BLACK RAIN

Yesterday Ellie, Tirsa and I had to work at an event in the Perrotin art gallery for Yardbird. Since we got home at about 1.30 it was hard to get up this morning and the fact that Nina and Tirsa are working home today wasn't making it any easier to get out of bed neither did the heavy rainstorm outside..

We already noticed that there were hardly any people in the MTR, no waiting line for the shuttle bus and the elevator ladies weren't there also. This was a bit weird! While we thought we were late (again), we entered the office and it was empty. The only one who was there was Franko from Gaastra. He asked us what we were doing here, since it's black rain today. Never heard of black rain in my life but the only thing I know now is that everybody stays home, so that's why it was so quiet everywhere. 

The rainstorm warning system is designed to alert the public about the occurrence of heavy rain which is likely to bring about major disruptions, and to ensure a state of readiness within the essential services to deal with emergencies. It is independent of other severe weather warnings such as tropical cyclone warning and landslip warning, which will be issued separately where necessary.

There are three levels of warning: AMBER, RED and BLACK.

• The AMBER signal gives alert about potential heavy rain that may develop into RED or BLACK signal situations. There will be flooding in some low-lying and poorly drained areas. Key Government departments and major transport and utility operators are put on alert.
• The RED and BLACK signals warn the public of heavy rain which is likely to bring about serious road flooding and traffic congestion. They will trigger response actions by Government departments and major transport and utility operators. The public will be given clear advice on the appropriate actions to take.

Once issued, the signals are broadcast over radio and television. For your own safety, listen to radio or television announcements for the latest information.

What to do with black rain:

• Stay indoors or take shelter in a safe place until the heavy rain has passed.
• Employees working outdoors in exposed areas should stop work and take shelter.
• People having no safe place to go may take temporary refuge in any of the special temporary shelters opened by the Home Affairs Department.
• Employers are advised not to require their employees to go to work unless prior agreement on work arrangements during rainstorms has been made.
• People who are already at work should stay where they are unless it is dangerous to do so.

So, fact is: we could have stayed home, safe in our beds but we're at work.. dedicated workers as we are! My coach, who is here now as well (he was also surprised that we are here) told us that the last time that there was black rain, was in 2011. I don't know if I need to feel special that I'm experiencing this.. it's just a shitload of rain, which reminds me of Holland. 

THAILAND

Tuesday morning my alarm went off at 4.45 (and at 4.55 again, since I'm not really a morning person). It was time to get out my bed and go to the airport, time to do some serious tanning in Thailand! Everything went surprisingly fast; we had a taxi within 2 minutes, there was no line at the check-in and although I have a big issue with mornings, even I was fully awake. Although I was wearing my 'pyama's' (I looked like Nel Veerkamp in my tiger pants), I was so excited that I didn't even slept in the plane. Maybe this also had to do with the fact that the whole plane smelled like meat and rice, which we got for breakfast and which I didn't really appreciated at 8 o'clock. This same breakfast we also got for dinner on the way back.. really nice.

At 10 we landed in Bangkok airport. Since our taxi wasn't there we took the 2 hour bus ride to Pattaya. When we arrived there, we had to switch to a taxi to get to our hotel. It was like a Jeep and we sat in the open trunk (without seat belts and it was driving like crazy). I had never seen taxi's like the ones in Thailand before and I don't think you can call it a taxi but we survived.

