First Day of School.

I've had one class so far. It was 3 hours long. Luckily we got a break to go stretch for 10 minutes in the middle of it. The class structure is basically the exact same as a class at SUU would be, lectures, group presentations, quizzes, expensive textbook. Except the expensive textbook seems expensive because it's 250 HK$, but in the US that is only $32, which is relatively cheap. Here is the weird part about class at CityU... I walk in and see a cluster of Chinese students that all know each other and are sitting near each other so I sit relatively close to them but not too close that I will invade their space. I mean I wanted to make friends, but how do I jump in on a conversation when it is in Chinese? So then 2 other exchange students come in and they sit by me because we are all white and speak English so naturally we flock together. They were both from SF State in California, how ironic that we would all be Americans... anyways. The teacher was nice and she started going over the syllabus (so typical, teacher's always do that... as if we are university students that can't read it ourselves). After she had been talking for approximately 8 minutes the whole classroom was chattering to themselves. Way rude, not even paying attention to what she was saying and slowly getting louder and louder so that it was eventually to the point that I could barely hear what she was saying and she had a microphone and I was at the front of the classroom. She kind of tried to get their attention but she didn't try too hard, it was making me way uncomfortable. THEN she gets to the point in her lecture when she asks for discussion and comments from the class and all of the sudden everyone is dead silent. We're talking you could hear crickets chirping a mile away. So I ended up answering the question. I wasn't even sure of the answer but when we sat in silence waiting for 45 seconds I had some time to think about it and I came up with a logical comment. Then she asked the next question and once again... silence. So the other exchange student next to me eventually answered the question. The teacher eventually even made the point apparently in America it was normal to answer a question when it was asked and in Hong Kong making comments in class was abnormal. She kept asking the Chinese students to comment so then I felt like I shouldn't answer questions, but after a full minute of pondering a way simple point I couldn't take the silence anymore and I would have to raise my hand. It was the absolute weirdest phenomenon. At SUU I barely ever raise my hand in class to make comments because someone else always beats me to it, but here I have all the time I need to come up with the best comment I can. I'm so grateful for class discussions at SUU--I had no idea it could be so difficult for some people to share their comments. I have two more classes today so we'll see how they go.

In the meantime here are some pictures of the CityU campus. It's no SUU, but I found a fish pond that I absolutely love to hang out by.

The whole school is in two buildings with 5 floors in one and 6 floors in the other. In the academic building all the classrooms are on the same floor and there are different zones for different colors so once you get to your color you just find the number of your classroom. I like it a lot.

This is kind of random, but I met a French kid named Pierre yesterday and he was telling me all about how he shaves the top half of his legs but not the bottom, it was way way weird. I attempted to take a picture but he wasn't very cooperative so you can't tell very well.

One last thing, this is a picture of the octopus sushi I ate for dinner last night. Yum Yum in my tum tum. Just kidding I didn't like the octopus ones that much they were sort of rubbery. The salmon sushi was delicious though. At the grocery store it goes on sale every night because they make it fresh in the mornings so I can have delicious sushi for cheap every day if I want.

An Afternoon In Mong Kok

Now I know why Utah is considered a desert and what they really invented umbrellas for. There was a HUGE downpour of rain on Saturday. It was way perfect though because it cooled everything down. Even though I got soaked while holding an umbrella it wasn't freezing cold like Utah rainstorms, it was a nice temperature. I tried to take a picture of it, but the camera can't do it justice.

After the rain finally let up I went to Mong Kok. It's a town 2 MTR stations away, but it's a whole different place. There are tons of people. I read in a fact book that Mong Kok won the Guiness Book World Record for most densely populated area and I believe it. It is chaos. There is a street called the Ladies Market and you can haggle with the vendors to try to get a good deal. Of course since I'm American they think I'm rich so they try to sell everything to me for tons of money. I'm getting better at the negotiating thing though, by the time I go home I'll be a pro. I bought some way cute knock off vans that are red for 100 HK$ so like $12 in America. Here are some pictures of Mong Kok.

