Hong Kong Day 4 - Lunch with Mr. Thompson

Third day of work.  This week has been a bit confusing because we lost a day on the way here (since we left Sunday afternoon and landed Monday evening) and we also started work on a Tuesday, so today really felt like Wednesday instead of Thursday.  Today we ate at the cafe on the ground floor of the office building.  We worked for about a half hour and then we all attended a branding workshop in the Asia Orient Tower (AOT).  This workshop provided an overview of what the Crown brand means and what the company stands for and strives to achieve.  

After the workshop, we headed back over to the 20th floor of main office for lunch with Mr. Thompson.  When we gave him the Spartans gifts yesterday he invited us to come to lunch and let him tell us about his and Crown's history.  He ordered pizza (margherita, pepperoni, and one with a type of ham/pancetta) and pasta for us, and showed us a powerpoint presentation about Crown and told us his story.  He told us about growing up and how he ended up going to SJSU, and then about how he decided to go to Japan.  We also heard about how he decided to start the company and got to see pictures from the first years of the company (1965 in Japan, 1970 in Hong Kong, etc).  We also saw some more recent pictures, including photos of Crown buildings around the world and some pictures of how the company operates.  It was really nice to hear his story and also hear about the history of Crown from his point of view.  We were with him for nearly 2 hours, talking about Crown and he also answered some other questions that we had.  He will be going to London in a couple of weeks to celebrate the 10th birthday of one of the buildings, and he will also stop to see the group of TGIP people who are in London.

We went back to work after our lunch with Mr. Thompson, and then at the end of the day we went out to buy some fresh fruit juice.  Ana, a Crown director and the sponsor for one of our projects offered to take us to find some juice.  Three of us went with her to a stall near the office (the other's weren't quite done with a training session they were going through) where a lady had many different kinds of juice to choose from.  I chose kiwi, and the rest of our group got orange juice, watermelon juice, and kiwi juice.  It was really good, and it was nice to have some fresh fruit.  We watched her prepare it right in front of us, nothing in the juice except the fruit and some ice.  

As we were walking back to the office, Ana invited us to join her and a friend for dinner at an Arabic restaurant.  We decided to join them, and went up to the restaurant.  Once we were there, they decided to just order a bunch of different dishes so that we could try many different things.  We had falafels, hummus, something similar to hummus made out of eggplant, chicken shawarma, and a few other dishes.  Ana told us to try their Mint Lemonade, it was really good.  After dinner we walked down to an MTR (metro/subway) station and took it one stop to Central Hong Kong to the H&M.  We shopped at H&M for a bit before going back to Causeway Bay where our apartments are.  We did a little bit more shopping/walking around Causeway Bay before heading back to our apartments for the night.

View from AOT

The rubber duck that is on display in Hong Kong Bay right now.  This view is from the 20th floor of the office
It is a moving artwork that has been in 12 cities and 11 countries.  We are going to try to go see it this weekend

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View of the harbor from the 20th floor

View from the 20th floor

View of the harbor from the 20th floor
The large, flat building in the middle is the Hong Kong Convention Center

View of the harbor from the 20th floor

View from the 20th floor

View of the harbor from the 20th floor.
The building on the left that says "THU 31°C" has a huge billboard on top (THU 31°C)
 that displays many messages 

View of the harbor from the 20th floor

AOT Building

Panoramic view of the harbor from the 20th floor

Looking down at the street from the 20th floor

Pizza lunch with Mr. Thompson.  That is a piece of ham/pancetta on the pizza

Menu at the Arabic restaurant

Mint Lemonade at the Arabic restaurant

A building while we were walking to H&M

Hong Kong H&M