A quick shower in the beautiful marble bathroom had me fully refreshed. Dressed in a shirt and black trouser, took the elevator down to meet Tiffany in the lobby. We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, where there's delicious buffet with lots of bread, danishes, fruits, sausage, bacon, fish, and also fully customizable omlet making service! The food taste great, taking a deep breath and looking around me - all I see is business people, some reading the newspaper, others typing away on their laptops or blackberries ~ another busy day in the financial center is about to begin.
The breakfast is very satisfying, not to mention expensive - it cost almost 1,100 NT for one, and it's just breakfast! Thankfully we have that charged to our account as well. At 8:30, we hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take us to Cheung Kong center, where McKinsey's HK office is located on the 25th floor. The design of the office is clean and efficient just like Taipei, except the wall behind the reception desk where the company logo is displayed was white rather than the blue in Taipei. Hong Kong office appear larger than Taipei, we were led into the largest conference room - the Tang room, where many others are already there busyily 'networking'.
Apparently, this event is called 'McKinsey Summer Associates mini-BCR', so us summer BAs sort of got to tag along and receive some rudimentary training as well. There are 14 participants plus one McKinsey engagement manager by the name of Brian joining us. Out of the 14, 10 are summer associates (two are staffed for TPO), all of the associates, whether they applied to TPO or BJO or SHO, they are all studying for a MBA degree in a US university. There are three guys from Wharton, one from Harvard, one from MIT, others include Darton, UNC Charlotte, Cornell, Duke... all are schools that would've ranked in the top 20 list of B-schools! Spent the next 10 minutes introducing ourselves to one another, shaking hands and trying to remember their names - hmm.... San, David, Nick, Julladaa, Maddy, Linda, Margaret, Henry, Geoffrey.... all brilliant, outstanding people!
The training session started soon thereafter. I'm not going to go into details what we learned during the program. Basically, it's the 7-step problem solving method of McKinsey, from identifying the problem to issue and hypothesis trees to storylining and finally presentation. The most valuable part is we get to practice in numerous exercises to see how these problem solving methods actually work. What's more, we can ask any questions we have about McKinsey or the summer work ~ a great time to get to know the firm better!!!
The weather in Hong Kong wasn't delightful at all, dark murky clouds loomed over head, scattering occasional rainshowers and intermittent thunderstorms. The air outside was damp and warm with moisture. Spent the bulk of the day listening to presentations and undergoing exercises inside the conference room at McKinsey. At 6:30, the end of today's program, Brain led the group to a bar on top of the LandMark building, called - Zuma. It was a Japanese themed bar, and we are free to order any drinks we'd like. I had a grey goose martini, which at first I thought was quite light, until the strong effects kicked in minutes later (I thoroughly enjoyed that), and a passion bellini, finally ended today's round with a bottle of sakke. I don't really like sakke at all, it tasted similar to whiskey, much lighter, doesn't feel very good swallowing it, and I guess it is no where as strong as whiskey. After the rounds of drinks, the rest of my 'colleagues' - as I should now refer to them - are heading off for dinner, I called up Laibond and we agreed on a pickup place.
Soon after I arrived to the 'rendezvous' point, a silver Mercedes Benz drove in and Laibond signaled me to get in. He was in the car with his girlfriend, Denise. The car was really nice, and I'm so glad to see him again. He took me to his family burger joint called Duke's burgers located on Staunton Street in SOHO. At first I was expected something similar to Bongos burger back in NTU, but when I walked into the joint, I knew what I'm about to get is far better than Bongos. The joint is very well designed, small, but almost filled with people. I ordered a roast ribs with truffles and foie gras ~ a very expensive combination but very very delicious. Even though I resisted eating any internal organs in the past, foie gras actually tasted very good with the roast rib burger! The side dishes were really good too, it's the first time I'd had corn hash browns, marinated potato tots, alongside with the delicious gourmet burger! Thanks to Laibond, we had a wonderful meal, and talked a whole lot to catch up on everything since we said goodbye in Beijing last November. Apparently, there are 5 people from FACES affiliated with McKinsey, 3 of them working full time as BAs and 2, including myself, will be summer BAs this summer! It feels great to meet up with a friend in Hong Kong in such an occasion, its the first time I appreciated the network FACES helped to create, and amazingly maintain! I told Laibond he must come to Taipei sometime this year, though I don't own a restaurant, but I promise I'd find someplace good to take him! He drove me back to Grand Hyatt at around 10pm, ending today's episode of adventure.
With the tasty gourmet burger almost fully digested, I had another plan before calling it a day. Two weeks ago I'd bought a half year of membership at the NTU gym to work out and get in shape for the graduation trip to Bali this September. I'd been frequenting the gym for the past weeks, and I'm not about to let that habit go to waste here in Hong Kong. Tiffany is still strolling the city with her UCLA friends, so I got into my jumpers and sneakers and headed down to the hotel gym on the 11th floor. The treadmill here is very good, a 13-inch tv embedded right in front of you - where I enjoyed the first quarter of the Celtics vs. Pistons game while jogging my routing 2.5 kilometers - before starting other weight training. Most of the functions I'd done in NTU can be found here, despite sometimes in different types of equipment. I think the machines here are better than those at NTU, it seems to flex your muscles in a more effective way - but what can I say, it sure doesn't cost ten thousand dollars to stay at NTU, or visit the gym.
Fully worked out and sweaty, took a nice long shower in my room. Checked email, packed my luggage for tomorrow and finally dropped down on the amazingly comfortable bed, falling asleep very fast, and sound.
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