All hope is crushed.

Disclaimer: This blog entry is full of my ranting against the things that aggravate/irritate me here.

Sadly, it turns out the planning for the Macau field trip was simply bad organization rather than assumptions of competence.

My first complaint has to do with the students... I think it's very irresponsible to go out partying the night before you have a class field trip or something like that. There were several students at the trip who had not slept at all, and some who started off the trip by still being drunk from the night before. (2 people were completely late because they forgot their passports and the like.) I find a lot of students here do dumb stuff like this. It aggravates me.

First issues with the trip occured last night. At like 6pm Saturday evening, the TAs sent out an email informing us that they were unable to buy all our tickets for the 9am ferry. Therefore we would be divided into two groups and the one group would leave at 9:45am instead. I don't know why they emailed us Friday evening to tell us this when they had booked the tickets Thursday after class! (8:30am class) Gah.

Mau, being her usual overly punctual self, was the first one to arrive at the ferry terminal. Next rant topic: Punctuality. I'm a believe that if you agree to meet someone at 12:30, you should be there by 12:25. It ensures that you're on time even if you have different times on your watches and the like. I think that in the case of official functions, you should be extra careful with the time - especially if you're running the show. I think half the students had arrived before the prof showed up. (To be fair, the TAs were there after me, but my general state of irritation won't let me forgive anyone for anything right now.)

So we all managed to buy return ferry tickets (remember, I paid the TAs to buy my ticket there, but I was responsible for the ticket back). The lady at the ticket booth tried to charge me for a return ticket. It took several minutes to convince her that no I was not crazy - I only needed a one way ticket from Macau to HK.

The ferry ride itself was amusing. The prof stayed behind at the terminal to wait for the students who were going to catch the 9:45am ferry. I sat next to Jaspar (Netherlands) and he, Christine (Canada) and I yapped about the class and general disappointment. We all agree that the class that shattered our illusions that we might learn something was the silk farming class. It was fun.

As mentioned before, we were relying on public transportation to get around the city. This resulted in about 15 students waiting at a bus stop for 20 minutes while the damned bus came. Part of this waiting game was irritating, but I was also enjoying myself because I got a chance to talk to the TAs who are a lot more interesting than they seem in class.

We moseyed on over to the Taipa market, and thus began the official field trip.

Sadly field trip seems to entail taking us to random locations, and not explaining why we were there. Luckily there were those touristy plaques around we could read. Also, whenever we went somewhere, we weren't given enough time to look at things thoroughly. For example, we went to some historic avenue that was actually kind of interesting, but everytime I turned around, the class had moved on to the next building.

Lunch was amusing. I joined our prof (his group caught up with ours) along with some other students and went to a really good Portugese restaurant. I didn't know pork could be so tender. Conversations were a bit awkward with the random group, but we had a good time nonetheless.

The weird/amusing thing about lunch was the after-food chat. One of the local girls started talking about music and talking about how she likes Rock and folk music. (Is Michael Jackson considered rock? Or ghetto pop?) I don't know how to describe it, but here's an attempt. This girl is really nice and very friendly. However, if we had had this conversation with a person back in North America, I know we would all be thinking, "Oh my gawd, this person has mental issues" or "Oh my gawd, this girl is such a loser." But we couldn't in this situation because she was being completely authentic and just didn't know any better.

The next item on the agenda was the A-Mok Temple and the Maritime Museum, both of which I had gone to before. The only bummer is that we only like half an hour to visit both. I had taken at least an hour at the museum alone when I had been in Macau earlier. I avoided the temple due to the overwhelming clouds of incense and since by that time, we only had 30 minutes left, I decided not to go to the museum either. I just found a chair and proceeded to snooze.

Amusingly before my snooze session, I ran into a museum security guard who remembered me from the last time I was there. (He was the guy who asked if I was half-chinese.) We chatted for a few minutes and when I mentioned I was on a class trip, he assumed I was the prof. Har har har. No.

(Speaking of my prof, do you think it's professional to show up on an official school outing in jeans and an old t-shirt that's been randomly bleached (by accident)? He normally wears dress pants, work shirt to class.)

Off we went to visit the Camoes Museum which was nothing but a very "pretty" building according to my prof. There was apparently an art museum in the bottom floor of the building, but we didn't have time to visit it. Plus the building itself was covered in bamboo scaffolding, so I don't know why we went there. If we wanted to see Portugese architecture, we coulda picked any other building along the street.

Next was a church/cemetary that was actually pretty cool. It was neat reading all these tombstones from like 1825 and the like. I saw one tombstone for a woman who was murdered on a ship.

By this time we were thoroughly discouraged by the trip. The next planned stops were places I had been to before. I finally caved and told the prof that I would grab a taxi and head back to the ferry early. (No, I was not the first student to do this. Several others had also left early.) Christine joined me too. It's 8:16pm as I write this. If I hadn't left early, I'd probably just be getting off the ferry right now. Score!

One of the TAs passed me a copy of the requirements for our field report guide if we chose to write a report on Macau. This report is supposed to be done with our group... The report is only 1000 words!!! We, a 4 person group, are supposed to write that together? WTF??? At first I thought I was misunderstanding the TAs, but they left no doubt that this big field report I've been worrying about is a piece of cake.

Final complaint about the trip? My group didn't show up. I don't think this needs any further explanation as to why that irritates me.

Now I'm home and can sleep. Life is good. Tomorrow is Ocean Park!

Finally not being treated like an idiot

Well, it's been a week since my last blog. Nothing terribly exciting has happened, just the generic amusement of being in Hong Kong.

Tomorrow is going to be a good day for two reasons. First of all, Pei-chin is returning from China. It's been lonely in the room without her. Secondly, I'm going to Macau again.

The field trips in my Chinese History class have finally begun. However, the organization of the trips makes me wonder just how organized they are, or if this is "typical" of HK.

In Canada, a class field trip would include all necessary transportation and major rules to keep students from getting seperated and the like. For THIS field trip, we have to book our own tickets, use city buses to get around, grab taxis from some locations to others, and get back to the ferry on our own. To me, this screams "bad organization!" But on the other hand, could it be that our prof just assumes we're competent enough to get around on our own? I'll let you know after tomorrow.

Also, when I first met my group in the class, they mentioned they wanted to do our report on the Macau trip. Cool. However, yesterday when we were supposed to pay for our ferry tickets and sign up for which prof/ta we'd be joining, my group mates (who sit at the back of the class) left before doing anything. Umm... Guys? What group are you going with? Are you even going on the trip? Hello? Gah.

Back to the topic of being considered competent. CUHK seems to be an anthill of construction work. You can't walk 10 minutes around campus without bumping into men pouring cement or jack hammering away at your senses. The difference between construction in North America and Hong Kong is that in HK, the work is done right out in the open and you have to pick your way through it.

