it's another late night in hk - the city which never sleeps, with a 7-11 and an OK 24-hr convenience store at every street corner - for me. only i'm in my cool super-comfy, daily maintained, newspaper delivered to my door daily serviced studio apartment and not in the slightly humid streets flanked by 10storey blocks or needle-thin point blocks all over whatever sky you can look up at.
it's been an exciting 2 and a half weeks in WEA-HK, a little makeshift office with a free-direct dial line to london and one extension from the main switchboard in an corner office of arup-hk at festival walk (mall), kowlooon tong. a lot of travelling on modes of transport - fast (direct trains between Guangzhou and Hong Kong) and slow (a rented minivan between Shenzhen and Guangzhou when we are unable to get direct train tickets), quiet (the HongKong trains in GZ-HK route) and noisy (the chinese trains in GZ-HK route), comfy (same HK trains and new audi a6 bought for this project by our LDI) and not (GZ taxis and said chinese trains) in the space of this east asian sojourn. i've also come some distance during this time. at least i feel the detachment from the design project since i've come out here to liaise with the client, with arup and spending more than 95% of my time doing admin work.
it's silly but i was also very conscious of being the only representative from WEA, the architect's office, attending a design team meeting with 11 engineers speaking about all things engineering in cantonese. when i could pry myself away from self obsessed thoughts from a virtual bird's eye view, i focused on the issues being discussed and the architectural implications, or the impact on our design development or its progress. it was refreshing and i hope i absorbed a lot more than i'm conscious of.
i'm supposed to head to work tomorrow and then fly back home to london at 1.10am. as it stands, i'm to be in HK for another week and i get on said flight exactly 7 days later.
3 things stand out in my mind - 7 more days of allowance, has dominic (assoc. director) voiced my concerns and requests to rest of directors?, how to contribute better next week.
and suddenly i have a sense of arduous gritting of teeth as a picture of me being in the same (small) room with andrea for another 5 days flashes in my mind. argh.
will update all on how this turns out.
it's been an exciting 2 and a half weeks in WEA-HK, a little makeshift office with a free-direct dial line to london and one extension from the main switchboard in an corner office of arup-hk at festival walk (mall), kowlooon tong. a lot of travelling on modes of transport - fast (direct trains between Guangzhou and Hong Kong) and slow (a rented minivan between Shenzhen and Guangzhou when we are unable to get direct train tickets), quiet (the HongKong trains in GZ-HK route) and noisy (the chinese trains in GZ-HK route), comfy (same HK trains and new audi a6 bought for this project by our LDI) and not (GZ taxis and said chinese trains) in the space of this east asian sojourn. i've also come some distance during this time. at least i feel the detachment from the design project since i've come out here to liaise with the client, with arup and spending more than 95% of my time doing admin work.
it's silly but i was also very conscious of being the only representative from WEA, the architect's office, attending a design team meeting with 11 engineers speaking about all things engineering in cantonese. when i could pry myself away from self obsessed thoughts from a virtual bird's eye view, i focused on the issues being discussed and the architectural implications, or the impact on our design development or its progress. it was refreshing and i hope i absorbed a lot more than i'm conscious of.
i'm supposed to head to work tomorrow and then fly back home to london at 1.10am. as it stands, i'm to be in HK for another week and i get on said flight exactly 7 days later.
3 things stand out in my mind - 7 more days of allowance, has dominic (assoc. director) voiced my concerns and requests to rest of directors?, how to contribute better next week.
and suddenly i have a sense of arduous gritting of teeth as a picture of me being in the same (small) room with andrea for another 5 days flashes in my mind. argh.
will update all on how this turns out.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home