Hong Kong, Day 6
Time for another update. Today I followed up on the leads from Tuesday, which consisted mostly of leaving messages with secretaries and such, and calling one new lead at Texas Pacific Group (called twice, got no response first, left a message second). All told, the work only took about an hour, leaving me with the rest of the day with nothing to do except wait and hope somebody would call me back.
With nothing of significance to do for 2 days, I'm starting to get itchy for a project to keep me busy. I expect that restarting this process in a new city will keep me fairly well occupied for a few days, but I'm starting to get wonder what I will do from next Wednesday until I head back to Boston in 21 days. Simply put, I'm concerned that an hour's worth of phone calls per day isn't enough to justify staying over here - I might as well be back in the States making these calls. However, this is also the holidays, and maybe things will pick back up after the new year. At any rate, I'm not sure what I should do, any and all advice would be most welcome.
With the rest of the day to kill, I spent most of it in the library learning about various figures and deities in chinese popular culture, following up on things that i'd run across in the temples. Now I'm going to make another round of calls to see if any of the people I met last friday night at dinner would like to go out for drinks, and then try to figure out how to shift 4 pounds of weight out of my suitcase and into my backpack for the flight to Shanghai.
A side rant about flights from Hong Kong to the Mainland: For some reason the carriers use nonstandard size and weight limits on these routes and are super anal about them, often charging people large overweight or over-baggage fees for a pound too much weight on a suitcase or for having to check an international standard carry-on that is an inch longer than their size limit. Worse, enforcement seems to be haphazard at best, as I've seen people with large carry-ons get by and people with smaller ones get stopped. On the other hand, it is only in the leaving Hong Kong that this absurdity occurs, so even if I do run into trouble it will be a one-time bite.
Anyhow, I don't want to pay any more than I have to, and my bag needs to go from 52 pounds as I packed it in the states to 48 pounds for the Hong Kong meanies. As most of what I packed is dress clothes and toiletries, it will be interesting making the choice of what comes along in my backpack.
When I arrive in Shanghai tomorrow afternoon, I will have to go through the whole Find a sim card for the phone and internet access routine again. Don't be surprised if you do not hear from me for day or two - it will probably take me that long to get things set up unless everything goes really well or really badly.
With nothing of significance to do for 2 days, I'm starting to get itchy for a project to keep me busy. I expect that restarting this process in a new city will keep me fairly well occupied for a few days, but I'm starting to get wonder what I will do from next Wednesday until I head back to Boston in 21 days. Simply put, I'm concerned that an hour's worth of phone calls per day isn't enough to justify staying over here - I might as well be back in the States making these calls. However, this is also the holidays, and maybe things will pick back up after the new year. At any rate, I'm not sure what I should do, any and all advice would be most welcome.
With the rest of the day to kill, I spent most of it in the library learning about various figures and deities in chinese popular culture, following up on things that i'd run across in the temples. Now I'm going to make another round of calls to see if any of the people I met last friday night at dinner would like to go out for drinks, and then try to figure out how to shift 4 pounds of weight out of my suitcase and into my backpack for the flight to Shanghai.
A side rant about flights from Hong Kong to the Mainland: For some reason the carriers use nonstandard size and weight limits on these routes and are super anal about them, often charging people large overweight or over-baggage fees for a pound too much weight on a suitcase or for having to check an international standard carry-on that is an inch longer than their size limit. Worse, enforcement seems to be haphazard at best, as I've seen people with large carry-ons get by and people with smaller ones get stopped. On the other hand, it is only in the leaving Hong Kong that this absurdity occurs, so even if I do run into trouble it will be a one-time bite.
Anyhow, I don't want to pay any more than I have to, and my bag needs to go from 52 pounds as I packed it in the states to 48 pounds for the Hong Kong meanies. As most of what I packed is dress clothes and toiletries, it will be interesting making the choice of what comes along in my backpack.
When I arrive in Shanghai tomorrow afternoon, I will have to go through the whole Find a sim card for the phone and internet access routine again. Don't be surprised if you do not hear from me for day or two - it will probably take me that long to get things set up unless everything goes really well or really badly.
posted by Me at 3:37 AM
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