For example, you'll be walking down a street and suddenly the sidewalk disappears and there's a bunch of men working on it. Normally in NA, you'd have to cross to the other side or the workers would have created a roped off area for you to walk in. Here, you just pick your way through the construction and continue on.

Also at night, things are left just as they are - the workers assume you're smart enough not to do anything dumb and hurt yourself at the construction site. I remember being shocked when I was walking along a small tunnel and seeing that the workers had cut a hole in the wall and giant twisted metal spikes/cables were hanging out. If I had tripped or something, I could have easily impaled myself on them. The only "protection" the workers had placed on these things was an empty plastic bottle, just to help you notice their existence.

I guess the fear of lawsuits in North America makes our construction sites a lot more safety conscious than the ones here.

P.S.
If you value your sanity at all, avoid Sudoku. It's this evil little number game that I completely suck at but can't seem to tear myself away from. And I'm not just being modest when I say I suck at it. I consistently get lower scores than average (e.g. average time for an easy puzzle is around 8 minutes - I usually take about 15min). Despite this, I still play it for hours on end.

A good day by definition

I had such a blast today! I went ice skating today, out for yummy italian food, then to Mong Kok.

Photos for the evening were taken by Minnie and can be found here! (FYI, Miss Banana = Bernard)

Bernard (local), Minnie (local/Canada), Sarah (Beijing), Anna (unknown) and I went to Kowloon Tong today to go skating at the rink there. I had never seen it, so I assumed it was going to be a rink like the ones in Canada. Not so. It was located smack dab in the middle of the mall, where people could sit and eat snacks and watch the skaters. No pressure to not look like an ass, really.

It was fun though - I was too busy concentrating on staying on my own two feet to pay attention to the spectators. Bernard had never ever skated before, so we were trying to teach him. I don't know if I can claim that we succeeded, but he only fell once, and by the end of the session, he only flailed his arms around half as badly as when he began. :)

We then went for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant also in the mall. It was so delicious - I've missed italian food. The portions were huge, so we just ordered 4 things and shared them amongst each other.

My only complaint about the afternoon was the one girl. I have never met someone and immediately disliked them so much. The chick did not impress me at all. She started off our introductory conversation by bitching about the school, residence, etc. Then at dinner, she was bitching about a table of kids next to us who were celebrating a birthday party. The kids weren't bad - they were laughing loudly, but not shrieking or making a complete scene. She also ordered an alcoholic drink and a few minutes later, someone came out to confirm she was 18. She looked at the waitress and snarled, "Do I look like I'm fucking 18?" Jesus. The chick's just doing her job!

Okay, I'm done venting. After dinner, Sarah and Anna went around the store, and I fled with Bernard and Minnie since I couldn't stand the other chick.

We ended up going to Mong Kok and finding a small little restaurant/cafe/thing that sold drinks. I had the most delicious kiwi drink ever. The cool thing about the restaurant was that it had games like monopoly, chinese chess, and jenga. Minnie taught Bernard and I how to play Chinese Chess, then we played numerous games of Jenga. I love that game! It's been yeeears since I've played it.

After our game time, we ventured back out into Mong Kok and wandered around a random chinese mall. It was amusing, but not terribly news worthy.

I ended up going home after the mall though, because I wanted to catch the last shuttle bus back to I-House. I'm tired of walking up this damned mountain. It was especially nice to catch the shuttle because my knees were killing me from skating and I twisted my lower back when I tripped on the ice.

Fin.

P.S.
If you read this Bernard? That random $100 tucked into your bag is from me. The drinks were on me tonight. :P

Korean films - a new topic for my poems?

In my Chinese History class yesterday, the prof casually mentioned that we were officially half way through our school term. First thought? "Cool!" Second thought? "Wait... What can I tell you about chinese history now?" The answer? Nothing. I honestly cannot tell you a single thing about why the various states were united, pulled apart or how any of the other dynasties were formed. What I can tell you about is how to farm silk, and that there was a skank named Mei who became the first empress by screwing both father and son. I feel so scholarly being able to claim that. I think today I'll go to library or bookstore and buy a book on chinese history.

On Wednesday, Pei-chin celebrated her birthday. It's not actually until Sunday, but she had to leave for Beijing on Thursday, so we had early celebrations. I bought her a CD by her favourite Korean singer. She was so happy. The party was a lot of fun, there were like, 7 of our friends there. Good times man.

She left for Beijing the next morning. I woke up briefly at 4:30am to make sure she hadn't overslept, then by the time I woke up for real, she was gone. It's strange without her here. I've gotten so used to having a roommate, I actually miss her presence. Although I'll admit it's nice not having to wear earphones to listen to music.

I finally got to use my free movie ticket for the Korean movie. Amusingly we got into the VIP section because we had been turned away from the cinemas on Tuesday. Rock on! We got to stand in the VIP line, be escorted into the theater and got prime VIP seating. Very amusing. You can see Renee pointing to the VIP sign in the picture. :)

As for the movie... Oh my gosh is was so CUTE! I now have a mission to buy that movie where ever I can find it. Be it a legit or illegitimate DVD. It was such a fun and adorable movie. Now I understand why Korean movies are all the rage in Asia lately.

Anyways, candy is not breakfast. I'm about to lapse into a sugar coma, so I'm going to go now. Toodles!

An ode to my lover

I believe I've mentioned that my favourite snack here are the buns sold at cake stores. For less than 40 cents, you can buy buns filled with various things - be it bbq pork, ham and cheese, or coconut. I love them so much. And when Mau loves something, and is bored in class, it results in a poem expressing her love!

My ode to buns

A little piece of bread ain't nothin' great.
Or so I thought when I came to HK.
A friend invited me to the bread shop and I took the bait.
Now it's all they can do to keep me at bay.
Beef buns, cheese buns, coconut and ham,
I greedily gobble all with glee.
When that sweet bread hits my 'buds with a wham,
I know that it's the snack for me.

That's not airconditioning...

Holy crap! I was wondering why I was feeling so happy... I just checked the humidex and it's 33 degrees! Rock on! You can't see it, but I have a single tear of happiness rolling down my cheek right now.

I think I should write down some instructions for you folks back in North America. If my mom says it's okay to phone me at 7am in the morning (err, 7am my time), don't listen to her! I don't appreciate being rolled outta bed on my day off when I had every intention of sleeping in.

As you can guess, this exact situation occured this morning. My cell phone starts rining at 7:20am in the morning while both me and my roommate are still sleeping. I pick it up with a weary "'Lo?" and am greeted by some disgustingly chirpy voice. It took like 2 minutes for me to clue in that it was my sister, Melanie. Apparently she had been talking to my mom earlier in the evening (it was 7:20pm for her) and my mom reasoned that since I had been awake at 7am on a Saturday (for my history study tour), I'd probably be awake at 7am on a Tuesday. Hello????? I'm a frickin' university student. Like I'm awake that early by choice. Gah. Anyways, it was pleasant chatting with her, although I was beginning to fall asleep again by the end of our conversation.

