Like Rocky Balboa

After 4 months or so, I have gone back to the gym. I can't believe it's been so long. My legs are sore and, after a while I feel like there is something more than a stomach near my waist. Feels good!

It also feels good b/c it's been a promising day. Thanks to my networking I have been contacted by the human resources staff of a big media conglomerate. I may also be interviewing with a digital media start-up later this week. And I have attended a corporate presentation of (and submitted an application for)a small boutique IB that almost exclusively focuses on sports deals.

In both aspects I feel like Rocky at the beginning of his training. Little by little I hope I will finally get in shape: I will be getting the job that I want and I will hopefully be fit again.

I needed to write about this. I am sure that some gloomy days will also be coming. So, let's enjoy at least for a day!

Later

Crucial and uncertain times

In the little time spent in NY since I arrived from Beijing I have also had time to start sending emails to my network. The crucial months in terms of job search are just around the corner for me. It is gonna be tough to find a spot in some media company but I have to be confident. One thing, however, that keeps surrounding my head is uncertainty. My travel mate and I have long talked during the China trip about our near future and options. I remember the time when I was applying to biz school after quitting my job. I did not know where I was going to be three months down the road. Now it feels the same, or even more uncertain…

The next months will tell me what I will be doing after graduation and where. But if you ask me now about it, I will just tell you: “I have no clue”. It may be business development at a media company, some general management stuff at a start up or private equity. It may be NY, LA, San Francisco…or maybe Madrid or London. When I think about how things may go one way or another I feel a little overwhelmed. I know what I want but I also want to keep my options open. And maybe what I want the most is not feasible and I may then need to go south in my standing. As you can see, challenging times…

Tomorrow I will be having my first day of class of my very last semester at Stern (damn!). I am happy with my course choices this semester. Let’s see if the expectations are met. I will keep you posted

Ciao

Sweet home

Back in NY!!! I can’t believe I am already here. It’s been almost a month since I left for the Xmas break and I was missing it. I arrived in NY a couple of days ago after a 17 hour trip from Beijing, including a short layover in Chicago. It was a pleasant flight, my first on United Airlines. I was lucky that I had 4 seats for myself so I took some good 7+ hours of sleep. The downside is that I have paying the dues for two days since I am finding it so hard to sleep.

It feels good to be back home. I have really enjoyed my Asian trip but I wanted to come back. I guess I would not have felt this way if I had spent a month somewhere else, say Brazil, but somehow these past weeks have been somewhat stressful, in particular the last one. And I feel like that such perception is mostly due to the language. How frustrating it is to communicate in a completely different language. I can handle English, Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese to certain extent but when it comes to Chinese it is a different ball game. Frustrating.

Although I have only been in NY for a while I have already had time to organize myself, clean up stuff, do the laundry and some food shopping. I feel settled again. In just one day. Soooooo good!

Leaving Shanghai

Hi all and greetings from Beijing! I have finally arrived at my last destination before heading back to the US, the capital of China. I just arrived a couple of hours ago and I will hopefully get some good sleep tonight. The Forbidden City, Tiannanmen Square and many other things are out there waiting for us tomorrow.

The visit to Shanghai is over. It's been short but intense. We have spent two and a half days walking around.. I feel like we did not need much more time there. I have kind of liked it but my expectations have not been met, though.

Our hotel was pretty well located, near "The Bund", the "golden mile" where many luxury boutiques, fancy restaurants and trendy clubs are located. Right by the river and in front of Pudong, the rather new district where many companies are headquartered in Shanghai. We were also rather close to Nanjing Road, the main shopping street in town. A good hotel at a more than reasonable fare...better than HK!

On the day we arrived we just went out to Attica, a club by the river that we have been recommended. It was ok but nothing great. The high point of the night was running into Sir Richard Branson! We wanted to take a picture with him and eventually ask him for a job but he was enjoying the aprty with a couple of girls. He seems to be such a great guy. I recommend you his biography, called "Losing my virginity".

The day after we basically visited the Old City, including the Yu Gardens, City God Temple and some other traditional venues. The Old City is rather curious, surrounded by walls, without traffic allowed in and full with stores (both multinationals and locals selling souvenirs) and "independent salepeople" selling "watches, purses, shoes" (sic) to every westerner. Quite hilarious. We had a not very good lunch at an amazing place. It was kind of a self service with dozens of types of Chinese food. Our choices were not the best, unfortunately. But I enjoyed the experience and laughed at the waitresses' small talk about us, haha. It's amazing how Chinese people stare at foreigners.

