How One Email Changed Everything

When I first came to Hong Kong, while I had met a lot of people from the area through school, I didn't have any contacts. I was truly only a tourist, and was by myself. At first it was lonesome, up until the point that I had to go to neighboring Macau to re-enter Hong Kong to have my work visa validated. After furiously contacting NextStep Connections, to figure out how to get to Macau, they finally sent me the emails of three people who had gone to Macau a little while earlier. After emailing them all, asking them how to get to Macau, two of the people I had emailed responded the fastest. Through a series of emails of establishing the fact that I was also an intern and lived in the same area, they asked me to hang out with them as soon as I returned from my trip, and I was able to get their numbers.

I was extremely nervous about meeting them initially. I kept dialing and deleting Alden's number on my phone, and finally it got to that point where I just gave up and decided that I wasn't going to do it, not that day anyway, just another time (or so I told myself :P), but then something amazing happened. I had put my phone down and was just about to open my laptop, when my phone rings. It's a number I didn't recognize, given the few contacts I had in HK, but I decided to pick up anyway. It was Jeff! Asking me if I wanted to hang out with him and a few of his friends in Central. I was so beyond nervous at that point, but I said that I would go (I had nothing else to do, and I wanted to know people haha) got ready, and left.

When I reached Central, I wasn't sure who to look for. I didn't know what Jeff looked like, the only thing I could run with was the sound of his voice from our phone conversation. So basically unless he suddenly decided to talk really loud, I wouldn't know who he was haha. I exited the MTR station, and sure enough, it was pretty crowded, but I see a group of 3 boys standing outside of the station looking at me. I wasn't sure if it was them or not, but I figured let me go ask. No point in having a staring contest right? So I walked up to them, and asked one if he was Jeff, thankfully, and much to my relief, he said that he was, and I finally met the two other interns in the area, Jeff and Alden along with Alden's brother, Ansel.

By the end of our first hangout, I had established two contacts, who both lived near me. The three of us ended up hanging out a lot, doing small activities together, going out to eat and discovering HK in our own way. We formed our own group, essentially becoming very close, and soon after that, I was able to get many of my school contacts information and meet other people through my internship company. Lets just say that if it wasn't for that email, I wouldn't have had as many good experiences here or met as many people. That one email really did change everything for me. Go figure.