Hong Kong

As it happened, while Hong Kong is the city in which I wanted to spend the most free time, it turned out to be the least. I was on the ground for about 20 hours. Oh well, hope I get to go back.

But it is clearly the most awesome of the four cities I visited. It is simply breaktaking in its scale. Vast numbers of high rise apartment buildings, a skyline that I believe beats out New York, an energy and confidence that is pervasive. The word that came to mind while driving in was "muscularity." It exudes strength and power. Everything is big and bold. Even the port impresses with row upon row of massive cranes that give you a hint of the amount of commerce that flows through this city.

My only activities were to go into the office for a brainstorm on a challenging public affairs client and then to go to dinner with a number of the staff from the office. Here's a picture of me with Bernd Buschausen from our Berlin office and Nancy Payne, formerly of the DC office, now general manager in Hong Kong. The picture doesn't do justice to the amazing view from her corner office.

Nancy took me on a whirlwind shopping tour that allowed me to check that last few items off my list. She clearly knows the system and is a tough negotiator. I not only found what I needed, I'm sure I saved a few bucks with Nancy accompanying me.

Here's a street shot that I liked. Nothing particularly significant, but seems to capture the scene a bit.

From shopping, we took the famous Star Ferry from Hong Kong to Kowloon.

Dinner was at a place called Hutong. It's on one of the upper floors in a high rise across the harbor provding a magnificent view of the Hong Kong skyline. Many of the building have neon lights whose only purpose is to show well at night. At 8:00 am every night, they do a laser show, which was somewhat obscured by the low cloud cover. You should click on the picture to get a large view.

The food was "fusion" food and I'm not really sure what food types were "fused." It all seemed pretty foreign to me. Of course, I mean that in a good way. Fortunately, we had our colleague An Wei to do the ordering. Many courses of mysterious dishes. A lot of good cheer for our final night.