First full day down, plus, marketing on steroids

I'm happy to say I got through my first full day of work in Hong Kong without a problem. I was able to get where I needed to be by showing cab drivers the nifty little cards the hotel gives out where they have written your destination in Mandarin. Works like a charm, and the back of the cards have a little map showing the hotel so you can get back. Brilliant! 

This city is so incredibly vertical. You will not find a Prairie Style home hear, I guarantee you. But then, there aren't any prairies either.

Like Tokyo, Hong Kong is known for taking marketing to extremes. I came across a great one today. It is actually a pretty darn good Italian restaurant that is also a screaming marketing tool for the Fiat 500. Called, of course, the Fiat Cafe, there are three 500s parked in the restaurant. Do you see the "500" in dark chocolate dusting on the top of my mocha in the photo? But they also had house made biscotti and salumi. I An order of the biscotti came with 6 unique bite-size pieces that ranged from tasting of dark chocolate and sweet cream to fennel and basil. Who'd a thunk it.

I'm still hoping to get my sleep schedule straightened out. I was out cold before 9 p.m. Hong Kong time last night (Sorry Nancy), but woke up at 2:45 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. So, I worked until 4:30 a.m. when, again, I realized I couldn't keep my eyes open. The alarm going off at 6 was not greeted warmly.

One of the alums I met with regularly travels back and forth across the Pacific and said to expect it to take a week to settle out. Such is life.