If you want to phone me, email me and I'll contact YOU to let you know when a good time to call is. (a.k.a. never. :P)

Today was a relaxing day. I only left my residence once. I've been on the go so much lately that I just didn't feel like going out. So I stayed home, chilled, studied for my mandarin midterm and watched movies. I actually did leave the house for the movies, and that was mainly because I'm so used to leaving my dorm that I was feeling super bored by being here all day. I guess the next time I feel like "going out," I'll just go to the library or something.

So the plans for the weekend are:
-Saturday - Meet Bernard and Minnie and whoever else to go ice skating and then for dinner at some Italian restaurant. Mmm. Italian. And yay! Thank god I took skating lessons this summer. They probably won't help me too much, but at least I'll be able to stand up for more than 5 minutes.
-Sunday - Go to Shenzhen. That's the city located just across the border in China. It's a shopping paradise apparently, so Renee and I along with some others will head over there and check it out.

Flightplan was a plane crash.

Time keeps flowing, and the fun never ends. On Sunday I went out with Bernard and some of his friends to go to Lan Kwai Fong for a Rio Carnival.

First off though, we went to see a movie/documentary thingie at the HK Space Museum. It was being played on one of those giant dome movie screens, meaning you had to recline in your seat and stare at the ceiling. The movie was about Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It was pretty cool. I think I chose the wrong location to go on exchange. (Ouch! A return ticket from Hong Kong to Kilimanjaro is $3500CAD.)

After the movie, we moseyed on over to the Gateway mall and wandered around there while waiting for Bernard's friend Minnie to join us. We didn't want to shop (well, I didn't, and they didn't run into any stores) so we just kept doing laps around the mall. They kept following me even though I didn't know where the hell I was going! LOL, when we had passed the same store for the third time, I finally directed us down a set of escalators. So passed the time till dinner.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant in "Little India." The amusing part of this is that "Little India" is located in an area someone warned me against going into, because it's apparently also a place for drugs. I think the person who warned me against that was being a little naive and prejudiced against the population there though.

I was a bit concerned when entering the building (it's called the Chunking Mansion). Normally when I'm walking around Tsim Sha Tsui, I'm always getting harassed by the Indians to buy things and the like. Well, inside the front of the building was a small hoard of them. But this time, it wasn't me getting attacked. Minnie, Philip and I were busy talking, and suddenly I see a disturbance up ahead of us... There were like 5 Indian guys shoving flyers at Bernard, who was hunched over and running away. The sight made me think of a feeding frenzy. A police officer actually had to yell at them and drive them away. That was crazy.

Dinner was tasty. Don't know what more I can report on that.

We finally made it over to Lan Kwai Fong and got to see everyone doing the LKF thing - drinking alcohol. There were a gazillion small booths set up, selling food and other random things, but it wasn't terribly exciting otherwise. We made Bernard and Philip get their photos taken at one of the Samba dancer outfit thingies. See the picture of Philip to get the idea. :) Bernard kept laughing and pulling his head out of the hole, so I didn't get a good pic of him. :P

We ended up walking into a random bar (it specialized in tequila) and bought some drinks. It was fun just chatting with people who weren't exchange students (well, Minnie kinda is an exchange student, but isn't at the same time. Long story.)

More Rio photos can be found here.

The next day, I had made plans to go out with Renee and use up the free movie ticket I had received for a Korean movie. Well, we didn't realize just how far of a trip it was to the movie theater... It took us over an hour to get there on the MTR! Gah. Sadly, the theater was full by the time we got there, so we couldn't get into that movie. Our free tickets got extended though, so we're going to try to see the movie on Thursday instead.

Renee really wanted to watch a movie anyways, so we bought tickets for Flight Plan. Oh dear god. Words cannot express what a piece of crap that movie was. I haven't seen such a bad movie in yeeears. The premise was horrible, the dialog atrocious, and the acting made me want to weep. The most enjoyable thing about the movie was the popcorn we bought before going into it.

No bathroom stories this time

*** Edit: I forgot to upload the photos from the Summer Palace in Beijing to my Flickr account. They're now on there - just do a search in my photos for the tag "Summer Palace". Also, the photos have been updated to have descriptions and titles so you'll know what you're looking at now.***

Last night was a fabulous night. I got to relax in my bed and chat with Pei-chin. We discussed the differences in beauty and social structures in highschool. We also talked about the different challenges we've noticed or had to overcome while we've been here. It was fascinating seeing how she saw things.

Anyways, I dragged my ass (unwillingly) outta bed at 6am this morning so I could go on the History Study Tour I signed up for. I met my pals for breakfast (is a prepackaged ham/egg sandwich a breakfast?) before headed out to City University.

The tour was offered by City University... Amusingly, there were more CUHK students than City University students. Hee. We did the generic introductions (my name is, I'm from, I study, etc.) before getting on our way.

The prof leading the tour was a British fellow who had been in the government and retired just before the handover. He's the first white guy I've met who's fluent in Cantonese. (Seems reminiscent of my chinese massuer (you sure about that June?) who mentioned I was the first white girl to speak Chinese to him.) Whoops. I'm off topic.

Anyways, the prof was a fantastic speaker. I was really tired, so I didn't absorb much of his talk, but we got a brief outline of Hong Kong history from like, 1000AD to the 1800s.

We walked around some historical areas in the New Territories. It was amazing. If you were dropped into the middle of one of this villages, you wouldn't know you were in Hong Kong. They were crazy old and falling apart. One of my fave stops was at a temple on the side of the ocean - you could see the oyster beds (millions of oysters) and moving between them were fiddler crabs and mud skippers. The ground crawled with them. I was also amused by visiting one of Hong Kong's largest ancestral temples and learning about the inter-village wars and whatnot. It was like stepping into the past.

My regular history prof didn't instill much confidence in me as a professor though. Half the time the British Prof was lecturing MY teacher and my prof didn't know a thing about it. However, to be fair, I learned that my prof was born in Guangdong so I'll forgive him for not knowing much about Hong Kong history. But anyways, the Brit prof was a great speaker. He knew everything about everything and it seems like he's been everywhere in the New Territories.

I think one of the more fascinating things we learned about was the government housing projects. For the uninformed (which I assume is most of you), historically Hong Kong has been periodically flooded with refugees. Normally they set up squats and eventually return home when the trouble is over.

The last major wave was in 1949 during the Communist takeover in China. However the squatters didn't leave this time. A fire started in one of the larger squatting communities (there's another name for these, but I can't think of it right now), resulting in a large number of deaths and left even more people without shelter.

So the government held some emergency meetings and within a couple of days, decided to set up some cheap housing so that all these poor/destitute people could afford the houses but at the same time, the government wouldn't have to subsidize the housing too much. Cheap and poor quality houses were built and people moved in. (This was started in 1954.)

