Hi,
So that weekend there I did manage to make it over to Hong Kong. I travelled over with a local girl from IBM who went over to do her shopping there. We met up at the Futian port in China and made our way across the border into Lok Ma Chau. This border crossing is the newer of the two crossings and as a result had less queuing involved so only took around 30 mins. From Lok Ma Chau we took the KCRC train to Kowloon Tong and changed onto the Hong Kong MTR (subway system). Pretty impressive feat of engineering and was dirt cheap as well! I made it from my apartment in Shenzhen to the boy's apartment for around three pounds with the taxi to the futian port costing two of them. Finding their flat was luckily pretty simple as it was only just across the road from Wan Chai station on Lockhart Road, a hub for entertainment it would seem.
That afternoon I was taken out for a quick tour of the local area so I could go and get some photos. We also took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon so we could see the Hong Kong skyline properly, and wow, it was something to behold. As the night pressed on we took the ferry back across and grabbed a few z's before we headed out to meet one of Adam's colleagues who works at Pinsent Masons (a law firm). We eventually bumped into him in a pretty swanky establishment up on the top of a huge building, it was really nice and something really different to see. From here we then left and went back down onto terra firma where we met some locals and joined into the street party that was going on at the time. The next day when we woke up we went out for some food before I needed to leave to get back to Shenzhen for work the next day. Thanks again to the guys for letting me stay over and I will definately be across there soon to see you both again.
On monday at work, my supervisor for the week (Joyce) took me out onto the production line to show me a server being assembled from start to finish which was interesting. It only took about 15-20 mins to assemble the machine before it went onto the inspection zone before entering the testing phase. In the afternoon I was assigned to a testing operator who took me through how he operates the duluth testing operation, though to be honest I would much rather learn what is actually going on internally as opposed to how he operates the test system. This morning at work I have spoken to Joyce and asked her for some more demanding work to conduct so hopefully IBM can gain some more capability from me by giving. Now that I have spoken to someone hopefully things will pick up quickly!
On a final note, last night I went along to Futian Stadium to take part in Gaelic Football of all things and have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Never in a million years did I ever think that I would be introduced to that sport over here in China! It took me a while to get used to it as it was an amalgamation of a lot of the sports I had played at secondary school so it took me a while to get my head around it. I must have been hilarious to watch as sometimes I must have tried to hit the ball with both my feet and my fists haha. In additon, two of the folk from rugby were also there so I now feel as though I'm making some proper friends now. The photos from Thursday's training session have now been uploaded online so go check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/34401523@N07/
Till next time,
Adios