After the Old City we walked on Huahai road to the French Concession, another must-see in town. Quite disappointing. It somehow reminded me of the NY village, full of small buildings and clothing stores. But, that was pretty much it. After that we went out for dinner to "M" with three girl friends from Stern who had also traveled to Shanghai after spending a couple of weeks in HK with us. A great dinner at one of the best restaurants in town. 60 bucks a piece, expensive but affordable. Now I have and idea of how well must expats live in Shanghai if this is the priciest stuff you can find...

Our second day was more relaxed. A long walk including the People's Square and a couple of temples and some low-profile shopping at local markets. At least I bought the first season of "Californication" (Showtime's new show starring David Duchovny) and the first four seasons of "Entourage". 25 bucks for the whole thing...and with an amazing packaging. And surprisingly, the discs work!! Oh, and we finally found "Superbad" and watched it straight away. It was good fun but after so much buzz about it I was a little disappointed. But "McLovin" is hilarious!!

Before leaving today we had dinner with a friend from high school of my travel mate's and her boyfriend. They had not seen each other for 12 years and it was quite funny to see how they first did not recognize each other. The dinner was amazing (the best food so far in China!) and we also got some insights about how expats leave in Shanghai.

Anyway, as I have said before, Shanghai has been ok but I expected a little more. I expected more cosmopolitan stuff, more venues to be seen, more vibe... A good experience but I am definitely looking forward to seeing what the traditional China that we will face tomorrow in Beijing will bring to us.

Ciao

Hong Kong: Part II

It's been a few days already that I left HK and I kind of miss it. Me and my friends have long discussed whether we would eventually take a job in Asia. I feel like I could move to HK for a year or so with a company's commitment to send me back. I doubt I would be able to come to Shanghai. And after talking to some people I feel like the same thing is gonna happen with Beijing.

The experience in HK has been good. The "Doing Business in China" course that I have taken has been fine but there are some things that must be improved in the future. It's been the first year that this course has been offered and there is room for improvement.

The first criticism is the daily schedule. In the end, everybody who has taken this course has spent more than $3.5k, including tuition (2K), flights and pocket money. We all definitely wanted to learn a lot about China, but when you spend such amount of money you also expect to have time for leisure, sightseeing and so forth. And we have lacked the latter. It doesnt make sense to have class from 930am to 530pm everyday.

The quality of the lectures has been pretty good, including some given by the former China CEO of Walmart and a presentation by a big shot of Pepsi China. We have covered cultural issues, business issues and corporate visits (not super interesting, though) to three companies.

Overall I think that I have learnt some good stuff. And now I can say that whenever somebody says "company X should go to China b/c it is the future" I will have some thoughts to qualify such a statement. It is not that obvious and many things must be assessed.

The other main criticism is the hotel. It was ok, not luxurious, but the location sucked. It's a pity b/c it has made things more complicated in terms of walking around. We could have easily shared room with another person - instead of having individual rooms - and get a better location for the same price.

On the leisure side, I have had fun. The group of people who traveled with me was very nice. I have had the chance to meet people I had never talked to back in Stern and to strength my ties with some others. I have gone out a couple of nights, I have had delicious Chinese foods (eg. coconut rice, pineapple rice, tasty noodles, fish cake, curry, coconut milk, papaya salad), I have bet on horse races, I have seen big panda bears playing around, I have walked around flea markets like the one in Mong Kok (without a doubt, the word of the trip...note the funny phonetic connotations from French and English), visited a big Buddha (is it bigger than the one in Nara, Japan?), I have seen one of the most beautiful skylines I have ever seen (HK island from Kowloon), I have known about "Edgar se cae" (please, check it out on Youtube) and I have met a super cute HK-brazilian girl...

As you can see, a lot of good things. It has been a very good trip. Maybe the only big thing that I missed was Macau but I do not feel it is a big deal since I will be traveling to Vegas in March with some friends.

Overall, great trip and some great memories and pictures to take away!

Later

Shanghai

Btw, I have just arrived in Shanghai a few hours ago. I have not had time to see much yet. But the traffic jam to get from the airport to the hotel has been far too much...two damned hours!!

However, the city looked pretty amazing from the cab. And the hotel seems to be perfectly located this time!

Later

Hong Kong: Part I

On Saturday, Jan 5, I arrived in HK after a twelve hour trip from London Gatwick. What a hell of a trip. But this time it was absolutely my fault. I had to switch from Heathrow to Gatwick since I was arriving in the former from my town. Well, everything was going fine. I arrived on time, picked up my luggage and headed to the central bus station for my National Express coach (again, after a few years!). Every time I travel on National Express it reminds me of The Divine Comedy's song of the same name...Anyway, as I was about to get to the station I suddenly realized that I had collected the wrong suitcase. All the way back to arrivals - running like crazy - and, miraculously, my suitcase was still there. Thank God! The BAA officer almost kills me !

