very refreshing.  I was actually punished the next few days because of my sunburn from our beach day, I got hit bad!!!  We had lunch at one of the two restaurants on the beach at about 4 and it was a good meal, the restaurant workers were super friendly and they played music which was a nice touch.  After that everyone just enjoyed the last two hours on the beach, I ended up taking a nap for about an hour.  When I woke up I spent the rest of the time trying to catch little fish with my hands like a 10 year old haha! O well I had fun!  The two boats got there right on time at 6 and loaded up with everyone who was leaving for the day as it was the last boat pickup.  I was surprised to see that about 10 people stayed behind and actually were going to camp on the beach, I thought that was really neat how they are able to do that here.  The boat ride was really something else, it was about a 45 minute ride on a speedboat and we were able to see some beautiful sights.  The best was the sunset from our water perspective over the mountains, quite beautiful! (wish my camera worked)
After the boat we just took our bus ride to the TST station where we said goodbye and thank you to Stanley and then headed back to CityU to call it a night.

Impressive right?

The week following was a pretty productive week for me as well.  As I said for most of the week I was in pain because of my serious sunburn so that was not fun at all.  Other than that I did make quite a few good moves from a professional standpoint.  It all started on Tuesday afternoon when my Boss Andrew Miller took me out for lunch to this little chinese place which had the best dumplings I have ever had.  Andrew basically got me going and gave me a wake up call, he asked me what my plans were, if I had considered what living expenses would be for me if I got a job here and told me I needed to know exactly what my costs would be.  He also helped me decide who I wanted to talk to and gave me some valuable advice on adding to my resume from the headhunter perspective someone who looks at tons of them everyday.  So the most important thing I got from our talk was that my resume should be about what I can bring to the table, not about me. It should be stuff I have done for my previous employer, generated revenue implemented this or that etc., basically things I can do for them.  So this got me thinking about what I was doing at Global Sage currently and how it pertained to what I want to do, and I realized honestly it would not help me that much.  So I thought of a way I could help the company and add to my resume which would be mutually beneficial.  I realized that Global Sage has no Social media presence so my idea was to implement them and give them a presence.  I emailed Andrew in the morning about it, to see what he thought and if it was worth talking to John Wright our CEO about.  To my delight Andrew thought it was a great idea and forwarded it to John.  So this coming thursday I have a meeting with John to present my ideas!  So that is exciting! The next big thing that happened this past week was that I was approached by a Hong Kong head hunter via Linkedin about a couple of job opportunities that he was placing for.  So I emailed him back and ended up having a interview with him and his colleague on Friday at 1.  I told them about myself, why I was here what I was interested in and they must have liked me because they brought up two positions for me.  One is a sales job in investing in real estate the other was as a social media specialist. I was very interested in the social media one so I got more info about that one.  Basically it would be working for this company called EP English Town which essentially sells teaching the English language both online and in classroom.  It is the largest English language company in the world and the Global marketing team is based in Hong Kong.  The duties all suited me fine and I would definitely enjoy this job.  However the compensation isn't very high at all but I would still want the job as it is doing something I love and was open to a lot of creativity.  The only thing I am nervous about is that it is not a well known name and may not catch future employers eyes.  I already figured out that I could live with this other intern at Global Sage Tucker if I ended up getting the job so that is a huge plus.  Monday I am talking with the head hunters again to discuss my thoughts on the company and the jobs, so I think I am going to tell them that I am game for the social media opportunity.  I would love to land this job even though I would not make much because I get my foot in the door and start to expand my knowledge and expertise which is very exciting!

At HOT POT!

On Monday night of last week Vanessa our receptionist at GS and Coco's mother took us out for Hot Pot and it was the best Hot Pot we have had yet.  She bought us the all you can eat deal so we literally ate so much and such a variety!

  Then after Angela from work who was with us took us out for drinks and we ended up having a BLAST!  We went to this bar along the bay in TST and it had live music and was really a great atmosphere.  It was great bonding with people from work!  I had my first shot of Absinthe as Angela bought us each a shot of it, along with many more shots!  I am so grateful to be working with such great people, they have been really awesome and have showed us sooo much in Hong Kong we are so lucky and I really can't explain how much it means to me!

CoCo and I with the famous Absinthe

Well thats it for now look for my next entry as it will talk about my Bangkok experience!