About 20 years later the government decided to "up" the quality of the public housing. It was discovered that there were enough people living in and around them that it was worth putting more effort into the houses. So they began to incorporate a shopping centre at the centre of each housing project and also ensured that there was good public transportation (each project has 2 bus stops directly at the project, with another 4 bus routes travelling through). Schools are built by the government, and organizations will purchase the right (paying a quarter of the cost) to run the school. If I remember correctly, each project accomodates approximately 8000 people.

Apparently housing is getting another "update" now, with better quality being offered and the like. I can't wait to see the inside of an apartment now. The housing lecture only lasted for like 15 minutes, but it was fascinating.

Mau, now available in extra crispy!

So tired. Last week I signed up to go on an island tour offered by the Chinese Language Centre here at CUHK. It was meant to be a ferry ride around some islands in the New Territories and the objective was to speak in Mandarin/Cantonese for the entire day.

Well, we rode the ferry and saw the islands, but the Mandarin/Cantonese conversations were none-existant.

Pei-chin and I woke up at 7am to get ready because we had to be at the language centre by 8:30am. Gah. Much too early in my opinion.

Anyways, the day was a lot of fun. I hung out with a bunch of European students that I never really hung out with before, so it was fun getting to know them better and chat about nothing in particular.

It took us about an hour and a half to get to the first island. The island, Ap Chau, we visited was supposed to be known for it's certain rock formations that looked like a duck's eyes, feet, and head. I think someone was smoking weed when they saw these things, because the "Eye" was a mere cave that looked like a generic cave. I was more amused by poking at crabs with my pen than looking at the rock formations. We had barely been on the island for 20 minutes before we were ushered back on to the ferry to go to the next island.

The next island, Kat-O, took about another 20 minutes to reach. We were supposed to have lunch there, so Kristin and I decided to make a quick bathroom break. Err, maybe I should call it a hole break? Yeah. Even the bathrooms in Beijing weren't this scary. It was a hole in the floor, with a bucket of water to "flush" with afterwards. Oh well. At least Beijing had prepared me for squatting. (I think I've grown an unhealthy obsession for describing bathrooms.)

Lunch was amusing. We sat with people in other introductory mandarin classes. One guy had brought along his girlfriend from Holland (she had flown in the day before) so this was her first "real" chinese meal. Unfortunately for her, it was also very authentic... With the entire chicken being served on a platter, squid balls, octopus tentacles and the like. You could tell she was a wee bit horrified. The food was okay. Nothing terribly fantastic, and I'll admit that I took a perverse pleasure in "slurping" up my octopus tentacle. (I also gained shock factor points for picking up a random internal organ from the chicken and eating it - turns out it was liver.)

We got to wander around the island for a bit and everyone stopped at this random dessert place in the middle of the fishing village. They were buying weird desserts they couldn't name and stuff like that. I tried some weird green sticky pasty thing and also had a rice ball full of peanuts - the thing was SOOOO tasty! *drool*

It was interesting walking around the village because it was very authentic. People were doing their everyday things - I don't think tourists go there that often.

We returned to the ferry and had to travel for another hour or so to reach the final island, Ping Chau. The ride over was fun because we sat in the prow of the boat so we had a great breeze and the sun was shining on us. (I got a wee bit burnt on my nose - hence my blog title.) Once in awhile the boat would hit a wave and splash us a bit. I wasn't feeling particularly safe though considering I was at the very very very front of the boat and the ropes that were meant to act as a fence from falling off were merely tied in a loose knot. (Note that I noticed how unsafe my "railing" was but that I didn't move. Har har har.)

The final island was pretty nifty. It was covered in sedimentary rock that was fun to walk on. I felt bad for our tour guides because trying to get us to walk from one destination to another was like herding cats. (Then again, you normally don't try to herd people by speaking in a language they don't understand - all instructions were given in Cantonese.) The weather was so beautiful that a bunch of us took off our shoes and wandered into the water. However, again we were in there for a mere 5 minutes before the guides began shoving us away.

We walked around the edge of the island to two large rocks that were jutting upwards. We all got on them and the guides took our photo - it was a photo op for the Chinese Language Centre - there was a banner saying something good about the CLC and whatnot. Afterwards I got to spend some more time poking sea life (mainly sea urchins) with my pen before being shooed off again.

The village on this island was by far the most "authentic" of 'em all. The houses were lacking in things such as running water, electricity and sometimes roofs, but it was all good. I saw the most decrepit bathroom EVER while I was there. It was a small stall with a lawn chair. On the middle of the chair seat was a hole. Below the hole was a bucket. I don't think I need to elaborate on this anymore.

We returned to the ferry and it soon became apparent just how badly the heat/sun had hit us that day. Everyone began dropping like flies, going to the sweet land of sleep. I managed to stretch out and fall asleep for like 45 minutes. When I finally got home, I never realized how nice a shower could feel until I had to wash off my grime from the day.

Beijing Bootcamp

Dear Beijing,

Thank you for the lovely weekend. I had a good time visiting you. I wish I could have stayed with you longer, but my tour (and money) lasted only so long. I'd appreciate it if you provided better washroom facilities for my next visit.

See you again,
Maureen

Beijing photos can be found here!

Wow. My trip to Beijing was a veritable whirlwind! As mentioned, I had joined a Cantonese tour group to go to Beijing for 5 days. There were 5 of us going on the trip: Liz, Lani, Jenny, and Gloria. Well, the trip started off a little bumpily by having everyone (except me) sleep in on Friday. We were supposed to meet at 5:45am (I was there at 5:35), and no one showed up till 6:05am. Oh well.

We flew via Dragonair. For those of you who plan to travel around Asia by plane one day... Take these guys - the plane and service kicked ass. They had such yummy food, comfy seats and good movies. :)

We arrived in Beijing around 12:30pm. This is when I saw my tour group for the first time. They seemed to be comprised of a bunch of non-English speaking (imagine that) Hong Kongers who weren't very subtle at staring at the white kids in their midst. We boarded our shuttle, which was surprisingly comfy. We were first warned against talking about economics and Christianity. We were also given the generic spiel about watching out for pickpockets.

Amusing anecdote: On the bus ride over, our tour guide told us her phone number. She told everyone to get out a pad of paper to write it down. At this point, I was rummaging around in my purse for some gum, but Gloria thought I had actually understood the cantonese and was about to write down the phone number. Silly girl.

