Business Trips

I always want to share the good things in life with my friends and family. So I don't usually talk about my work, because it's not something really cheerful. This time I want to share my recent business trips with you, not because work was cheerful, but I encountered some nice things!

1st Beijing trip:

In this trip, we were invited to stay at a hot spring resort that the client chose. It was in North East Beijing, closer to the airport than the city centre. I landed at noon on 17 Nov, headed to our office in Chaoyang and worked until dinner. A Japanese eat-as-much-as you can dinner! For sure, we'd never have this if I went with bobo.





Since that evening when we got to the resort by taxi, we stayed there until 19 Nov when I flew home. The resort has lots of bungalows, each with a living room, twin bedroom, bath room and a hotspring in the backyard!



It sounds amazing doesn't it? But of course, though features are good, the deco is mainland quality. It was not clean, sofa cover was broker, and the whole bungalow smelled.


Meetings with clients were all done in a Conference Centre inside the resort. Also 3 meals a day were all in the same restaurant.





2nd Beijing Trip:

This time we stayed in a hotel - Presidential Plaza. It's the only corporate hotel with rooms available near our office in West District. Unlike the Inter-Continental and Westin, it's more for local Chinese people. But we got free upgrade to executive rooms (they said they ran out of rooms), and it was a great room! Mine is a large room with a bed 3 times as wide as the one I have at home!

The unexpectedly nice room

Reuters office in West District, Financial Street

The real Peking duck

The real 炸漿麵 - before

The real 炸漿麵 - after

Dinner with bosses at Inter-Continental buffet - they even have chocolate fondue!


Seoul trip:

This is the best out of the 3. Not because it was Seoul, just simply because we had real fun.

After landing at 8pm, I avoided the KRW80,000 (about HKD700) taxi and got on a KRW13,000 bus to Westin Chosun. Even before I got on, there was a lady from Westin greeting me and helped me to check-in in advance. So when I arrived at this state-of-the-art hotel an hour later, a ball-boy was already there, calling me Mr. Wong, took my luggage and straight to the room.

And the room is truly stunning. It wasn't big, but it was clean, modern, luxurious but not classy. It has a DESKTOP with free internet connection in addition to a LAN cable for my laptop, and it has a nice curvy sofa. A mobile phone linked with the hotel room phone, so that when you go out, you can divert all calls from your room number to the mobile! How handy!

But food is unbelievably expensive. My colleague and I tried to find something to eat, and all we could have was a KRW41,000 (about HKD350) Smoked Salmon, Shrimps with Green Salad, though it was enough for 2. Thank my colleague for the "dinner". Unfortunately I had to pay for the KRW33,000 breakfast for my self in the next morning.



Worked whole day and I don't want to talk about it. Then after work a colleague (non-local, but he comes every month) brought us to a nice cosy Korean barbecue restaurant for dinner. Food was really nice, nice beef for barbecue and good side dishes. And guess what, we drank a lot. Korean wine (similar to Sake) and beer was enough to take us down. But of course, to warm down, we have 1 more when we got back to hotel :p

Lovely dinner

At lunch on the last day, we had something special - lively chopped octopus. The little tentacles were still moving in my plate! I just watched in on National Geographic the other night in Beijing hotel, and now I am having it! Truly good experience in a business trip.

Reuters office in Seoul

Trips are not always good

CF was totally right, you say business trips are good only if you're not the traveller. At least, mine are not going to be so enjoyable.

17 - 19 Nov: Beijing
Staying in a Hot Spring resort, but the quality, em........

22 - 24 Nov: Beijing (yes, again)
Going to stay in Sheraton this time :-)

26 - 28 Nov: Seoul
Never been there before.

As you can see, individually they may be good trip. But within 11 days?!?!?!

Though, it gives me a lot of experience and exposure to clients. It'll prove themselves priceless as I grow.

NEWS: Our business has started.

The start of our 8th year!

Had another wonderful weekend, a long one with Chung Yeung public holiday. Inn Side Out and beer + karaoke on Friday night. Went to see dentist and a GP on Saturday morning (about my dodgy knees), before going to watch The Woman in Black with ML, GL and QM in the afternoon.

Sunday was the 7th anniversary since my Bobo and I got together! We went to the Peak on Sunday to celebrate it. Had lunch there, went to Mount Austin Park and walked from the Peak all the way to Admiralty. It isn't bad at all to start our 8th year! People says 7-year itch. Now we've already gone through 7 years, let's forget the "itch"! >o<

Tried to get up early to "dung go" (go somewhere high) on Monday morning. As I said "tried", so we didn't. Ended up going to Fanling "Fung Ying Sin Kwun" and little bit of driving around inside Fanling, got as far as Lau Sui Heung and Hok Tau village. But the car failed to start in the next morning :-(

Very interesting Tuesday evening. I had to do a presentation + demo to an Australian client at 7am Hong Kong time on Wednesday morning. So I was trying to find a place to stay for Tuesday night. Fortunately, a colleague who is renting a service apartment was going to Singapore, so I could stay in his apartment in Mid-Level for the night (may be more). So bobo came and cooked a lovely dinner, and I could get some sleep before heading to the office at 6am.

Just realised that I didn't mention our hiking last weekend. CL, Bobo and I met up in Sau Kei Wan, took a minibus to To Tei Wan, and started our hike on the "Dragon's Back". It was such a lovely trail, with the view of both Stanley, Tai O on the west, as well as Shek O, Big Wave Bay on the east! This particular route is of high level of difficulty, and is also a mountain biking track. We didn't finish the whole thing though, got out after 2/3 way through. Nice enough.

I really want to share picture with you when I have time.