The past week has been filled with some new and unexpected experiences.

The entire regional leadership team descended on Discovery Bay for strategy discussions, team building and bonding. Turns out I’m in a team that really excels at all of this, especially the bonding part as evidence by quite a few late evenings / early mornings. The struggle of the 7.30am starts is another story!

Already well bonded, our last half day activity was spent speeding around HK in an Amazing Race-style event.  Split into teams, our first task was to come up with a team name, a slogan, design a flag and write the name we would like to be called for the day on labels and stick them on. The name thing is fairly standard to be asked since many local people have both Chinese and English names while others have nicknames. All the teams interpreted this differently.  Rather than writing their usual name, one team swapped names within their team, one made up nonsensical names and the other randomly assigned names. Our facilitators for this event had no idea what to make of it. I’m surprised we were the first corporate group to do this.

Solving clues, we traipsed (actually, we ran; did I mention we are a competitive group?) over the older areas of HK Island and Tsim Sha Tsui. We saw Man Mo Temple, the open air market at Wan Chai, Avenue of the Stars and rode the Star Ferry from Wan Chai to TST (my first time).

It’s a tail at the markets

It wouldn’t be an Amazing Race without some challenges.

Given the range of foods available in HK (jellyfish and chicken feet being an example. In both cases, the flavour is actually in the sauce so no need to waste time chewing the cartilage and spitting out the bones, assuming they’ve been left in, in the case of the feet, may as well just have the sauce with some rice and save the effort; jellyfish itself is fairly flavourless and has the texture you’d expect), it was no surprise that quite a few involved food. We needed to crack the clue as to where to find it, order, pay and consume it at speed with little time for it to cool or to consider what it was we were actually consuming.

Have I mentioned we are a competitive group?

From turtle jelly (in the old days, this was made from a particular turtle. Nowadays, it’s something else entirely. It’s a huge, dark purple, serving not fully set and because it’s not sweet, people add syrup. It seems to set in the stomach when running. It is not a taste sensation, though apparently it’s good for the complexion), wife cakes (no wives were harmed in the making of these), baked pork buns and stocking milk tea from a Michelin-rated cha chaan teng (this place is over 60 years old – that’s incredibly longevity for a restaurant here!) through to snake soup.

Yes, it really was snake.

Unbeknown to me until after I’d eaten my share, they keep live snakes at the restaurant (She Wong Lam; translation is Snake King Lam). These are stored in drawers reminiscent of old-style pharmacy storage. The proprietor opened a drawer and pulled out a couple of snakes as I was walking past, giving me a massive fright while causing laugher partly due to my reaction. They are taken into the kitchen area where they are killed, shredded and turned into soup. I still can’t believe I’ve walked passed this Old HK-style restaurant with the two snakes in crates at the front a few times before this. I will now be walking on the other side of the street.

Snake soup is not served in many places anymore. Not for ethical reasons, more due to the gentrification of various neighbourhoods which are becoming increasingly expensive as the MTR has been extended.

The meat is cholesterol-free and as with most Chinese foods, there’s a reason beyond hunger for eating it. There’s food that’s good if you’re a woman, if you’re a man, to aid digestion, clear the skin etc. This one is meant to help rev up the libido. Not sure we should have been trying this with work colleagues…

Looks like various shredded mushrooms.

Tastes like chicken.

This is meant to entice customers