Summer Internship '10

"Joey: Here's your ticket.

Chandler: Thanks. Hey, listen, I'm never gonna lie to you again. And i want you to know that nobody thinks you're stupid.

[Chandler looks at ticket and turns around]

Joey: Thanks, man. Hey, where you going?

Chandler: Game is tomorrow night, man."

Hong Kong is an awesome place to live. I had the time of my life during my two months of internship there. You are usually torn between where you wanna go, the hills or the sea. HK is a place that has both. And more - a clean city, convenient means of transportation, exciting hang-out places, the ferry, the peak, the brilliant skyline, shopping, Macau. And I had an awesome bunch of people to hang out with.

Okay enough praise for HK, let's get down to business.

o Size - Starbucks had a promo saying, "Choose your size!". It reminded me of Bebo's size zero and I said, "How I wish we really could..".

Armani, "You can right, that's what they said".

"No I meant, choose your own size"

"Huh?"

"YOUR size"

"What are you saying??!!"

"No no not THAT size!"

Kush - "What the hell are you guys talking about?!?!"

"Heyyy I meant your SIZE! Like.. like waist size.. and height! and -"

"That's so not what you meant! Pervert!"

"No, YOU are one! You went too far and -"

"YOU were the one who -"

.. and it still goes on ..

o Strip club - We were walking back home after dinner one weekend and I see a strip club signboard.

"Hey has anyone been to a strip club before?"

"Why? Do you want to go?"

"No! I was just asking -"

"I know you want to go, you can tell us"

"Hey no! I was just curious -"

"Nothing wrong in being curious, just say you wanna go"

"NO! I DON'T wanna go. I was just -"

"You've changed! Never knew you'd be interested in these kind of things :)"

"Hey for God's sake! I didn't -"

"Haha, Jyo, first Asahi, now this!"

"Asahi was for purely academic reasons!"

"So when are you going?"

"I give up"

And I still didn't get the answer to my first question.

o Airport Express - You think you're careless and unorganized and scatterbrained all the time? Okay listen to this. It was a random country. It was in a metro station. We checked in the airport express for the flight back home. We left our baggage trolleys randomly lying around near the escalator and were pretty impressed by the quick 30-minute express to the airport. We even took a lot of pictures. When I got off, I looked for my boarding pass and passport. And I realize, the boarding pass and the poassport were lying around in the random trolley I had left behind at the escalator. Some kind soul found it and Cathay Pacific sent it to the airport by the next express. It meant 30 minutes less for our last-minute duty free shopping. In his mind's eye, Puneeth imagined I would be hanging around in HK for a few more days, at best. I wonder why such a thought never even crossed my mind. The only thing I was worried about was the unconverted HKD which I might not be able to spend shopping at the airport. When you're young and the whole world lies in front of you with all its possibilities and opportunities, you think nothing can ever go wrong. Sigh...

o AquaLuna - It's an amazing traditional chinese junk boat. When you go to Hong Kong, DON'T miss it. I did. The website said the schedule was "21:45 22:45", not "from 21:45 to 22:45". We were so excited when we arrived at the pier on our last night in HK at 22:40 hrs. The rest, they say, is despondency. The depression led to a binge in LKF that night.

o The bus ride - I was very excited by the way I had become one of those people who regularly use public transport and know all the numbers of buses which go from anywhere to everywhere. Swetha, Pradeep and I had gone shopping, by bus. Swetha was very hungry and wanted to take the taxi back so we could cook and eat hot rice, pappu and karampodi. But I, the knowledgeable one, said that there's a direct bus which would drop us right in front of Bishop Lei. So we take the bus and it takes us really close to Bishop Lei.

.

.

Swetha: Jyo we're pretty close, I think we should get off here..

Me: Hey no, it'll stop right in front of Bishop Lei, we'll know

.

we pass a lot of familiar streets

Me: See, we're on the right way

we pass more streets..

.

.

Swetha: Jyo I'm hungry

Me: Hey we're almost there

.

.

The bus was almost empty. We reached some petrol bunk kinda place

Swetha: Heyyy this is the last stop!

Me: No, he's just getting petrol, then we'll go to Bishop Lei

Pradeep: No Jyo, this is the last stop

And the bus driver gave us a look that had a sinister finality to it. We got off and took a taxi back. Looked like we had long crossed the beloved Bishop Lei..

But I still wonder why the guy parked the bus in a petrol bunk..

o Agave, Lan Kwai Fung (LKF) - There was a super senior (pun intended) who was buying drinks for everyone. Armani was, as usual, being grandfatherly. And talli. Placecom stories (read jokes) were flying around - Puneeth did not seem to mind. Rathee was singing hymns for culcom. Swetha and Pradeep were being the sane people. Sunny wanted to run away, but there was a group of tall guys around him not letting him go. He was pleading, he was saying it wasn't fair to someone. Manav was trying to trick people into taking extra Anusmaran merchandise with them. Kush was celebrating being the alpha. I looked at my watch, for a long time. I said, "It's one thirty exactly. let's leave by two thirty". Pradeep, the sane one, said, "It's two o'clock Jyo".

o Back home - Kush had a flight to Ahmedabad at 5:40 am. On reaching Mumbai, we go to the incredibly slow baggage claim area (I mean, INCREDIBLY slow) and switch on our cell phones. I look at the time and get really worried, "Kush it's 4:40! You'll be late!". Kush, coolly - "That's HK time Jyo".

And of course people say they still love me..