Last few days in Hong Kong

The last few days in Hong Kong were a whirlwind. Saturday night (the day of my last final) was my last weekend night in Hong Kong. As always, we ended up in LKF. For dinner, I met up with my ladies (Lili, Kriya and Susanne) at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Nha Trang. The meal was fantastic, but also a bit sad. The likelihood that all four of us eat dinner together again was really unlikely. Lili took a job at Li & Fung, but wasn’t sure where they’d send her. Susanne was going back to Norway and Kriya was going back to South Africa for a short time, then attempting to relocate to Hong Kong. I, of course, would be back in DC. 


After dinner, we met up with a bunch of the full-time MBAer’s at Lily & Bloom in LKF Tower. We stayed for a bit and had a few drinks, but it was really crowded. Ketan and I left and went to an African bar, called Macumba, in SoHo. The bar was small and dark, but had a lively atmosphere. They had a live band playing African music. There were a bunch of people dancing, mostly tourists. Everyone was having a good time- it was fun to watch, especially the tourists who couldn't dance very well. The most notable thing about Macumba was the music. It reminded me so much of the music at Jumbo Slice in DC. For those of you not aware, there is a late-night pizza place in DC (U Street and Adams Morgan are the most notable locations) that serve huge slices of pizza (mostly to drunk people late at night). Anyways, both Jumbo Slice locations play loud African music and have colorful strobe lights. Sometimes we call it "Club Pizza." Anyways, the music at Macumba conditioned me to think of pizza. Not surprisingly, after a couple of drinks, Ketan and I left Macumb and went and got some pizza. :) 

Me and My Ladies (left to right: Susanne, Jo, Kriya, Lili)

Sunday, I went and got haircut from the same place as last time, Ken Doji Salon. I was a bit hung over from the night before and kept getting nauseous in the chair. I drank a good amount, but not to warrant nauseousness. Luckily, I didn’t get sick in the middle of my haircut. I spent the rest of the day with Nancy and Jo at my favorite coffee shop, Cafe Punto del Cielo. We solidified our travel arrangements for our trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Nancy is originally from San Francisco and now lives in Hong Kong at a fashion-forecasting company. However, she is leaving her job in the end June to return the US to begin her MBA at Dartmouth. We spent about four hours making arrangements and still didn't get everything done. 

Monday, I spent all day getting ready to move out. I still couldn’t believe I had been in this tiny apartment for two months. Time sure flew by. Before moving out, there were a bunch of things I needed to do. I needed to clean my whole apartment, finish packing, wash/dry the sheets and comforters and buy a couple of drinking glasses that I had broken. I also had to take my bags to Causeway Bay to leave it at Nancy’s apartment. Gary from the management company was coming over at 4 pm to pick up the keys and give me my deposit back so I needed to meet Jo at Nancy’s place around 2 pm and then be back at my apartment by 4 pm. Finally, I also had to work on my group paper for the China in the Global Economy class. Amazingly, I got everything done with some time to spare. Gary showed up at 4 pm and everything went smoothly. 


I headed over to Causeway Bay to meet up with Jo. I was now officially apartment-less. Jo and I hung out at Times Square (a big mall) for a couple of hours to use their free wi-fi, then headed to Central Pier. We met up with Giovanni, a full-time MBA-er from Italy and planned to go to Cheung Chau for dinner. Cheung Chau is a small, long island southwest of Hong Kong. It was primarily a fishing village, but has become a major tourist attraction, offering sandy swimming beaches, seafood cafes, and traditional Chinese culture. It also has very few motor vehicles. The lanes are so narrow that normal motor traffic is impossible. Instead, they have small motorized motor vehicles called "Village vehicles".

Once we got to the island, we walked around a bit. We headed over to one of the beaches. It was a beautiful night, balmy with clear skies. The moon was clearly visible. During the day, Cheung Chau is lively, but this particular Monday night, it was dead. There were only a few restaurants open so we chose one with a big neon sign and tables outside. We chose a few dishes, including prawns. We thought we had ordered traditional prawns, but we had inadvertently ordered Mantis Prawns. I'd never seen them before. They looked like a cross between a praying mantis and a prawn. They have really tough sharp shells as well. They were hard to open and when we finally opened them up, they didn't have much meat inside. Luckily, we ordered a "safe dish" of fried rice, so we didn't walk away hungry. 

Jo and Giovanni on the ferry

Our dinner (Mantis Prawns on the left)

After dinner, we took the ferry back to Central. Jo and I continued on to V3 in SoHo to say goodbye to some of our classmates (Susanne and Kriya) and Giovanni went home. Overall, it was a busy day and a memorable last night in Hong Kong.

Susanne, Kriya, Tony and Jo at V3 

Justin