Monday, December 06, 2004

Dreadful to not have blogged for so long :(

Left for Hong Kong at 3:30 a.m. on the 6th. Have finally arrived at 7:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, after an excuciating 5 hour stop-over at Bangkok airport. YUCK.

Got beyond pissed off with customs at Jinnah Terminal, Karachi. Am attending the Asia Pacific ICT Awards here in Hong Kong and the Pakistani contingent also has a joint stall at some bigass convention. So, had about 200 CDs with me (b.i.t.s. Portfolio and PSO Educational Games). Entered the terminal and was interrogated about the CDs. They were refusing to let me through and kept saying that "how do we know you're going where you say you are going". They ripped the carton open and then sent my business card and 5 CDs to some senior officials sitting in a glass enclosure, smoking away and watching the tamasha. Some jackass then said, "barray ufsur kay paas chalay jaen". I told him that the burra ufsur could come to me. I finally lost it and said that it was ridiculous that I was being treated like a criminal in my own city. Was unable to get the carton back in the bag, and they watched me struggling with it for 5 minutes and then decided to help. Then, the security people stopped me and said open the bag. I said, you've just watched me being harrassed for 20 mins, wtf? She said, that was customs, we have to do our duty! So, I let her struggle with the carton, which was destroyed by this time. She said, nikaalein iss ko. I was like, lady - you do your duty, like you said. Then she struggled with it for 10 minutes. AAAAAAAARGH. It was so damn annoying.

Met Shoaib Siddiqui of National Foods with his wife - who turned out to be Saba Saleem, ex Unilever/Lux Style Awards. Most bizarre.

Anyway, Hong Kong, whatever I have seen of it in the last 2 hours, ROCKS. My hotel is slap bang in the middle of all this action and it's exhilerating to be surrounded by so much energy.

The hotel has WiFi, which is a relief. Having no luck connecting to Paki numbers through Skype. Called my mother in London, which was a snap. Such a shame cause no one from Khi is online.

My presentation is on the 9th of December. Still have to figure out how to deliver an hour's worth of content in 20 minutes. No point stressing about it, will just wing it and hope for the best.

Posted by BeanZ | Permalink: 8:39 PM |