My first impression of Beijing? Sweet weather! God. I nearly wept with joy upon feeling the non-humid air. It was nice and cool - there were times on the trip when I actually wore my light jacket! *happy*

I was shocked by Beijing's appearance. I was expecting something more like Hong Kong. After all, Beijing is the world's most populous city, and it's also the capital and one of the most historical places in all of China. Therefore I thought I'd be seeing lots of skyrises and modern buildings, but with a mixture of the old. Well, it definitely lacked in the modern area, and had an overabundance in the old. The first thing you notice about Beijing is that it's very rundown. There are random well kept areas, but for the most part, it's very messy/dirty and nothing is well preserved. That includes in museums and popular tourist locations.

The first thing we did in China was to go for lunch. At first I was wondering what kind of tour I had signed up for, because we drove down a decrepit looking street with random dirt piles and bricks piled up, but in the midst of it all was a nice restaurant. This is when we met Harry, Louis, Henrietta, and Ming Ming. These were 4 nice Hong Kongers around 30 years old. They were such a blast to hang out with. They all spoke English really well and were absolutely hilarious. We had dinner with them every meal from then on. We've already made plans to get together for dinner now that we're back in Hong Kong.

Amusing knowledge: In China, it's customary to rinse your dishes in tea before eating from them, to get rid of any dust/dirt that has collected on them.

I'm now going to try to summarize the events of my trip... It's going to be a bit choppy because we did so much, I forget half of what I did!

Immediately after lunch, we hit up the Forbidden City. It was amazingly beautiful there. Everything was so ornate and there was a lot of hidden meaning behind every little pattern. I don't really know what to say here. It was a bit frustrating because the tour was moving really fast because the city was closing, and I didn't know what the tour guide was saying. (I didn't want to interrupt her to ask Jenny/Gloria for translations.) Despite that, it was very neat because some rooms were left exactly as they were hundreds of years ago.

The next stop was Tiananmen Square. The square was just that. A square. Full of people. It was filled by mass amounts of people and chinese guards, but there wasn't much to see. There were photos of Mao and Sun Yat Sen. It was interesting watching the locals though. The fashion style in Beijing is very traditional/conservative. The men often wore brown/navy jackets that made me thing of the 1950s or Maoist uniforms. Strange indeed.

After hanging around the square for awhile, we walked around the surrounding area, and finally ended up at a location that had a long street of food stalls. We were informed that the food was safe to eat (I had packed my anti-diarreah pills just in case). I ended up buying a stick of Swallows (you know, the bird?). They were surprisingly tasty, but had a few too many herbs on them for my taste. I ate 3 of them and threw out the last 2.

Amusing anecdote: Lani stopped to take a photo at the stall selling scorpions, seahorses, and other assorted bugs on sticks. However, the stall vendor yelled at her, "Photo, $1!" Then he randomly points to a sign above his stall and indicates that that's what the sign was. This might have worked... Except that Lani reads chinese. She and he start arguing, "That doesn't say that!" "Photo! $1!" Finally she snaps a photo anyways and the man starts laughing and says, "Okay, take photo, take photo!"

We retired to our hotel room after having dinner (my swallows were a mere appetizer). The hotel was damned swank. We had a living room and then a large bedroom with a double and single bed. Liz ended up sleeping with Lani and I. We crashed pretty early because we were exhausted.

Our first stop of the following day was a state-run Jade factory/store. That was pretty damned cool. We got to learn how to tell the difference between different types and grades of jade. We also saw how they make jade. Then we were ushered into a large large large jade store. The things there were so pretty. And so expensive. I caved to the prettiness though and purchased a Grade A jade bangle. I thought it was purdy. And when I told my parents how much it cost, they didn't disown me, so I consider it to be a good investment.

After the store, we hit up the Summer Palace - the vacationing palace for Empress Cicxi. Apparently it cost so much that China became significantly poorer when she built it, so she's not too well liked historically. Anyways, the palace was amazingly beautiful. It was sooo pretty with a huuuuge lake and lots of trees. This time I got to learn a bit more about the place because I rented an audioguide... A little machine you wore around your neck that would automatically start talking about each location you went to in the palace. Very nifty.

We doubled back to go to Beihei Park (I think that's how it's spelled). It's a famous park because an emperor hung himself there. (Notice how I'm not actually naming these famous people? I can't remember or pronounce their names. That's why.) From it's peak, you could overlook the entire Forbidden City. Can we say cool?

Amusing snide remark: When Lani was on top of the park peak, she was trying to take a photo of Gloria, but there were so many tourists that she couldn't get Gloria alone in the photo. She kept saying in a loud voice, "There's someone in the background AGAIN, let me try taking it again." Another random tourist told her, "There are over a billion people in China. I think there's ALWAYS going to be someone in the background. LOL.

Before we went to the park though, we got to ride on some rickshaws through some backstreets. It was fun and scary at the same time. I kept thinking we were going to hit a curb and tip over, or collide with another biker/car. We went through some of the generic alleys/houses - those areas I mentioned that are run down but are regular housing here. It was a fun ride, and as soon as I nab Lani's photos, you can see a video of the ride. :)

Another place we went to was a silk factory. This was kind of disappointing (especially considering I had learned all about silk farming in my chinese class the thursday before *hiss*). Basically we learned about the life cycle of a silk worm, saw how they worked the silk into a blanket, then we were shoved into the silk store where the cheapest item cost like $800rembini. Doh.

That evening we went to Dr. Tea - a famous state-owned teahouse in China that wins lots of competitions and the like. We lucked out and got an English lecturer to explain to us how to make proper chinese tea, and explain the differences between the different types of tea. We got to try 5 different kinds of tea. My favourites were the pureh tea and the Jasmine tea. So yummy! I also got this ultra-groovy mug that had a black background with red characters on it. When you fill the mug with hot water though, the black and characters fade away, and it's replaced with a picture of the Forbidden City. That was just too cool to pass up.

At dinner, one of the girls wanted to buy a beer to go with her meal, so she and the another girl went to a bar in the restaurant we were at. However, when the girl got her beer, it was completely flat and bad. So she kept whining about how horrible it was. I get that she was complaining because she didn't want to ask the other girl to help her get a new beer and was hoping she would offer. Well, the other girl finally got the hint and they went to get a new beer. Turns out all the beer was flat by several months. Even after she managed to procure a fresh bottle, she kept complaining, "I can't believe how bad that beer was" blah blah blah. Shaddup girl. >:|

After dinner we returned to the hotel. Jenny, Gloria and I wanted to go shopping and check out the town a bit on our own. Lani and Liz were too tired and were going to crash early. So I moved in with Jenny and Gloria for the second night. We nabbed a taxi to a nearby shopping centre for a mere $15 rembini. Unfortunately the store was closing and everything was super expensive there. Ridiculously expensive in fact. So we decided to just go back to the hotel instead. We grabbed another taxi, showed the driver the hotel's business card (with a map showing where the hotel was). He nodded and said he knew where it was and began driving off. Jenny and I were yapping in the back seat... Well, by the time $15 showed up on the metre, we were nowhere near the hotel. And we were on random ass back streets. By $17, Jenny and Gloria finally growled at him in mandarin asking if he really did know where the place was or not. The driver nodded and made a not-so-subtle u-turn and withing 2 minutes were were back at our hotel. Frickin' bastard would have driven us around all night if we hadn't said anything.

