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FRI October 10, 2008

8:28 PM.  I’m getting my stuff ready for my trip.  The work week was good to me and I was able to get a lot of things squared away for this whole trip. By the way, hello would be readers!  My name is Mark Julio and I am a lowly employee of Mad Catz, Inc.  Why am I going to Hong Kong?  For future product development projects, mainly for Street Fighter IV.  I hope this trip teaches me the ‘ins and outs’ of the darker side of the industry and satisfies my goal to gain experience, apply it, & prove to people that I can handle this job.  I will do it. The main focus for me is the Street Fighter IV controllers.  To be more specific:

• Street Fighter IV FightPad (PS3 & Xbox 360)
• Street Fighter IV FightStick (PS3 & Xbox 360)
• Street Fighter IV FightStick Tournament Edition (PS3 & Xbox 360)

If you couldn’t tell already.  I’m a huge fighting game fan and arcade stick connoisseur.  This is my hobby and my passion.  I couldn’t be any happier than I am right now.  Well I could be happier… Though I don’t think I should dilly dally on such trivial matters until after the trip is over with.  More tomorrow.

Hi to everyone reading this!  I’m all packed up and ready to go!  If you need to get a hold of me, just leave a comment on the bottom of the page or Email me!

SAT October 11, 2008

That is a big ass plane!

This is where it starts to get weird.  Hong Kong is ahead by 15 hours compared to San Diego.  Anywho.  I’m at the hotel right now and it is actually MONDAY… Saturday consisted of me doing some last minute packing before I went to bed around 3 AM.  I woke up around 6:20 AM and got ready to go get dropped off at the airport.  I met with Lawrence around 7:30 AMish before our commuter flight to Los Angeles.  We got into LA at around 9 AM and had to wait around until 12:30 PM before we could board for our long 15 hour flight into Hong Kong. I have pictures and all, but the hotel’s internet doesn’t seem to be too friendly when uploading.  I’ll upload pictures and comments in the morning when I get to the Mad Catz Asia offices. In other news!  I didn’t get a haircut because I want to wow them with my poofy fuzz.

SUN October 12, 2008

We got into Hong Kong at around 7 PM HK time.  It was a VERY long flight.  It proved to be quite entertaining though.  I got to see some movies and had some cup o noodles (haven’t had that in a long time) ! Once we got here we immediately took a cab to the Royal Park Hotel in Shatin.  Man this place is so BEAUTIFUL!  I have pics and all, I’ll upload them soon! After checking in, we decided to meet downstairs at the bar to hang out and chill before knockin out. Update later..

My home for a short while…

The view you see when first entering the hotel room…

MON October 13, 2008

I’ll be updating this whole page later when I get back to my hotel.  In the meantime check out the pictures I’ll be uploading on my flickr….

http://flickr.com/photos/sdtekken

(For some weird reason, I can’t upload photos while AT the hotel, only while I’m at the Mad Catz Asia offices :(  BOO!  I’ll upload EVERYTHING later.

Monday was very exciting.  I got to go to our main office in Hong Kong which is walking distance from our hotel.  I got to meet everyone in the office.  They are all really nice people and so far it has been a great pleasure working with them.  Nick Yu from Golden Regent (GRE) came to the office after lunch so we could further finalize the Street Fighter products.

After work, we headed off to Tsim Sha Tsui.  It was my first experience using the train system here.  It is so AWESOME and convenient.  Also awesome was the Octupus card, which is very similar to Edy (Japan) where it is a card that you can use to pay for train fares, food, and while you’re shopping (most places take the Octopus card too) !

Tsim Sha Tsui is a nice area with TONS of shops and restaurants.  We walked around for a good while just looking for a place for dinner.  Our boss recommended we go towards Harbour City which is on the opposite side of Hong Kong island, which overlooks Kowloon Bay.  It was a very beautiful mall which was predominantly white inside.  Looks REALLY clean.  We ate at an Italian restaurant called Spasso.  It was superb!

Afterwards we split up, the other half of the group Taxi’d back to the hotel while Chris and I continued our adventure.  We ended up checking out the Hong Kong skyline which overlooks Kowloon bay and the avenue of the stars.  I ended up taking some pretty neat pics (which I’ll update later)…  We got back to the hotel around 12:30 AM local HK time.  Pretty late for a work day!

R.I.P. great one!

I couldn’t sleep so I went online and chatted it up with some of the SDT homies and work buddies.  I heard some sad news, but it was also good news.  So yea.  I miss my friends in San Diego!  My family too!

TUE October 14, 2008

Today, instead of going to the office we got up and ate breakfast then immediately head to Hong Kong island for the Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2008 (Autumn Edition).  It was MADNESS.  Over 2,400 exhibitors/vendors from over 25 countries.  We did a lot of research and planning there.  Much of which I can not disclose.  But it was a rather tiring day.

For lunch, Frank took us out to eat.  At first we tried to go to a Japanese style sushi joint with a conveyor belt, but it was too packed and we were shoo’d away.  Next we went for some Thai food and ended up at Green Thai near the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre.  I had some pork curry in red sauce and I was in heaven.

Bad service though lol.  Thanks again for the meal Frank.  After lunch, it was back to work!

After work we headed straight to this CRAZY area called Lan Kwai Fong.  WOW.  This area is crazy!  It is a bunch of bars/pubs in a enclosed area.  Tons of people/foreigners go to this area and hangout.  It was just a Tuesday night but it was crazy packed.

