Day 2 in Hong Kong: Training Starts

My training was to commence at 9 in the morning, but I woke up at 6 o'clock anyway. I realised that I was only given the room but not free breakfast vouchers, but I decided to dine in the hotel's restaurant anyway, and try to claim from my company. It is more convenient to dine there, as it's in the same building, and just 1 level above the company which I was supposed to have my training in!

Almost 3 quarter of Asia was present at the training as I get to meet representatives from India, Thailand, Taiwan, Shanghai, South Korea and Malaysia. Most of them are already experts in this field, or at least had got a few years of experience, leaving me being the freshest. I realised that the representative from Thailand was someone whom I saw at the airport yesterday (we arrived at the airport at about the same time), and he just live the next room to mine. It was such a coincidence! However he couldn’t speak much English and hence unable to interact much with the rest of the group. Hence I was the only one who is able to communicate with him, although my command of Thai is still relatively limited. Later I got to know that this is the first time he travel out of Thailand, and had joined his company for about a year. But in comparison he had much more experience as he had seen and repaired much equipment which I have yet even seen.

The training ended at about 6.30pm, almost 1 and half hours behind schedule. I quickly went back to my room get changed and left the hotel to explore Hong Kong. I used to have the impression that Hong Kong is a relatively small city comparable to Singapore, but after flipping the map and travel guides, I realised that Hong Kong is actually much bigger almost 1.5 times the size of Singapore. Hong Kong is also quite well developed. Like their train system, although it has been around for a much longer period of time compared to Singapore, it has better facilities like broadcast of the station’s name when the train pulls into one, as well as maps showing the rail layout as well as LED lights showing the train’s journey and the station it is heading next. However, the trains (except the Airport Express line) are very crowded throughout the night. Even at 10pm, it is hard to even find a place to sit. I wonder where these people are coming from and where they are going.

For the whole of the evening I was hopping around from one area to another as I had limited time. Though I did not buy anything, it was still interesting to mingle with the crowd and walking around the streets enjoying the colourful street lights.

Post published on 27 August