The next day, we started off by going to a Chinese medicine store. Can we say infomercial? There was a salesman talking in Cantonese for an hour about the different types of medicine they sold and how to use it. It was warm in the room and everyone began falling asleep. We got free samples of some random patches that do something that I don't understand.

Now comes the best part of my trip. The next stop was the Great Wall. Gawd. It was amazing to see. It seems kind of surreal, knowing that I've actually been on it. Sadly we only had 2 and a half hours to spend there, but it's not that sad because part of the wall was closed to visitors. I don't know if you knew this, because I certainly didn't... But the Great Wall is freakin' steep man! Seriously, even I, with all my height, had difficulty climbing some of the steps there. Long live hand rails! And when you climbed one flight of stairs, you were tired and wanted to rest, but there were hawkers there trying to convince you to buy pictures and souvenirs, and the only way to get away from them was to keep walking. The wall shows mercy to no one.

I was eager to climb, so I left everyone behind (they kept stopping every 5 seconds to snap photos of themselves on the wall). I just wanted to reach the peak and look over the rest of the wall. God it was beautiful. I didn't realize how tiring getting up there was until I was on my way down. Climbing down the wall was a lot more strenuous than climbing up. You're constantly paranoid you're going to trip and fall and there's nothing to catch you! You'd just roll and roll till you hit a landing. Ouch man. My legs were trembling the entire way down. I don't know what else I can say about the wall. It's everything like it appears in the photos. I want to go back sometime and spend several days hiking along it. It would be fantastic.

I descended the wall and caught up with Jenny and Gloria (poor Jenny was afraid of heights and is super short, so she didn't go up too far, and Gloria, being the good friend she is, stuck with Jenny). We went back down and checked out the souvenir stores. We bargained for and bought some of those "I climbed the Great Wall" t-shirts. Yay. Jenny described me as being shameless when it comes to bargaining. I managed to get one lady to drop the price on some bookmarks from $20 each to 2 for $3. Ha! (Bargaining always gives me a delicious sense joy.)

After lunch we went to the Ming Tombs. It's a series of tombs that were excavated in recent history. The above ground area reminded me of home because it had cedar trees, or at least the chinese equivalent of them. We had to go through a security check to get into the tomb. (That's kind of weird... There was no security for the Forbidden City or anywhere else we went to - just for Tiananmen Square and the Ming Tombs.) The tomb itself was kind of disappointing. There wasn't anything inside except for a few non-convincing replicas items. Oh well. The place was pretty so it made up for it's lack.

Another amusing anecdote: Before we went to the tomb, we had lunch and each table had received 2 free bottles of liquor - 56% alcohol! So even though none of us drank the alcohol, we all took the bottles with us anyways. Who knows, we could have had a party that night at the hotel. :) However, when we went to the security checkpoint in the tomb, we had to leave our alcohol at the security desk. There were like 30 mickeys of alcohol at the guard station. LOL. And I didn't realize it till afterwards, but none of us returned to pick ours up. I hope the guards enjoyed it.

The next stop on our tour amused me a great deal. We went to the most decrepit apple orchard I had EVER seen. But the Hong Kongers were completely psyched because they got to pick their own apples and eat them directly off the tree. (I doubt that was very hygenic.) I had fun because all the good apples were at the tops of the trees, so I'd hoist Gloria up and have her grab them. It was fun seeing how enthusiastic the tour group was at this orchard. If only they could see Meaford - then they'd know what a real apple orchard looked like.

That night we changed from our regular hotel to go to a hot spring resort in the middle of the countryside. It was soooo pretty! It was also so expensive! The room we got cost $700rembini/night. But it had it's own private backyard and hot spring! Can we say swank? Jenny, Gloria and I snagged the one room for ourselves and promptly made use of the hot tub until like midnight. Then we went for a walk along the grounds. It was a great place.

The next morning we returned to Beijing and went to a Brass Enamel factory. Now that was nifty to go to. You could actually watch through the windows as they hand made chinese vases with copper wire designs on them. The wares were absolutely gorgeous. I wish I could have bought something, but everything was super expensive. Even the cheap little keychains were like $5CAD. Crazy man.

Amusing anecdote: Bathrooms in Beijing are all equipped with doors and locks. However, it seems that one out of every five people opt not to use them. Liz went to the washroom and immediately walked right back out. Turns out there was an old lady squatting there, talking on her cell phone well doing a number 2. LOL.

We also got to go to a Chinese mall that's apparently notorious for it knockoff products. We were warned to looked out for our purses/wallets and to bargain like there's no tomorrow. Liz, Lani and Gloria failed to take the last advice seriously. They got so ripped off they didn't even realize it until Harry asked how much they had paid... The look on his face said it all. :) I think the most amusing thing about that store is that it had signs posted all over, requesting customers to NOT buy knockoff goods. They're posted in a store that's reknowned for it. Whoops!

We went to a nice random park for a stroll after our lunch that day. It was pleasant to be able to just walk around without worrying about the historical value of this rock or that twig. It was also a lot of fun, because by now it was our 4th day and the group was really beginning to bond. While waiting for everyone to gather again to leave, we played some weird game that was like hackey sack, but with feathers attached to the ball... So it was a cross between hackey sack and badminton. The Western kids put their continent to shame by not having any eye/foot coordination, while Hong Kong was being represented by an old man who kicked our asses.

Next on the agenda was a trip to a Chinese Medicine research centre. That was nifty, learning a bit about it. After the lecture, we each got to have our health checked by a doctor. They managed to find a translator for us white kids, so it was fun. The guy took my wrist and starts checking my pulse. Then he asks me to stick out my tongue. Then he asks how old I am. The final question, "Do you have a regular period?" These people are too interested in my biological functions for my comfort. I was given a clean bill of health, although Jenny was informed that her liver was too hot and Liz apparently has a cold uterus. Weird.

We then had the option of buying a cheap $20 massage from the doctors. When will I ever be able to have a massage in Beijing again? I had to sit on a little folding stool and the man went to it with a gusto. Half way through, I wondered if it was supposed to be a massage or punishment. He managed to find every single pressure point in my body. At one point he started smacking me across the top of the head. Then he tilted my head back and I swear, he was trying to remove my eyebrows by sheer friction. LOL. It was wack. But amusingly so. (Mel, when I get home, you'll have to desmonstrate the difference between a Western and Eastern massage!) While waiting for the rest of the group to get done, I moseyed on outside and had a brief chat with a guy from Holland who randomly walked up to me.