We went to a bar called the Hong Kong Brew House and just sat back and chilled for an hour or two.  Talked about work, life, our children (Lawrence’s new car, since he doesn’t have any kids yet), etc. !

We needed some dinner so we hopped over towards some restaurants and were bombarded by the employees along the street trying to usher people into their places.  It got so bad/annoying that Michael Greco snapped at one of the people and told them to quit it (they were shoving menus in his face, wtf!)

We finally settled at a place called Beruit.  It was Lebanese cuisine.  Very classy and oh so tasty.  We ended up getting a bunch of dishes and just shared in the tasty fun.  My favorite dish had to be the tabbouleh and the lamb kebabs MMM!

Too tired (so much walking today), we decided to call it a night and cab’d it back to Sha Tin.  Now here I am!  Goodnight! Pics and stuff SOON.

WED October 15, 2008

All of my latest pictures are up on my flickr!

Today was a busy day in the office.  I woke up around 5 AM because I slept so early the night before… As with every morning, we jumped in our international breakfast buffet then headed straight for the main office.

Check out the view!  All day today I had to write up the testing procedure for the Street Fighter IV arcade sticks.  It took most of the day but we finally finished.  Thomas took us out for lunch at New Town Plaza mall… We had Thai food AGAIN.  But today’s Tom Yum Kung soup was so on point… it hit the spot real good.

After we got out of work around 7 PM we decided to head back to the hotel and get some rest for the long day tomorrow.  Tomorrow we are going to mainland China (Shenzen) and then visiting the factory for GRE and doing some important last minute checks for things.  I got approved for a two way Visa for mainland China, so I can only make one in/out trip during my stay here.  So I have to make it count!

When I got back to the hotel room I wasn’t that hungry so I went with Michael and Chris back to look around the mall.  I went to Micro Planet, a cool little anime/figure/hobby shop in the mall with TONS of nice toys and video games.  Then we went to Toys R’ Us and I saw all kinds of crazy stuff I wanted to buy but didn’t lol.

I’ll probably go there again later in the week.  Afterwards we split up because I still wasn’t hungry and they were wanting to eat.  I just walked around randomly trying to discover things.  I saw some of the funniest things during my walkabout the area.  One thing was a beauty product ad that featured art/characters from Battle Fantasia… WTF!?  lol.

I’m here now in my hotel room at around 9:40 PM.  Just got my room service.  A big nice US styled burger and some Wonton noodle soup for the win.  I’ll probably pass out in a few hours.  GOOD NIGHT!  I miss you all.  (Yes, even you).

P.S. Random news of the day.  Leah Dizon got married the other week secretly to a guy that she has been seeing over a year.  She is also over 4 months pregnant!

Also. I kind of don’t want this trip to end. I’m already sad because I don’t want to face the reality that is next week. Sad times ahead.

THU October 16, 2008

I’ll upload the new photos on my flickr when I get into the office tomorrow!

Today we visited mainland China.  I was able to get a multi visit Visa for entrance across the border into China for our scheduled visit to the GRE factory.  It was an amazing experience!  China is home to over 3 million factories.  Rightly so when you consider that China is home to over 1.3 billion people!

We started the day by meeting up early for breakfast then meeting with Thomas at the border crossing of Lok Ma Chau.  Lok Ma Chau is a newer border crossing station than Lo Wu (which is the one most people use).  Lo Wu was being hyped up as something really nasty before we made our trip to mainland China… so I was thinking I’d see something crazy but I thought it was a normal looking place (I’ve been to the Philippines after all lol)…

Once we crossed the border into Shenzhen.  We took a 1 hour car ride to Dongguan province to visit the GRE factory and finalize the Street Fighter products.  I had to do a reference presentation on testing for the Street Fighter arcade sticks.  I hope I didn’t overwhelm the engineers/testers but the fact of the matter is that fighting games are skill based and you will need skill to test if an arcade stick/fight pad works properly.

Anywho.  Work was hectic.  More on that later..

After work, Michael Greco, Doris from GRE and myself went back to the Shenzhen border.  This time we went to the Lo Wu crossing.  We took the CHR train, which was more of your traditional train, not a quick subway like train like the MTR.  We got through Lo Wu and finally back on the East Tsim Sha Tsui line and Greco headed for his dinner arrangements with NIGEL BEASLEY!!! while I headed back to the hotel room.

Chris and Lawrence were still stuck working at GRE in Dongguang, China.  So I ventured out on my own… Where did I go my first chance to go sight seeing!?  I went to the fuckin arcade to finally try Tekken 6 out!

After freshening up, I went back on the East Tsim Sha Tsui line towards Kowloon Tong, then switched to the Kwan Tung line so I could get to Prince Edward… The arcade was a small joint in Allied Plaza and they had TWO Tekken 6 machines.  So I played for a few hours and had a blast.  Spent about 40HKD ($6 USD) then when it was 11 PM I headed back to the hotel.  Can’t wait to play some more!

I’m back at the hotel room, didn’t eat dinner yet.  So I just ordered room service!  Good night!

FRI October 17, 2008

To be updated later.

SAT October 18, 2008

To be updated later.

SUN October 19, 2008

To be updated later.

MON October 20, 2008

To be updated later.