May 17th, 2012 | Uncategorized
Hey everyone!
I’ve arrived safely back in Galway after an amazing 10 days in Hong Kong. It would be utterly impossible for me to completely encompass my entire trip in just one post. We did so much, saw so much, and had so much fun.
The main reason for the trip to Hong Kong was due to the fact that we are doing a masters in International Management. A primary focus this year was doing business in China. Therefore, our course director suggested at the beginning of the year the possibility of taking a trip out there to see what things were actually like. It took a lot of meetings and coordination but finally he was able to finalize a well-rounded trip.
We arrived on a weekend so we were able to kind of relax and enjoy the weekend, as well as catch up on sleep from the long journey out there. The following week we visited the Independent Commission Against Corruption. They allowed us to browse some of their exhibits before bringing us in for an excellent presentation. Followed by that we went over to the IFC, Hong Kong’s second tallest building, in the business district and got a tour of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It wasn’t as crazy as we had anticipated. It was actually relatively quiet as much is done through computers.
We were fortunate enough to have a meeting with an employee of Enterprise Ireland based in Hong Kong. He gave a tremendous lecture on what it was like to do business there and what his job was like acting as a mediator between Ireland and it’s overseas subsidiary. Another excellent talk came at the Hong Kong Baptist University by Leo Ho, former CEO and current lecturer. He was an absolute wealth of information. He had done business in China for years, had his failures, learned from them, and then became a great success.
Our last meeting came with a friend of our course director and his colleagues who work for a company that helps to manage the movement of expatriates to their overseas locations. They aid in the actual move as well as finding a place to live and getting schools for their children.
We had plenty of free time to ourselves which allowed us to do a bit of sightseeing such as going out to Macau, seeing the Big Buddha, visiting a couple different temples, going to some of the street markets, and relaxing on the beach.
It was an unbelievable experience and I cannot believe how fortunate I am to have travelled to Hong Kong for 10 days. Prior to leaving we had to hand in a pre-departure report. Upon arrival back in Ireland, we now need to write a business report on our experiences there and what we learned about doing business in China.
As far as things back in Ireland go, after 24 hours of travel back to Galway, I went straight to the gym for 3 hours of coaching on Monday night. Tonight I’ll have the boys for their offseason strength training program. The girls are preparing for their tournament next weekend in Biarritz, which should be a great time!
That’s all for me. I’ll talk to you guys next week!
-Tim
