show me, show me, show me how...

much like any other country that has housed the olympic games china is all a buzz about the opportunity, so much so that fights and angry mobs have affected the torch race.  this information and topic is all over the news here, but i learned that it made it safely to tibet yesterday.  [I really want to go to tibet before it is overly influenced by the chinese government] There is also an abundance of little anime style olympic figures everywhere you turn...even at the jewelry fair there were little jade figures for the olympics being mass produced and available for mass order.  

Speaking of mass production... i was sitting at lunch yesterday and these two [identical] black boats went speeding by, and i thought to myself that this can't be a regular person's boat [they looked too put together and expensive]....and then I started thinking about how it would be interesting to get a behind the scenes look at the military stuff they might have...bc you know they have access to a lot of high tech stuff and the man power to produce it quickly. 

I said something to someone about this and all she said was, "yeah but a war with China would never happen bc all they would have to do is call in their debt and our economy would be crushed."...which is just an illogical thought bc we aren't the only ones capable of waging war....but i digress 

anyway, when we got to the show yesterday.... I went to open my water bottle [which actually had coke in it] and the lid shot 20ft in the air with a really loud bang [there was no fizz and no mess just a lot of noise], but everyone just carried on about their business as though nothing had even happened [which also fuels the scary war machine theory in my head].  One would think that a loud bang would elicit some sort of response, but the fact that it didn't sparks the notion that people just expect there to be loud gun like noises at any given time.  

oh, and we had dinner with scary food people but as i am out of time for the moment i will have to talk about that later.  

just run with me through rows of speeding cars

speaking of italians...the loud rude ones that are staying at my hotel got yelled at last night for having a business meeting in the breakfast lounge last night.  [only e-club rooms can be down here and their guests aren't even staying at the hotel] It was really funny. 

anyway, I went to the night market last night...I couldn't justify buying anything, but now that i've thought about it a little more I think i should have bought those few things that caught my eye.  I guess i'll have to just go back tonight or tomorrow night and get them.  

so far the show is going well and we are buying a lot of great product. We have two more big meetings but we've already gotten a lot and don't really need much more...i guess more is better than not enough though [oh how economy and consumption baffles me sometimes, I think the trends and patterns of the mass market are funny though] everyone has to have the newest thing and then a week later its something completely different.  It's an easy thing to see when you are the one doing the buying for the propulsion  of these trends, or even if you are buying just to keep up with them.  The thing is, I get to see the trend before it becomes big and thats really strange to me....its almost like making a snow globe.  you put all the right ingredients in and then set it down on the table, the trend spreads but only when you shake it up a bit, and then shortly after everything settles until you do it all over again.  

this love type thing

okay so, we may have missed a few posts since the last...let's see I arrived home safely from the last trip [to Italy] and now I am in Hong Kong for a week on yet another buying trip.  

The flight over was very long and un-eventful, I watched almost all of the movies available on HBO during the 18 hr flight and didn't sleep a bit.  I typically try to stay awake for the flight to HK since we usually arrive at 10pm and if I slept on the flight I would never get any sleep and be jet lagged for days.  

I think I actually prefer HK to Italy.  The business day starts later [around 10] and ends around 5, but even though business is over it doesn't mean that the night is over.  They tend to stay up very late here [unlike the Italians who tend to shut down around 10pm] and things go on way past 11pm.  In fact if you try to go do anything before 8 there isn't anything going on.  

And although the people in Italy were helpful [which isn't always the case] the people here [HK] are more than willing to wait on you hand and foot.  [in some cases they tend to hover and become overly doting]  

Another observation/comparison is that the pace of business and life is much faster here, where the take to a more laid back approach in most of europe there is always movement here, always something to do.  There are also more options for transport here,  they have one of the best subway systems that i have ever been on...it's always on time and, although they pack it in like sardines,  it is very clean.  I think the whole sardine idea can be applied to the city as a whole, they have a tendency to use up all of the land that is available and have to re-claim or make some new land to build more.  Every time I come here the canal gets smaller and smaller, and I think eventually there will be a land mass connecting the two islands [kowloon, and HK].  

This is really all I have for today [6-19-08] and I am off to the show to buy some jewelry.  

salut!