Two business lessons

1) This town is filled with trends, and the food ones usually rotate about every six months. A year ago, everyone wanted to do gourmet burgers. There are still one or two burger places slowly opening, but not like it was a year ago. And the most expensive one, which sold a $300 HK ($42) burger with a little bit of foie gras thrown in (fries are extra, mind you), has shut down, to be replaced by an upscale, modern thai restaurant. I assume that means they will have Pad Thai for $300 HK. With a side of foie gras.
Anyhoo, the next big thing was pho. Everywhere, non Vietnamese restaurants were opening up soup restaurants. And now, the latest trend is frozen yogurt, like what is big in California, only about three years later.
And I passed one the other day in the western Mid Levels. Really, if you are going to name a yogurt place, do not name it "Milky Cow." Trust me on this.
2) As a friend said last week, "Well, you are learning a whole new side of Hong Kong that most people never get to see by opening a small business."
Sometimes, this is not good. I tried to register my small business account online with the dominant bank here, but could not. I tried calling their number, as it told me to on the web site.
A paraphrasing of the exchange below:

me: Hi, I can't register my business account online. I was told to call this number.
HSBC: Please register now
me: It does not work, and when i try, it says to call this number.
HSBC: Please try to register.
me: It does not work, and when I try, it says to call this number.
HSBC: What error message does it say?
me: None. It just says to call this number, there is no popup that says what is wrong.
HSBC: What does the error message say?
me: None. It just says to call this number, there is no popup that says what is wrong.
HSBC: What does the error message say?
me: (Dying slowly inside.)
HSBC: Please shut down browsers and restart Explorer.
me: I use firefox.
HSBC: We only support Explorer.
me: But I have used firefox for 4 years with my personal account at hsbc without one problem.
HSBC: We only support explorer.
me: What build?
HSBC: Explorer 6 or 7.
me: I am on a mac. They quit building explorer for mac after Explorer 5.
HSBC: We only support explorer.
me: I cannot use explorer 6 or 7.
HSBC: We only support Explorer 6 or 7. You can only work on that.
HSBC: Is there anything else I can do for you?
me: real quote: I can't imagine you can do anything less.