On the fourth night, we went to see a Chinese mask show. I can't remember it's proper name, but it's one of those acts where the man changes his mask in the blink of an eye and you can't figure out how he does it. The show started off with some generic circus acts which were pretty cool. I was holding my breath during one act where two men pushed against each other as hard as they could while having a spear suspended between them. Gah. The mask changing act was pretty cool, but I think I missed the first 5 changes because I was too busy watching his dancers. (I didn't realize he was changing his mask because he was so damned fast!)

The next day, we went to the Northern Gate. It's a gate with a higher entry ledge than normal. The emperor only used that gate when he was going to war. The entire place was Feng Shui approved, so we had to enter the gate using our left foot and ascend the stairs on the right because they had a lucky number of stairs and so on. The lecture inside the gate was all about Feng Shui and was kind of amusing. Then we got to see a Jade dragon carving that you were supposed to rub for luck and then put your hands in your pockets to carry the luck back home. The people laughed when us Western kids rubbed the dragon too. After the lecture we were once again shoved into a store. Surprise surprise.

Afterwards, we got to walk around a small money museum at the base of the Northern Gate. It was interesting, but it would have been more interesting if there had been english explanations. I found the English in Beijing to be very random. Some places had English equivalents to all signs in Chinese. This place would have random English titles, and then maybe 2 or three translations throughout the rest of the museum. There was also a small bazaar at the museum. (June, I tried buying you a fish keychain, but the lady didn't want to bargain - I ain't paying $20RMB for one of those things.)

Our final stop in Beijing was a surprise treat for us (although I don't understand how it can be a treat when we paid for it). We went for a foot massage! (First off, I'd like to mention that of all the bathrooms I encountered in Beijing, the ones there (they were in a random sports stadium) were possibly the worst. There was piss all over the floors, the doors didn't close/lock, there was no toilet paper or soap. I think I OD'd on my hand sanitizer after using them.) Ahem. Anyways.

We got to sit down and soak our feet in buckets of tea (yes, tea) and listen to how feet are so important blah blah blah and learn about "acupoints" and so on. Once the lecture was over, a bunch of masseuses (what's the plural of masseuse?) filed into the room and we each got our own. Sadly my masseuse's English extended itself to "Hello" and to ask me, "You American?" But HA! Finally my mandarin course came in handy! I was able to tell him (in Chinese) that I was Canadian. The look of shock on his face was great. He starts yammering on in Chinese, but I had to interrupt him and say (again, in Chinese) that my chinese wasn't very good. Luckily Gloria was sitting beside me so she was able to translate for me. Apparently I'm the first foreigner he's ever heard speak chinese. Hee.

Anyways, the rest of the conversation was strange because it consisted of him asking me questions, Gloria translating them, and me responding in broken chinese. (Well, by responding, I mean giving yes/no answers or saying thank you.) Despite this, I had a blast. The guy gave me a huge boost to my self-esteem. :) He asked about my nose piercing. We were able to exchange names and ages in chinese too. :) He complimented my legs, "You have such nice white calves!" (Remember, they value white skin over here. LOL) Then he says (and remember, Gloria's translating), "You have tantalizing eyes." As mentioned, my chinese isn't very good, so all I could say was thanks. LOL. He also asked if I thought he was handsome. Damn straight he was good looking. :) A resounding "Shi" (yes) was given. Heh. Then he asked Gloria if I had a cracker. She was thorougly confused, but a quick little language lesson finally revealed that "cracker/candy" is Beijing slang for boyfriend/girlfriend. LOL. That guy made my entire trip worth it because it was so funny. Gloria and I got our photo take with both of our masseuses. She needs to send it to me still.

Sadly after the foot massage, we had to return to the airport. So sad, so sad. It was hot at the airport. They didn't have any A/C on, so I broke out my cheap chinese fan and was fanning myself. The chinese employees smirked whenever they saw me - they probably thought I was trying to be all sophisticated or something.

We managed to get on the train with no problems, and yay! We were sitting next to Harry and the rest of our table gang. We had a great time on the plane ride back.

Thus ended my Beijing adventure. I know I forgot to mention a lot of the things I had done in this entry, but I'll try to recreate the entire trip in more detail when I get the rest of the photos from the other people. Beijing definitely gave me a new appreciation for Hong Kong and the Western lifestyle in general.

New habits

I had a big blog message prepared yesterday, but it got erased somehow. So here's my attempt to recreate the original wackiness of my message.

Since I've come here, I've noticed a few small changes about my reactions. One of the most amusing changes is that out habit, I now say "m goi" instead of "excuse me" and "due m jue" instead of "sorry." I accidentally bumped into other exchange students and say sorry in cantonese rather than in English. This will be even more amusing when I tell you that most cantonese people here say "sorry" in English. (Or, with their accent, "sowwy.")

I think one of the main things I miss about UW is the Student Life Centre. At CUHK, there's no place like that on campus. The only place to chill is at the library... Which isn't exactly a relaxing atmosphere, especially since most of the students there actually study. The only other alternatives are going to the main student canteens on campus, but they're always super busy and noisy and not comfy at all. Yup... I definetely have a new appreciation for the SLC.

(Oh, another thing I miss about Canada... Milk. I can buy it here, but it's much more expensive (nearly $3CAD for a liter). Plus, even though I buy skimmed/low fat milk, the fact that I can practically chew the beverage kinda puts me off.

I think my chinese teacher is incapable or giving a student a perfect mark. He gave me 99% on my chinese test... And the only reason I lost the mark is because our textbook was wrong. He's also anally corrective about our chinese characters. On my first homework assignment, he went through and corrected on my characters (the character for "middle") - the only way I could have made my lines straighter is if I broke out a ruler. Even Pei-chin agreed that he was being ridiculous. Despite my mean description of him, our prof is super good. He's always happy. I've never seen him without a smile. (Which, come to think of it, is reeeally disturbing.)

Speaking of my chinese class... My sister completely slammed me and my intellect. And she did it well. We're having a competition to see who gets the higher marks, and I mentioned my 99% in my chinese character quiz. Her response: so what you're saying is that your classes are like kindergarten? You get graded on how well you can draw-- I knew you university students were slackers but come on... ;)

Damn. Should have seen that one coming.

Last night I went to Mong Kok (again) with Pei-chin and Wen Li. I'm glad I went, because I never hang out with them (well, I see Pei-chin everyday, but we never do anything together). We had a blast. They both wanted to buy shoes (I didn't want to buy anything, but I wanted to oggle the wares anyways) so we went to the shoe street of Mong Kok. This street is 2-3 city blocks long, and all it has are running shoes/sports stores. The variety of running shoes here is mind boggling. 5 hours and no purchases later, I finally cracked and had to leave. I don't mind shoe shopping, but I need to see some results of the exhibition.

