Don and I agreed to meet for breakfast around 6:45 and I was probably a few minutes late to arrive. He was already eating so I grabbed some toast, fruit, bacon, yogurt, apple juice and coffee. That looks terribly like a lot but really it wasn't... After finishing eating we left for the office at about 7:30. With the train schedule and the bus schedule we were the first to arrive at the office by 8:15. Fortunately they had given us badges. We let the cleaning staff in. I am not sure if we should have. We talked about recalibrating our departure times to be a bit closer to when the local staff arrives. We'll see what we do for Wednesday. The class pretty much was ahead of schedule and of course stayed ahead of schedule throughout the day. Even though we stopped at noon for a slightly longer than normal lunch we still got through material meant for the next day. At lunch the office took both classes out on the company. We went to a real restaurant in the back and upstairs to the food court area. It was all real Chinese food and we had a lot of different things. Too numerous to know what it all was and to eat all of it. Both of us skipped on the chicken feet. I agreed with Moy See they looked the wrong color. Like just plain boiled. I did have rice, dumplings, fried squid, hacked chicken, soup, noodles and who knows what else. It was all very good. They had dessert of cooked peanuts and barley in a sweet broth which was different. We had a lot of tea. I managed to spill the contents of one dumpling onto my leg staining it badly. After lunch we ran on till 5:30 then Don and I headed back. We missed the first 272K bus but were able to get seats on the next one instead of standing. As we got to the train platform a train just arrived and were were able to get on and ride back very quickly. We had to stand but the train wasn't too crowded. We managed to exit the correct way from the station. When I got to the room Daniela was not there nor was she in the lounge, so I got changed and waited for her to arrive. We were going to meet my friend Jack at 7:00 and it was already 6:30 by the time I got back. Daniela arrived a few minutes later she had been searching the mall for something.
We got ready and met Jack at 7pm in the hotel lobby and took a cab to the harbor area of Hong Kong on the mainland side. It was good to see Jack. It has been 3 years since the last time I had seen him. He had intentions of visiting the US but did not get a chance to do so. He had his second daughter a year and a half ago and he looked very happy about it. He is still working for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He took us to the Peking Garden restaurant right by the waterfront. He said it is a very touristy place but the prices are decent so it is a good place to go. The food was good. It was similar to what I had for lunch maybe except that we had the Peking duck which was very tasty to me but I don't think Daniela liked it. He got some cabbage, fried shrimp, pork dumplings (including the ones with soup inside which this time I didn't spill all over myself). There was beef and scallions and a few other things (he and Daniela got hot and sour soup too). The food was all very good and I enjoyed it. We had some Kirin and also tried San Miguel from the Philippines which was a reasonably good beer too. There of course was also tea. We talked about old times and friends that we had or hadn't seen in a while during the course of the night. I was not surprised to find out he is still a smoker. It does seem that we have fallen out of touch with a lot of our old friends from the Digitas days though.
After dinner we walked out along the harbor and met up with his coworker friend Phoebe. She was very much a friend of Jack in that she was smart and sarcastic and I liked her a lot. She gave Daniela some tips about shopping in Hong Kong and teased Jack about his knowledge of how to get around aside from the fact he has been here 7 years or so and still hasn't adjusted to the heat and humidity. He was sweating worse than I was. We walked by the Hong Kong walk of fame and saw the stars of the HK actors we know and the statue of Bruce Lee. Then we stopped at a small outdoor bar and had a beer. Jack and I had more San Miguel. Daniela had a Saigon from Vietnam and Phoebe had a Stella. We talked for a while longer until the place closed at 11pm and then took a taxi back to the hotel where Jack and Phoebe continued on to get to their homes. Unfortunately Jack's wife Angela was not able to make it out with us. Pretty much as soon as I got to the room I passed out exhausted.
The pictures from Hong Kong day 3 are located here.
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