I finally arrived in Gatwick and departed for HK on an Oasis Airlines flight. The only discount long-haul airline that I know (great deal!)and it works just fine. I watched Shrek 3 and A Good Year, with Russell Crowe. After that, I took my first sleeping pill ever and slept like a baby. I just woke up as we were approaching HK.

HK airport is huge, really modern and pretty. I managed to find the hotel's counter and scheduled a shuttle service to the hotel. Somewhere in Kowloon. The name did not mean much to me at that point. It was a long ride, more than an hour, and it included a stop in Disneyland HK's parking lot...

I arrived at the hotel and the first impression was ok. Not luxurious but comfortable. I did not know anything about its location... I just had to wait for a friend of mine who was arriving from NY a couple of hours later. If everything resulted as planned, we'd painting the town red. It was Saturday night and the course did not start until Monday.

My friend arrived around 10 pm and shortly after we were on our way to Central, more precisely, to Lan Kwai Fong, the main party area in the Hong Kong Island. At this point we already realized that the hotel's location was rather shitty. Far from the action.

After our first Asian dinner, we had some drinks at a couple of bars to become familiar with the area. What most struck me since the beginning - and it's been sth repeated during the whole trip - was the high number of expats living in HK. I expected a larger majority of locals. We ended up going to this club 'Prive' and it was fun, not amazing, though. But we were in the mood for more and, once it closed and after some random questioning, we headed to an after party club nearby. It was a rather dark one, with a curious mix of people, a little shady and quite entertaining. Well, it was more entertaining for my friend who hooked up with a very cute Korean girl. What a beginning! I just played wingman haha!

By the time we went back to the hotel it was 9 am and some other people from the program who had just arrived or woken up looked at us with surprise... time for breakfast and to go to bed. Day 1.

The day after, Sunday, was just a waste, in particular for me since either the drinks from the night before, the water, or the early breakfast k.o.'ed my stomach and I was forced to follow the bottled water+sugar diet... Fortunately, it was just for one day. Sunday proved also useful to see that my laptop, after 5 dignifying years, is about to pass away. It's been a real pain to ask for people's computers for two weeks!

On Monday the course was to start and we were all curious about what was ahead of us: the school, the professors, the course, the group of people... But I will touch on it in the next post.

After a while, I'm back

How are u all doing? It's been a while since my last post but I have been rather busy with my holidays and stuff. On top of that, I have rather limited inet access since my laptop's adpater has cracked...

Anyway,a lot of stuff has happened since my last post. I am not gonna be able to summarize all in one post, so I will take it little by little. Due to my technology issues, I feel like I will still keep writing about the past weeks in February!

Xmas was a great time. I went back to my city for around ten days. After that I was gonna leave for Hong Kong for a 2-week Stern course. The schedule that I had pretty much planned was a busy one but you never know what may happen.

I arrived in my hometown on Dec 23 with a broken suitcase. Things keep happening between Air France and me and this time the suitcase's wheels were torn apart...awesome. At least this time I did not miss my connection in Roissy, and all the gifts I had bought in NY were still there.

I spent Xmas Eve and Xmas with my family and it was a pretty good time. After that I had the chance to spend a few days in a rather quiet way and to hang out with my buddies. It felt much better than the year before. In particular, the last day was awesome. We had this amazing day! We met early to go to our former high school to play a soccer game (damn, we are getting old!) and then we went for a pre-set lunch, which was followed by lots...and lots of drinks and partying...hey, maybe we are not that old in the end :-) It was the perfect way to say goodbye or, more accurately, see you, since they will be visiting the US for two weeks in Spring!

During those days I also had the chance to meet with some other great friends from Madrid and to talk to many others. It is always great to catch up with the people you care about but it is a little stressful to meet all the "commitments"... sometimes it is not feasible and you have to prioritize and people feel hurt. That sucks.

I even had time to have a few (early) drinks with some girl friends. It was a lot of fun and, as rums and coke were chugged, it reminded me more and more to a Sex and the City episode. It was a lot of fun to get some direct advice with respect to girls from some girls themselves and I also love to hear to their stories. By 7 pm we all were rather tipsy. It was worth it!

New year's was a great time and I spent it in the mountains skiing. It was nice to be back on my skis after two years and to see that I have not forgotten how to do it. I even saw the heaviest snowfall I have seen in years...and it's kinda funny that it was not in NY! I have posted a pic for illustration.

In short, great visit back in my hometown. On Jan 5 I left for Hong Kong. I am still there but I will be leaving soon for Shanghai. I hope that I will catch up with what has been going on in the next post before I leave. That will be the next chapter.

Later