Our hotel was a super nice beach resort with a pool in the front of the hotel and the beach 10 steps away. At 2 o'clock indeed, I was on the beach surrounded by palm trees getting a tan. The cocktail in my hand was missing and I didn't calculated the dirty old men in, but it was nice anyway. It was bloody hot, but swimming in the sea wasn't making it any better since it felt like jumping in a pool of hot tea. So, later we decided to go to the swimming pool to cool down. In the evening we wanted to eat the real Thai food. After walking for more then an hour we finally found a 'good' looking place; it seems that in Pattaya people don't eat, they only come for sex clubs or something because there was no bloody restaurant in the neighborhood. We ordered fish with lime, red curry and salmon. We thought this must be ok to eat and not too spicy since lime is supposed to be fresh. Well, I haven't tasted any lime but I did had green peppers of which I thought they were paprika's.. Luckily there was a seven eleven across the street we could run to, to get some ice cream. This made everything better but all 3 of us were done with Thai food for the rest of the days. We had wild plans to go to sex shows and go on the photo with she males, but my god these 'girls' were scary!! There was one street full of bars, the red light discrict in Amsterdam is nothing compared to this. Everybody was shouting at us, 'whoo sexy girls' and making kiss sounds. No way I was going in there if I wanted to come back to Hong Kong. So, we went to the hotel (here it was safe) for cocktails and live music.

Next day we went to the beach again and Tirsa and I went to the Pattaya floating market. A market on the water with all kinds of souvenir and food shops on boats which are connected to each other by bridges. When we got back in the hotel I could see I got some tan indeed, however not really the brownish color I was hoping for.. I looked like a lobster and was burned all over. But hey, everything what's red first has to become brown right?

Wednesday we took a taxi to Bangkok, this was quite interesting. We had an almost dead experience, everybody drives like crazy here. They don't look, but just go from the right to the left on the highway. When we arrived in Bangkok, our non-english speaking chauffeur told us he didn't knew where the hotel was so instead of a 2 hour drive, it was already a 3 hour trip. After a while he kept on saying take tuk tuk. This funny guy wanted to put 3 of us, with 2 suitcases in a tuk tuk. So we told him kindly that we weren't going anywhere. Finally we got to the hotel, which was really nice! First thing we did was taking the tuk tuk (after putting our suitcases in the room) to the siam square. This is a square full of young designer stores, .. and ice cream shops. After some shopping we went to Chao Phraya river to go on a boat tour. We got a privet boat an got a tour through Bangkok, this was so cool! In the evening we had dinner at Aldo's, a luxurious restaurant at the top floor of the Ascott hotel. We felt like real princesses with our 4 courses menu, for only 34 euro!

Thursday we had only half a day left so Nina and I took a massage. She went for a Thai massage and I took a foot massage. Not really a smart idea with sunburns and bruises all over, not knowing that Thai massages are really rough. Apparently with foot massage they mean a leg massage. Tirsa was checking on me, asking 'are you hurt steph?' That tiny Thai women had some strong hands and yes, it did hurt but no way I was going to say that. I did told the lady that if she was going to press on my blue spots like that, I might kick her so when she did my other leg it was finally how a massage should be, relaxing.

We had 4 awesome days in Thailand, however I thought it would be different. I imagined Bangkok just like Hong Kong with skyscrapers, but when we flew over Thailand it looked like the Flevopolder in Holland. Not exactly how I thought it would be. Nevertheless, I am happy that I've been there and I would definitely go back to Bangkok. Pattaya on the other hand is a place I will never go back to, I still have nightmares about scary she males!

DINNERS AND PARTIES

Last thursday we had dinner at La Perouse, a french - australian (i don't see the link, but ok..) restaurant from my friend James. It's one of the restaurants in Hong Kong with an amazing terrace, located in LKF. I had a great portobello and crab risotto, still rice but something different from my daily Chinese menu! Afterwards we wanted to go salsa dancing in Socialito, but unfortunately there wasn't any so we went home. 

Friday Ellie and I decided to go to the public library in central to do some research for our new assignment. Here we had access to an online database which provided us with information about the Asian production countries. After two hours we were 'done' working so we went to Soho to treat ourselves with a big lunch. In Soho they have special lunch offers which consist of a 3 course menu for 100 HK$ (10 euro) + service fee. We went to an organic little restaurant called 'Life'. I had food combinations I'd never heard of before, but it was super good! We started with eggplant soup with coconut milk and lime, the main course was green tea noodles with all kinds of veggies and grilled tofu bacon and as an dessert we had tea, also organic of course, with a cookie. It's definitely a place I want to visit again in my last few weeks i'm here!

