The Rise Conference was held in the Hong Kong Convention Centre so it made the perfect sense to stay in Wan Chai where the venue would be a minimal walking distance from where we were staying. We found an Airbnb that was just a block across and it was perfect.
It was a quaint studio room on the fourth floor of a small residential building. It had everything we needed. There was a TV we barely used, a washing machine which we loved to use, a hair dryer for our vanity, and a cooking area.
The proximity to the conference venue meant we could go home at any time should we need to and the surrounding blocks were rows of restaurants, various shopping malls, small boutiques, and more. We could definitely explore more of Wan Chai even after the conference.
It felt quite surreal to be in a foreign city for a little over a week. We were excited to fill our Instagram with Stories and new photos for the feed. I was most excited about the conference. I had minimal expectations because I just didn’t know what to compare it to.
Rise Conference: Day 1
The day before, we had the registration for the conference. We had to get our names validated, get our name passes, and our wristbands which felt very much like attending a weeklong music festival because of it. This had to be the smoothest and most efficient registration process I ever experienced for conferences.
We finished quite quickly and still had enough time to go around for lunch. We went across the street to a plaza where we found a small restaurant that served everything gourmet in boxed shaped containers. The restaurant, Kasa, was memorable for me because they never served anything single-use, except if you ask for a plastic bag to place take-out food.
They had wooden utensils, used metal straws for drinks and had stylish reusable containers where they placed food. It was unusual for me to see this was a trend in some upscale parts of Hong Kong Island. Even during the conference preparation, the organizers made sure to remind attendees to bring your own reusable water container since they would be providing water refill stations in the area.
The first day of the conference was my favorite because it was when the Creative stage was happening. Influencers like Ms. Yeah (she’s the Chinese lady who makes food in her office on YouTube), content producers like Ray Chan of 9Gag, and media companies like 88rising’s Jaeson Ma discussed content, the trends, and their opinions about the whole industry.
The Streets of Wan Chai
When the conference ended for the day, we set out exploring the streets of Wan Chai. By the sixth day of our stay there, I was familiar with the ins and outs of Wan Chai that I no longer needed Google Maps. We had our fill of legitimate dim sum, fusion gourmet and surprisingly, legitimate sushi which happened to be my favorite.
Wan Chai felt like Makati, and BGC combined except there were much more buildings, the sizes where huge and the architecture was different. The train stations were efficient and clean. Oh, and did I mention in the earlier article that there was no such thing as traffic in Hong Kong? But everybody did a lot of walking if you don’t have your own private vehicle.
I liked that we had to walk a lot. It was great exercise for all the rice we were eating. The serving sizes here was also much bigger than the ones they serve in the Philippines. Don’t ask me about the currency conversion because, after the first day of arriving, we stopped converting because it would just hurt our perceived budget. It was expensive but gastronomic wise, worth every dollar!
Watch out next week as I share our little tourist trip to Tsim Sha Tsui and Harbour City!
