BNP Paribas Workshop: Day 2

As we were looking down the window of our hotel room last night, I thought that it would be nice to take a picture of the skyline as seen from our room. This is exactly what I asked Jon to do this morning before I went down to catch the shuttle bus to IFC2.



When I left, he took a picture of himself in the same seat but from a different angle:


Jon spent the day checking out Causeway and bought Papa an electric razor. He didn't take many pictures.

When I met Milette, she told me that Buddy's brother in law, who lives in Hong Kong and to whom she delivered a document from Buddy, called her up midnight for "small talk" that actually lasted for almost an hour. I was chuckling and chided her that it was a very long chat considering that she barely knows the person. She told me that the guy was rather talkative and she found it hard to end the conversation without being rude. He was nice though.

At the workshop, found out that most of the participants also brought their cameras, and one session break was devoted to taking group shots like this:


Same pose, this picture from Nicole's camera:


We all trooped to IFC 2's Lumiere restaurant for lunch ... most dishes were spicy and I was reminded of my DLSU classmate from China who said people from Southern China loved putting a certain type of chili pepper into their dishes ... he even had his folks send him those dried chili peppers from China so he could cook his favorite meals in the Philippines.

Photos taken at Lumiere:





After the last session, we all took a peak at BNP Paribas' dealing room. These are photos of us waiting for the go signal to enter the said room, and basically loitering in the halls. He he he!





After the Dealing room tour we passed by the Fanda store in the Worldwide Shopping Center where I realized any Filipino would feel welcome ... because apart from the remittance centers and shops selling cellphone cards, one could actually buy Filipino food there "turo-turo" style. Fanda sells perfumes at very low prices and some of the ladies bought their favorite scents.

Milette and I planned to shop in the Mongkok flea market so I texted Jon to meet me at the hotel around 6PM. Milette bought a club sandwich and a salad from a stall at the MTR's Admiralty station, which she ate in her room. Jon and I took a quick bite at the nearby KFC - which has the criss-cut fries. You can't find criss-cut fries in KFC Philippines although Jollibee used to have them in their menu. KFC HK also has an odd version of coleslaw ... and remembering the lunch at Watermark, I decided that Hong Kong locals loved to put the coleslaw dressing on any fruit/vegetable mix.

Met Milette outside Zen Restaurant, then the three of us headed to the MTR station. At Mongkok, Milette and I went our separate ways and agreed to meet at a street corner at 9PM.

Mongkok has an area where one can find street stalls selling cheap items - clothes, wrist watches, leather goods, toys and souvenirs. If you are good at bargaining, you'd probably get the items at a cheaper price. A lot, if not all, of the "branded" items were knock-offs or imitations though. Jon found some decent polo shirts and bought a couple of them. Wandering off the flea market, we saw a mall where one of Jon's friends asked him to buy a certain toy. We went through the 7 floors of that mall and didn't find the particular model he was looking for.


At ten to 9:00, we started walking to the street corner where we were supposed to meet Milette and realized that the volume of people has doubled. It was hard getting through the pedestrian traffic, and from the way some people stuck together, it looked like a lot of them came there in tour groups. We got to the meeting place around 9:10PM!

Jon and I were still full when we got back to the Admiralty station, so instead of going to McDonald's, we all headed back to our rooms at the Marriott.

Around 11:30 PM, I started to feel hungry and asked Jon if he wanted to eat. He said yes. I had thought of calling Milette to ask if she wanted to go to McDonald's, but remembering her complain about Buddy's brother in law calling her at midnight, and looking at my watch that says it is almost midnight, I decided not to.

Jon didn't mind going to McDonald's and ordering food to go. I just wanted to stay in bed and keep my feet up... I was wearing the shoes I bought at the Peak when we were shopping in Mongkok. Since it wasn't really quality shoes, my feet hurt even though I spent less time walking in Mongkok than I did at Disneyland. The difference was that my Rusty Lopez shoes had padding and the new shoes did not.

Told Jon I generally wanted a salad, a sundae, and fries ... but to buy something that we couldn't buy in McDonald's restaurant in the Philippines. Which is why I had potato wedges instead of fries, and my strawberry sundae had walnut toppings. I got a burger and softdrink because McDonald's Hong Kong does not sell salads and one can't buy potato wedges without buying the burger meal.