Hong Kong Office

Late friday afternoon, they finally send an email saying they'll do the power-on services for free. Fuckers! This should've been a very simple thing. It didn't really need me to be physically here. Made this into such an issue and now I need to fly here just to manage the damn thing.

One of the fist things that initially stood out was how friggin long the cab ride was. I certainly don't remember it taking that long when I was last in Hong Kong. Apparently, they moved the bloody airport sometime ago and so I guess that explains it. I looked over the meter and was shocked! It read 365.

HK$365.00!

That's how much my cab ride from the airport to my hotel in Wanchai took. That's roughly equivalent to US$50. For 1 fucking cab ride! What the fuck?!

But what do I care? My company is gonna pay for every cent I spend here anyway. My boss told me that hotel isn't cheap here, and they had to shell out about US$180/night for my little trip. And the room ain't really anything extra nice. I guess it just brings "vacationing with the family in HK for Disneyland" into a clearer, albeit more expensive perspective.

Got caught up in some confusion when I checked in since the reception was asking me for a US$400 deposit for a 2-day stay.

"Excuse me?"

I called my HK office and finally got it sorted out since they are supposed to pay for my hotel bills. All because my stupid AMEX card hasn't arrived yet.

At about 4PM, I finally went to the HK datacenter to start working on the servers. Truth is, I still can't believe I actually flew in here for this. I had to stand in that freezing server room for about 4 hours and watch the HK people install and mount the damn thing. That was my job. Make sure they didn't screw it up. And since everyone knew i was there, the group felt they needed my obligatory "I do."

"Do you want to change the layout?"

"Do you want to move the servers several notches up the rack?"

"Do you wanna us to mount the PDU's vertically or horizontally?"

Questions that on any given sunday would've been fucking no brainers, and wouldn't really need my intervention, let alone actual physical presence. But since I am there anyways... I get the customary "Is it ok?" silly questions. What else was I to do? Might as well entertain myself and give my 2 cents on every fucking thing they were doing.

"Make sure the bolt is tight enough..."

"Secure those with some cable ties..."

"Press the enter key..."

"Will somebody turn the fucking A/C down a few notches?!"

Great! What an awesome manager!

I finally installed Windows 2003 Server on one of the blade servers and enabled remote connection. Ran a few tests and left some last instructions to the team. All in all, the whole thing went on without any glitches and my work is already 50% done. The only remaining thing is for me to do the lunch tomorrow and do the obligatory courtesy call to the HK Managers and Directors. Who knows, I might even find some time to have some real fun here.

Went up to my room to splash cold water in my face. Flipped a few channels... I see that they offer adult movies for a fee. And the going rate is HK$90 per. Never fucking mind. I have better material in my laptop. I try this chinese restaurant and surprise, surprise... they don't have an english menu. What else is there to do but order "fly lies". I resist the temptation to actually pronounce it that way though. Politely, I tell the guy "fried rice", followed by the words "yang chow" and "dimsum". I ended up ordering sweet and sour pork. Just great. First dinner in HK and I order the same lazy ass food that's served back in Manila. But what can I do? It's the only one with a picture on the menu.

The bill comes in and it's HK$113 (roughly US$17). Why am I no longer surprised? I give the guy HK$120 and ask for a reciept. He comes back with a reciept that says HK$120. Smart ass motherfucker! He's lucky I ain't paying for this shit or else I'd kick his ass back to ming dynasty!