Saturday it was super sunny, F I N A L L Y! So I rushed upstairs to catch some sun. However, it seems to always rain of become cloudy whenever I'm free of work or when I want to tan.. We stayed for an hour at the rooftop and decided to do some shopping at one of Monkok's markets. I got my hands on two pair of new sandals, so this made me happy again. Nina, our chef cook, made dinner that night: coquilles and shrimps in white wine sauce with pasta. After some drinks at our place we went on to Socialito to do some dancing. I had a bit too many drinks in Socialito and Fly since everything tasted like lemonade.. So at 5 (or 6, I don't remember..) in the morning my lights went off. But I had a great night! The morning after was still great, because of the 'lemonade' which was still in my system but after a ride in the ferry to Lamma island it wasn't that nice anymore. This was a ride like hell! We sat in the front of the ferry and it was the most horrible ride ever. We arrived at the island safely and went on to the beach. The moment we wanted to sit down, it started to rain OFCOURSE. After lunch we tried to relax on the beach again since the weather was getting better. We slept for about 2 hours and afterwards we walked around the island. They had cute local shops and an overload of organic restaurants and cafe's but I wasn't really impressed by the island. However it was nice that I saw it so I can cross that one of my to do list as well. Despite the fact that we only have about 5 weeks left here, this list is still very long. I haven't seen the Peak, discovery + repulse bay or shek O beach. And lets not talk about all the restaurants and bars we still have to visit.. I really need more time here!!

Sunday evening we had a BBQ at our place whereby everybody who was attending had to

bring a bottle of wine and some food. This resulted in some weird, but delicious combinations of food. After eating an overload of marshmallows I packed my suitcase for Thailand. Watching the weather forecast for Pattaya and Bangkok made me so happy I wanted to start packing all my summer clothes already since I didn't had the opportunity to wear them here in Hong Kong. Tuesday morning we will be picked up by a taxi at 4.30 in the morning to bring us to the airport. At 8 o'clock we fly to Bangkok and at about 2 I will be chilling in my new bikini on the beach. Palm trees, white sand and a cocktail in my hands. Not to make anyone jealous of course..

Next week i'll post my Thailand pictures! Keep you updated about my adventures there XO

dinner at La Perouse

green tea noodles at Life

Margarita's at Socialito

Saturday night at Socialito 

Lamma island

Lamma island

yellyfish at Lamma island

marshmallow time!

BBQ at wontonmeen

NEWS!

After almost two months of working in the Asia buying office in Hong Kong, I can say we are now part of the team. From being the 'AMFI students' we are now called colleagues and that's how I see them as well. Therefor it came as quite a shock for me when we were asked to all gather in the kitchen. The managing director of the Asia buying office, the two head PM's from the Netherlands and a company lawyer were there to make a huge announcement: by the end of june the office will be closed down.

Seven years ago the buying office was set up, the year in which China's production grew with 11.4% However, nowadays the additional value of the Hong Kong office is going down and it isn't profitable anymore. This is a general issue for more companies. Not only we will be leaving within 6 weeks, 2 weeks later the whole office will be closed down. The economic crisis strikes again. I feel bad for the workers who are all concerned about their families and houses. People are already searching for new jobs, which will be hard for them to find. The hard working motivated spirit has left the office at the moment we got the announcement. As soon as it's 6 o'clock the office is empty.

Production is shifting to countries as Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia. Today they're still producing 50 - 60% of their total orders in China but this is going to change. However, production will always be present in China since they're specialized in flat knits. So, a lot is going on now here!

For me it is a valuable experience. It might occur that people are not coming back to work anymore and those gaps need to be filled. That's where we come up. It is also interesting to do research on which production countries are suitable, what are the weaknesses and strengths and so on. Enough to work on these last few weeks, although it is also weird to notice that the people who we were working with the past few weeks aren't coming back to the office anymore.

