November 30, 2011

Lei Ho Everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with their family and friends!  I was invited to my boss Jessica's home for Thanksgiving.  We actually had our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday instead of Thursday because in Hong Kong they do not give any day's off for it, as it is not a common celebrated holiday.  Which, if you think about it makes sense, why would people in Hong Kong care at all about when the Native Americans and the Pilgrims came together and celebrated thanks.  Anyway, dinner was FANTASTIC, Jessica's boyfriend Scott is a wonderful cook and he made every dish that we would have back home and he made them very well. I have never been one to enjoy stuffing at all, however I actually ate and enjoyed his stuffing.  He bought a 15lb turkey and also a chicken and he cooked the Chicken inside of the Turkey and they both came out perfect, the meat was not dry at all! I would have to say my favorite dish was the mashed potato and the yams, the yams especially. He cooked them with brown sugar and put walnuts on top of them... delicious.  I brought a bottle of Glenmorangie scotch which Scott was very happy about and enjoyed it with me.  I also told Jessica I would bring an appetizer so I brought my signature Monday Night Football dip which, everyone devoured so that was nice.  In total their were about 15 people there and I was able to sit and have a conversation with just about all of them, all very nice people and people who I will actually probably see again.  Overall it was a terrific way to spend a Thanksgiving if I could not spend it with my family, Scott even had the NFL games playing!

Jessica and Scott giving the Turkey Taste Test!

After dinner we had some drinks and then most of us continued the night down in LKF. We all had a ton of fun and I got to know a bunch of these people really well.  I almost did not go out with them because, I was stuffed and did not know if I could do a night of drinking but, I am really glad I went as we all had a blast.
Aside from that I have not done anything really different than the past few weeks.  I have done quite a bit of networking, since my last post I have gone to a couple networking events and met quite a few people.  This city is literally networking on steroids, if you go to these events you would have to be blind and deaf to not walk away with at least 10 business cards. So that part is easy, from there its all on you to follow up.  I am finding you can really get a lot out of Hong Kong as long as you are willing to apply yourself and meet people.
On Sunday I actually had my first Lacrosse game with the "Skyers" (no idea what the name stands for or means) which is one of the teams that I will be playing for in the league they have here.  We won

14-1 so it was a good victory.  Most importantly I had a lot of fun, myself and one of the Jordans on the team who plays at Bellamarine actually did a "Ham and Cheese".  I swept over the top with the ball, pretended to do a fake flip to Jordan who then ran hard down the side and acted like he had the ball, when really I had it the whole time and just had to go drop it in the net, because the goalie was not looking.  After we went to this nearby bar called Happy Valley Bar and Grill and had a few beers and a burger, so it was a great way to end the weekend.

So now today is Wednesday and I actually just had dinner with someone I met at a networking event last week.  His name is Diederik Heinink from Holland and he has started his own Public Relations company out here in Hong Kong called C-People.  I actually met him through my old boss and friend Andrew Miller from Global Sage. Diederik has been a great guy to talk to though as he is very experienced in the Marketing/Communications industry, so I have received some solid advice from him. Another reason we had dinner tonight was because he wanted to see if I was interested in doing some contract social media work for his company, so we got together to discuss that and just social media in general. I am actually really interested in doing this contract type work on the side as it is really neat because you get to work with a lot of companies who otherwise I would have no connection.
So that is where I am at right now in my life here, busy busy busy.  I hope everyone at home is doing well, I look forward to hearing from all of you so don't be shy and email me if you have some time.  Also, I am very proud of my newest blog www.adchatting.com so if you have some time give it a read, also I would appreciate any comments or criticism that you might have on anything I have written.  One way that you can actually help me as readers is, if you read my blogs and find what you read interesting   than go ahead and share them with your social networks to help me reach people that I would not normally be able to.  The buttons below the posts such as the Facebook "Like" the Google +1 and the twitter tweet button are all very clickable so please CLICK! lol
Well until next time, adios and buenos noches!