14 Jul After my first three days in Hong Kong I am loving every minute
To get to Hong Kong I took a bus, a train, two planes and a taxi to the Hotel and after leaving Wednesday afternoon from Gatwick I eventually arrived in my room at 11pm on Thursday night in Hong Kong.
The Facebook group of all the June members had been buzzing with updates every day for the previous thirty days and I couldn’t wait to get to Hong Kong to experience everything they were. Finally, I had arrived after an extremely long journey.
Because I landed a day early I had an entire morning to myself to explore my immediate surrounding area. At first the sheer scale of the city, height of buildings and Cantonese symbols everywhere makes the experience a bit daunting. Especially when I didn’t know where I was going and for those few hours I was left on my own in a city 6,000 miles away from my home in Ireland and, geographically the closest person I knew. I was also without a room and had nowhere to go. Hence, I was left to roam the streets. Naturally after being afraid to wander too far I spent the best part of an hour in Starbucks hogging their Wifi.
This feeling of somewhat isolation lasted the best part of an hour and a half, after heading back to the hotel I met two more interns who also arrived a day early and we explored the hotel (primarily the gym) before everybody else arrived.
That evening after checking in and getting settled, we had an introduction dinner which did exactly what it was designed to do and by the end of it everybody in the group knew everybody else. Luckily, that first night happened to be Friday the 4th of July and after dinner we headed out. First stop was a rooftop Hawaiian style Tikki Bar. It was a perfect introduction to Hong Kong nightlife, drinking tropical drinks on weaved couches outside on a rooftop in high twenty degree heat late at night is not something I could have experienced in Ireland or London. Following on from that some of us joined the June group who led us to the Hong Kong party district where we stayed until the early hours of the morning. Entertainment was provided by the FIFA World Cup showing in every bar, which thanks to Hong Kong’s time zone was showing matches that kicked off live at twelve o’clock midnight.
Saturday morning was something I was more familiar with, an early morning hangover. My head was spinning from cheap beer the previous night and we had to be up at 10:00am for a group breakfast and an introduction to Absolute Internship, Hong Kong and Asian Business Practices which would aid us in our internships.
The rest of the weekend was spent exploring our new city for the summer. We took an open top bus tour of the city, merged June and July groups again on Saturday night to repeat the events of Friday night. This time we replaced a Tikki bar with simply sitting around in a big group and drinking in a hotel room, which in itself was a pretty cool experience.
Sunday we had an easier two o’clock start; we went to the top of Victoria Peak for the afternoon and took in the amazing panoramic views of the city and at night went to the Hong Kong light show where we saw the entire skyscraper skyline light up and the brightness of each building reflect on the surface of the river.
Now my personal highlight of the trip so far….That evening we had a sponsored dinner at an Indian restaurant called ‘Namaste’. The food was great and in vast supply. However the highlight of the night was when one guy (Ivan) went outside for a cigarette. The door to the restaurant was a sliding glass door and when he tried to come back in he obviously must have slid it too fast because it banged against the end of the rail and completely smashed. To absolutely perfect the moment he held the handle in the same place as it was when it was being supported by glass for at least thirty seconds after. Which combined with his stunned face made the entire thing hilarious, while the entire restaurant stared.
After my first three days in Hong Kong I am loving every minute which have all been event and activity filled from landing till now and I can’t wait to explore the rest of the Island and get started on my internship Monday morning.
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