DAY 3: QUARRY BAY (Part 4-2)
This is Part 4 of a series of stories about my four days in Hong Kong.
Meeting Mun Yin at “Congee-Fish-Spring Onions”
If you’ve been reading my tweets or blog posts lately, you would know that I am a big fan of the spanking new website for people with itchy feet and an appetite for life, the fabulous CNNGo.com
On Friday night, the Marketing Manager of CNNGo Mun Yin and I made plans to meet. He is the guy behind their social media marketing effort and the source of some of my daily happiness!
As I was told that most taxi drivers in Hong Kong would not understand the English names of places, on our second phone convo I asked Mun Yin for some translation help for “Quarry Bay” in Cantonese. He was only too happy to help, but I couldn’t really make out what he was saying over the phone. I tried getting him to spell the words out phonetically but alas it seemed too clumsy an exercise for our supercool Mun Yin.
Luckily I recognized the sound of the first character Juk, which sounded to me like the Cantonese word for “congee.” Mun Yin was relieved to hear that and confirmed that it does sound like “congee,” and further added that the other two, Yu is for fish and Chung sounds like spring onions. So I replayed “Congee-Fish-Spring Onions” in my head and said Juk Yu Chung to the cabbie when I got on the cab. The cabbie seemed unsure at first, then nodded and off we went to Quarry Bay!
From Facebook to Quarry Bay
I was fashionably and un-impressively late for my date with Mun Yin, mostly because I underestimated the Friday evening traffic. He was nonetheless very gentlemanly and went easy on me the tourist! We met at the Quarry Bay MTR station and headed to his usual haunt near the CNNGo Towers at Taikoo for dinner.
Mun Yin is such a delightful conversationalist and it was nice to finally meet the guy who shares some of the finest “happy and wacky” content in Asia with me. You just never know what it’s going to be like when you meet a complete stranger. Maybe you don’t get off on the right foot and want out within 10 minutes, maybe you sit through a horrific dinner punctuated with awkward silences and hope that talk about work will deflect from the fact that you just don’t care to see that person on a social basis ever again.
It wasn’t like that at all with Mun Yin. He is as cool in person as he is virtually and it was effortless from the get go, like @CNNgo! Like a true gentleman he paid for dinner and also the entrance fee for the BBC meet! Thank you Mun Yin! I’ll have to make sure you have a blast when you visit Malaysia and gladly at that! 
Follow him on Twitter if you want in on the coolest happenings in Asia.
The British-Born Chinese Meet in Hong Kong
After dinner, Mun Yin took me to a BBC meet (you know this doesn’t only happen in London?!), where British-Chinese folks who live and work in Hong Kong get together for a night of networking and such. When we got to the building entrance of this apparent hide, we took a creepy red elevator that was so old and moved so slowly I began having flashes of gangster movie scenes in my head. When we got out of the lift and onto a none-identifiable door, what we saw subsequently took us by total surprise. The Golf Hideaway is a sanctuary in Quarry Bay where you get to drink, eat shepherd’s pie, play screen golf, shoot pool, get a hair wash and even a foot massage too. What a place!
Met a couple of BBCs there, but what was really funny was bumping into two guys who looked awfully familiar. When we got introduced by the organizer Chris Lam, I couldn’t resist telling them I thought they looked familiar. After a bit of prodding it occurred to them that the connecting link is my ex-housemate in London. The OMG moment with them was one of the funniest moments of my life; from Facebook to “Face look!” What a small world hey?! Doesn’t matter that I showed up from Sabah, the London link is there!
We got to try out the screen golf but didn’t stay too long as Mun Yin had to head off, and I had already made plans to meet some friends of a friend at Lan Kwai Fong. It’s too bad he couldn’t join us but I had a great time meeting him and some of his friends. I also think that our tweet-relationship has gone up a notch and that’s from random marketer to friend!
Next up, I get to meet a celebrity and more people in Hong Kong…
Part 4-3 will be published on Wednesday evening.