To give it a bit of a joyfull twist, it was also mimi's birthday yesterday. This means - cake number 10! I never had so many cakes within such a short amount of time. I thought I had all the flavors already but they are getting better and better. Although I promised myself not to eat cake anymore, it was ofcourse really rude to say no to mimi..

WEEKLY UPDATE

It's weekend again, this means time to update my blog and lots of free time to plan the fun things!
I'll give you a short recap of what we done this week and last weekend. On saturday I had dinner with Jan, a friend of my father, at Nha Thrang. This is a Vietnamese restaurant which you really have to visit when you're in Hong Kong. Afterwards we went to Socialito, where Luca joined us. I wasn't supposed to go out since I haven't slept properly in weeks, but who stays home in the weekend when you are in Hong Kong? So, at 6 in the morning I decided to go home and get some sleep.

Monday it was tattoo day! I wasn't really nervous but while the time passed by, my heart started beating faster. It felt like I was getting a huge dragon tattoo instead of my super cool big infinity sign of 1,5 cm. For me it was a big deal, my first tattoo. Luckily Tirsa went with me to also get a tattoo, her second one. She got an arrow on the side of her foot. When we arrived at the shop I became even more scared when I had to go first, since Tirsa got me all freaked out with her stories about 'don't worry if it goes wrong, you just put another tattoo over it'. Thank god it didn't hurt at all and before I knew it, it was already on my body! I'm super happy that I did it and even though it's a super small one, I feel like a real badass.

Tuesday we went with our coaches Jeff and Ines to the Chinese sourcing fair near. It was a very small fair so it didn't took long. Afterwards we went with the shuttle bus to Tsim Tsa Tsui for lunch. Ellie and I decided to take vietnamese vermicelli. When the dish came we were so dissapointed. It was cold! When we asked why, because we thought they forgot to warm it up, the answer was 'it's hot in vietnam'. So there we were, with a full bowl of cold vermicelli. I'm not going to take that again! Tuesday was also queensday, which had to be celebrated. It was weird to celebrate that here in HK and we didn't really felt like it, but we went to LKF to spot some other dutchies. In short, it was horrible. Old drunk haughty dutch people or Chinese dressed up in orange, this wasn't how we thought it would be. There wasn't even proper dutch music like Andre Hazes or Jan Smit. So, next year I'm definitely in Holland to celebrate the first kingsday. 

Wednesday it was labour day, this means a day off!! I couldn't be happier with some free time since I really needed my sleep. We didn't planned anything because we already knew that it would be crowded everywhere. In stead of going out, we stayed in all day and had a brunch with all of the girls. After we finished all the food (there was more than you can see on the picture), we weren't able to move anymore. We played the Hong Kong version of monopoly, watched a movie and finally I went to bed early! 

  Yesterday we had to go to work again. We finally have a new assignment, however I have no clue where to start or what to do.. It has something to do with quality control and the assignment of the girls from last year, but that's all we know. Anyway, I was very busy 'working' on my own plans. What to eat that night - what do I have to buy at the supermarket - what are we going to do this weekend etc. Also very important! Patricia, Ellie and I are already talking from day 1 about getting a massage, but yesterday it was finally going to happen. It was kind of a hidden place near Prince Edward. When you enter the room there are 6 chairs, lots of screaming Chinese and people walking around. I choose a 45 min shoulder/head/neck massage and decided just to relax. This was kind of hard since the woman 2 chairs next to me had a massage, which looked (and sounded) like she was getting tortured. My massage lady was also a bit harsh, but it felt really good to finally get rid of all the knots in my shoulders. 45 minutes and 118 HK dollars later, I felt all relaxed and sleepy. However, when I woke up this morning I had the worst muscle ache ever!! Those small Chinese women look so sweet and weak, but my god they do have strong hands!

And thank god today it's already friday again. WEEKEND! I'm not planning to do anything tonight besides laying on the couch and never coming off again. If the weather is nice we might go to Lamma island tomorrow, but the weather is like Holland at the moment so no beach this weekend I think!

Enjoy your weekends everyone. I will keep you updated about my adventures here. XO