I woke up at around 6am but decided to force myself to stay in bed until 7 thinking it would help me out for the day. I do think I slept some more. The bed in the hotel is quite firm and I like that. After getting showered I headed over to the club lounge and had breakfast from about 8-9am taking my time. I had expected to meet my coworker there but he wasn't around by 9 so I headed back to the room for a few minutes and then rechecked the lounge and he still wasn't there. I decided to take a walk for a few minutes and did a small loop around the area local to the hotel and then headed back in to see if he was there by 10am. I still didn't see him in the lounge so I opted to give my friend Jack a call and we made arrangements to meet. He had to get a few things in order so I had a little bit of time to kill and headed back out to some walking in the local area.
In walking I managed to find a parade that was going on and I watched that for a few minutes. I had dragon (or lion) costumed dancers and a bunch of older people doing traditional dances as well as a lot of puppet type things, for lack of a better word. I was watching that when Jack called me back and I headed to the hotel lobby to where they met me. I haven't seen Jack in a couple years or so but he still looks the same. It was good to see him. He is a project manager for Bank of America. He hired on to them full time when they were Meryll Lynch but BofA bought them out. He also now has a 6 month old daughter which should be news to a few people, as it was to me. Her name is Nicole and her eyes are so big they don't look Chinese. It was obvious he loves the idea of being a dad. What was amazing to me is that she already has 4 teeth.
They took me out to dim sum and ordered up a whole bunch of foods that ranged from roast pork to chicken feet to jelly fish. I think I tried everything on the table. I liked pretty much all of it. It was a lot of food and I was pretty well full by the time we headed out of there. Angela's fried Peggy also came out to join us for the dim sum. She was really nice and spoke her English with a British accent because she was taught English in the UK. After eating we took a short walk around the area where the restaurant was and then they got some Starbucks coffee too (never been a fan of Starbucks so I passed). After that they took me to their apartment which is spacious for a room in Hong Kong. It is a nice place though I am sure it is quite expensive. They needed to give Nicole a bath and such so we hung out for a bit then Jack took me for a walking tour of the local area for a while. I am not sure how far we walked but we saw the "Lady's Market" amongst other things. After that we headed back to his apartment and picked up the wife and kid and headed out to find dinner.
They took me to a Thai Restaurant they really like and eat at a lot. The place is not much a tourist would look at but the food was really good and I was full before I knew it. They ordered all sorts of stuff from satay chicken to pad thai to a soup that had a citrusy and spicy taste the name of which I couldn't pronounce I am sure. We had a couple Thai beers as well. It was an excellent meal. I really enjoyed everything I tried. I haven't had a lot of Thai food before. Jack said the Thai food here is much better than he remembers it being in the states. I hope it didn't spoil me too much to eat it here.
By the time we were finished dinner. it was already past 9pm and I was very tired and they said I looked exhausted so we took a cab to my hotel and they headed back home. In the writing of it all it doesn't look like I did a ton but it was a very full day and very tiring. The humidity here in Hong Kong is something to be reckoned with. It was probably about 70F during the bulk of the day which is of course a great temperature to me but the humidity was at times daunting. I felt like I was never going to have enough deodorant to survive this island. In all though I had a great first day here and it was great to see Jack again. He is one of those really good people you never forget in life. I am glad to see he is doing well and loving the whole parenthood thing. It is very cool.
Hong Kong is basically a giant sprawling city that feels a little bit like New York City and a little bit like Tokyo. I think Tokyo is cleaner but Hong Kong is cleaner than NYC. The area where the hotel is basically is a large shopping district with streets dedicated to specific types of merchandise. I know I walked the jewelery street at the very least. I would have to say that if you weren't into cities then Hong Kong is probably not the place for you.
I didn't take as many pictures as I should have but the ones I did take are posted here.
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