meetings

There are meetings, and then there are meetings...
In all companies.
But not in any company before the one I work for now, have I experienced the kind of meetings I experience here...

Yesterday I attended a very important one, where we discussed how to use the shelves for our toys around the office. You see, in the toy business, it's all about samples. (We have the first "try out" samples from the suppliers, then we have the working samples, the pre-production samples, the production samples and the shipment samples. We also have the reference samples, the future samples and the samples that we don't know what to do with, cause we're not really sure where they came from or who brought them there...) And naturally we keep the samples around us when we work with them, which makes the office look pretty messy.... But apparently we're not using the shelves we have to put the toys on in a correct way, so this we have now thoroughly talked through...

A big discussion regarding where people should keep their folders followed. (On the bottom shelf behind them it was decided. Well that, of course, depends on whether they have shelves that are better (?!) for folders on the side of their desk or not, cause if they do, then the folders are supposed to be placed there of course... still on the bottom shelf though, God forbid).

But wait, it is not over yet, the best is still to come...
During this informative meeting I was also told; that I am not supposed to file my papers in the folders the way I do. Because it has been decided long ago (before my time), that everyone should have one folder, to the right of their computer, where the papers belonging to the projects they are currently working on are kept. Once the project is over, we are allowed to and should put the papers in an other folder.

Well there you go...
Amazing...
I actually feel speechless still...

And as I said. There are meetings, and then there are meetings...

lunch time music

While I was eating my very garlicky chicken strawberry salad at lunch today, I all of a sudden realised that I was accompanied by some Swedish music.

And not any music, but dansband music at it's best... Which, for you who don't know, means - very cheesy love songs in Swedish, played by usually solarium tanned, middle aged, trying-very-hard-to-look-cool-but-not-succeeding men in "man-bands".

Not really what I expected to hear in an Australian restaurant here in HK... Found it very funny to be honest and it surely made me smile :-).

macau

The sun was shining upon us in Macau.
Had a beautiful day yesterday, and since I was lucky enough to end up in a team with 7 good colleagues, the team building was actually fun. The fact that my team won several of the competitions throughout the day including the most prestigious one - the treasure hunt - definitely added to the fun and real good day was had.

Now just to be ahead of you Tiina, I know your team somehow managed to get the total win of the day, but that was only because we let you win the first tug-of-war competition that we had... And in the end we showed you who was the strongest and best team anyway... So I don't want to hear anything more about it...

After a day of play, we continued with some gambling. Kris, who joined us in Macau during the afternoon, had already started gambling, and had lost several games but gained several alcoholic drinks, when we met up with him at one of the big casinos in town.
When we decided that we were more interested in going and seeing some pole dancing rather than staying there and gambling, I was up 700 dollars! A win that I decided to hand over to my dear boyfriend, who had suffered pretty big losses by then...

The pole dancing was pretty seedy, the drinks were pretty strong and we got tired, so off to sleep we went.

And today we continued our tour of Macau. A place I must say I really like. Nice atmosphere, cool combinations of the Chinese and the Portuguese and in places real stunning architecture.

I will most definitely return to Macau.

team building

We have a full day of team building tomorrow. Could get very interesting...
You know why.

It's in Macau though, and we have decided to stay the night, so Saturday I will do some sight seeing and also some gambling. Keep your fingers crossed for me will ya, maybe I'll return home as a rich woman. Or maybe not.

poster in japan

Remeber that bag photo shot I was attending in July?

Well it turns out that the Japense really like the bags so now the bag company have decided to expose the bags more.

Meaning a BIG poster on a building for 3 months.


Who would have ever thought that me coming to HK would make me a poster girl in Japan?!

And you can check the bags out at www.homanz.com

golf

The European Tour (Golf) has been on in HK the last 4 days.
And today on the last (and most exciting) day we hit the golf course.
My friend, Simon, played, and he played pretty well too! (He finished on 15th place) Unfortunately the luck wasn't with him today, so when the ball was supposed to get in the hole, it stayed a few millimeters from it instead, on several occasions... Not fare, still great play though and as always fun to watch the really good guys play.

Kris is not a professional golf supporter like my self (some people have even occasionally called me a golf groupie... ;-)), as a matter of fact it was his first time to see a tournament, and in spite of the all the walking golf supporting actually requires, he seemed to enjoy it just as much as I did. (And there was free beer when we got to the club house too, which put an even bigger smile on his face...)

So thanks for a great day Simon.

simon says

Come watch me play golf. And we will - on Sunday.

birthday

Happy Birthday dearest Mum!
Grattis på födelsedagen käraste Mamma!

Have a great day, eat a lot of cake and open those presents.

Wishing I was there to celebrate with you...

Enjoy.

Ja må hon leva, ja må hon leva, ja må hon leva uti hundrade år!

hot news

Not only did we have a good day at the races last week, we also ended up in the paper...
Beautiful ladies it says...
Yes that's us! :-)

friday dinner

We decided to have a girls night out (plus one guy) last Friday.
Where at? Cru of course... (Food is good and so is the manager).

Dinner was yummy, conversation fun and company great.
We have to do it soon again girls!

a year ago

Can you believe that a year has passed already since I landed on Swedish soil again after a visit to HK with a signed contract in my hand... A contract that stated that I, not only, had a new job, but also stated that I would move to Hong Kong.

I was so excited.

melbourne cup

Hangin' with Aussies means that even though we live in HK, the Melbourne Cup tradition is kept. And what is it? Well, Melbourne Cup is the Horse Race day of the year down there. More or less everyone in Australia has had the day off today just because of Melbourne Cup. It's the day when people do their very best to look good and put their finest clothes on, men in suits and women in dresses and hats. And besides looking good the day is all about betting on horses of course...

(I only got half the day off though and had to beg to get those hours off.... My boss seems to think that as I already have had 8 days of holidays this year, I don't need any more, cause I'm busy... However, I do not really agree.... Anyway, what ever...)

So this morning we put our good clothes on, and at 9 we had champagne breakfast. Then we mingled with all the well dressed ladies with hats at the race course here in HK, while sipping more champagne, before we did our bets, watched the races and had a four course lunch (and more champagne). None of us won the “best dressed” competition, but then again, we didn't wear any hats...

While the others could continue there day out and about in the sun, I had to leave for work. But it was fun as long as it lasted...

halloween

Halloween is BIG in HK.

Everyone dresses up.

Including us.



Lan Kwai Fong, which is the bar street of HK, is always filled with people. However, on Halloween the place is packed! And when I say packed, I mean extremly packed... So packed that if you want to get into the area you might very well have to wait in line for hours just to be able to step into the street. Crazy!

Patrik you once asked me, pa bred Ostgotska; skulle du aka 7 mil for att ga pa disco? Maybe, is my answer. But if you asked me; would I stand in a line, that are hundreds of meters long, for an hour or two to get into a bar area, my answer would be NO.

Instead we caught a taxi last night, and went to the horse races. Where they also had a Halloween party! And afterwards we went to have a look at all the people lining up to get into Lan Kwai Fong.