The bonus of my Mong Kok night was that I finally purchases sustenance from a food stall. (Mom, you would have died from seeing the food left out in the open.) I have no idea as to what I ordered... I pointed to some random meatball looking thing and a roundish idunnowhat. The meatball thing ended up tasting like sausages, and the idunnowhat contained shredded veggies wrapped in some dough/pastry thing. It had enough oil/grease to last me a life time. I estimate that my insides will begin to liquefy and my skin boil off within the next 24 hours. I also had authentic chinese bubble tea finally. It was tea-licious. The tapioca balls were disturbingly squishy in my mouth though.

Oh, and I've finally found out what I want to do for a living. I'm going to be a silk worm farmer! I dragged my ass to my 8:30am History class (emphasis on the History) this morning... The lecture only lasted an hour! And I didn't learn any history in it! We talked about SILK FARMING! GAH! Half the time the prof just copies and pastes his information from Wikipedia, and the other half, it's not history related! Can you sense my frustration?

Tonight the tentative plan is to go see the movie, "Everlasting Regret," starring two of my all time fave actors, Sammi cheng and Daniel Wu. I'm psyched baby.

However, I'm even more psyched about this weekend. Why's that you ask? I'm headed to Beijing for 5 days! For just under $500CAD, I have a roundtrip plane ticket, 4 nights in 4 star hotels, 12 meals, a guided tour and so on. I'm going with several Americans and a local student I think. That means I have to pack tonight, then meet my friends tomorrow at 5:30am. I'm enthusiastic about the trip if not the time.

It's time for me to go procrastinate now. Fare thee well!

Sogo is a no go.

I've been having a good time the last few days. On Thursday Emily, Sarah and I went to Mong Kok. We hadn't been there in awhile and felt like trying to recapture the fun of the first week of Hong Kong. Well, mission partially accomplished.

Emily's been spending too much money, so she's trying to slow down, therefore she couldn't buy anything in Mong Kok. Sarah actually has willpower and didn't want anything, and I successfully bought the one thing on my shopping list at one of the first stalls I went to. My sunglasses broke, so I needed a new pair. The lady tried to charge me $230 for a pair. I made a big production out of being shocked by the price and replied, "I was thinking of paying maybe $50!" End result: I paid $70HKD. :)

Sarah ended up having to leave early, so Emily and called in recruits to continue our shopping expedition. Kim and Jenny answered our call, and we met at the Mong Kok mall. Hong Kong stores need some kind of consistency. Either you have too many service people, or not enough. Well, I found a place with the former. In one cosmetic store, a sales lady followed me around for about 45 minutes, all the while standing several feet from me. At first it was uncomfortable, but then I began having to fight off laughter. I'd shift and move a foot away, she'd walk a foot towards me. It was amusing.

We ended up going for dinner at some kind of Japanese restaurant (with one of those stereotypical sushi conveyor belts) that's rapidly becoming known among exchange students for it's cheap alcoholic drinks... $18 for a vodka and tonic... That's less than $3CAD folks. It was fun with lots of girl gossip going on.

The next day was the grand opening of a new Japanese department store known as Sogo. The girls really wanted to go there, so I decided to tag along, inviting Pei-chin and her friends along as well. We ended up travelling as a pack to Tsim Sha Tsui and having dinner at another Japanese restaurant. The food was delcious! I ordered dessert too. Apparently what's shown in the picture is known as "Strawberry Milky Slush." The thing was much more massive than anticipated, so I recruited help and everyone dug into the thing.

Sogo was not what I was expecting. I thought that department store meant something like Walmart or Zellers. Not so. Sogo was a large mall with a bunch of expensive boutiques in it instead. Meaning I didn't see a thing in there for under $400HKD.

Pei-chin, Wen Li, Jen and I ended up leaving the others there and going back to Tsim Sha Tsui to wander around the stores there. I love TST, it's so bright and colourful. It's touristy, but it's the way you picture Hong Kong to be in your head. We hit up a few smaller stores but had to head back to the University in order to catch the last shuttle back to residence.

We had a good time. People kept complimenting my eyes... I liked the conversation. :) I was also called "cute" for the first time in a weird sense that I can't quite explain. Sarah (from Beijing) was insistent that I was cute (she was implying it in a girly-cute kinda way) that was very different from how I think of myself. Then again, since I've been here, my sarcasm levels have dropped dramatically and my whole sense of humour has changed, mainly because most people wouldn't understand my jokes. So it's strange knowing people are liking me for different reasons than they would in Canada.

Today, Pei-chin, Wen Li, Lee-Min and I went to Lamma island. You can check out my photos from the island here.


Lamma Island is Hong Kong's third largest island. It has no cars or buses and is only accessible by ferry. It was very touristy but also very pretty. It's famous for it's seafood. So our plan was to go to the island, check it out, and maybe eat some seafood.

Well, we saw the island. However, the restaurant we went to was ridiculously expensive. (Shrimp for 3 people would have cost us $35CAD - a high price in Hong Kong.) We ordered some cheaper food, but it was taking forever to get there, so we ended up getting up and leaving instead. The girls bought some fish balls from a roadside stall, while I nabbed myself a sandwich from a bakery. (I love bakeries here.)

We made our way to the beach. It was so pretty. Unfortunately it also had a lot of broken seashells, making walking barefoot a real pain. Literally. We hung out for a bit then continued our trek.


We had read that you could walk from one end of the island to the other within about an hour and a half to two hours. No one mentioned that this hike was freakin' uphill. We got up the first curve and saw the long line of people ahead of us and began to freak out. I saw a white couple coming and asked how long it was to the other side of the island. We found out that we were about half way there, so I made the group decision to continue walking. Luckily it was only the first part of the trek that was uphill - the last 30 minutes was in the shade and going downhill. I feel very accomplished for sticking it out, especially since it was a freakin' hot hot day, reminiscent of the first week we were in Hong Kong.

After Lamma Island, we went to Central to eat. I'm really surprised by the lack of fast food in Hong Kong. McDonald's and KFC are two of the few (I can only think of maybe 2 other fastfood places) fast food chains around here. And sadly, it's cheaper to eat at McDonald's than it is for me to eat on campus. A McChicken Sandwich combo costs less than $3.50CAD here.

Today was a public holiday in Hong Kong. Apparently it's the celebration for the foundation of the People's Republic of China. So we headed out to the waterfront to see the fireworks. (Photos can be seen here.) The fireworks were good - not terribly exciting, although there were a few types I had never seen before. I think they just had a bigger budget for their fireworks. Some of the cool new explosions I got to see included a circle shape with the #8 inside (which either stands for long life, or for "8 years since the handover"), and red fireworks that exploded into star shapes... Which I'm positive represents the stars on China's flag.

We decided that it was time to go back home after the fireworks, especially since it had been 12 hours since we had left in the morning. On the train ride home, I tried to crush a woman by losing my balance on the subway (of course, this is after I joked about how I didn't need to hold on to a handrail). She literally had to grab my arm and push me away, otherwise I would have fallen into her.