 

Also I tried some typical Chinese food. So far I've mostly just had sandwiches and stuff, but then when I was in Mong Kok I thought it would be a good idea to stop at a place that sold what looked like smoothies and fruit drinks. I got a peach juice with gelatinous rice balls in it. I wasn't too worried about the description because before I came to Hong Kong some ex-Taiwanian (Corey) introduced me to gelatinous rice balls. Only the ones in this drink were way tiny and the straw was huge so I basically got a mouth full of rice balls with every sip. It was okay, not my personal favorite but definitely something I could get used to. Then for dinner later I ate this: 

  

Yum! Actually it really wasn't too bad. The green stuff was bad, but the noodles were good and the meat was edible. The most challenging part was eating it with a ladle and chopsticks. I'm really not too bad at using chopsticks, but when it comes to noodles... forget it. I can barely eat those with a fork. I finally gave up when my food was half done because I couldn't handle the slippery noodles any longer. I probably could have asked for a fork but I hate doing way American things like that so I just sucked it up. Ordering there was tough too but luckily I was with my new American friend who speaks Cantonese so she just translated for me. Such a nice day. I'm sure I'll be back to Mong Kok often.

Friday Night in Lan Kwai Fong

Last night I went out with a group of International students. We rode the MTR to Hung Hom and then walked across the waterfront of the Victoria Harbour as they had a light show. I was a bit disappointed because when I think light show I'm thinking Disneyland... maybe we were just a little too late or something because we only saw like 3 buildings with laser beams shining from them. The harbour was absolutely gorgeous anyways though. Here are some pictures, but it's much better when you are looking at it & smelling the saltiness of the ocean.

 

After we walked across the waterfront we took a ferry across the harbor. We went up to roof patio on top of a big mall and just "chilled out." It was pretty fun. I learned all about the Scandinavian countries from 3 Swedish boys and 1 Finnish boy. Fun fact, every single country has their own version of American Idol... Swedish Idol, Finnish Idol, Australian Idol... I never knew. Also they have a contest called Eurovision where people from every European country compete with different songs and a Finnish guy named Lordi won, but apparently it wasn't a proud win for Finland because this guy is nuts. 

Hahaha. So anyways, that was a fun conversation. I learned all sorts of interesting stuff about their countries that you surely won't find in a textbook. When we were done there, everyone headed over to an area called Lan Kwai Fong that was basically a block full of bars and clubs that was jam packed with people. Don't worry, I took a picture.

I always feel super touristy taking pictures so I really haven't taken too many. It was a way fun night though. We went in a club that was basically an ice room. They had fur coats you could put on and then it was like standing in a freezer. I could see my breath which is super weird for Hong Kong, I haven't been cold at all since I got here, constant sweating basically. Oh well.

Macau... Asian Vegas

So typically I'm not a big fan of Las Vegas, but going to Macau was so much fun! I went with a random group of international students. We took the MTR to the ferry station and then it was about an hour long ferry ride until Macau. I filled up a whole page in my passport just with stamps leaving and entering Macau. It was such an interesting place because it had lots of casinos and brand new buildings, but then you'd walk down the street and see really old houses with bamboo roofs and crumbling bricks. There were streets there that were made just for walking between shops, sort of like gateway mall only no cars could go through. Here are some pictures:

One of the guys I was with won 800 HK$ at this gold casino in just two games of roulette! Wahoo.

     

These are the Ruins of St. Paul', one of the oldest symbols of Christianity in Macau.

   

According to the tour book my friend had the Museu de Macau is one of the best in all of Asia... we couldn't resist going after we heard that.

      

Every single place in Hong Kong/Macau has beautiful gardens and trees lining roads and sidewalks. It is absolutely gorgeous.

All By Myself

Last weekend I flew on a plane from Salt Lake to Hong Kong... all by myself.

Yesterday I rode the MTR (subway) from my neighborhood to Hong Kong Island... all by myself. I had to switch trains like 4 times, but I only got on the wrong one once and it was easily fixed. I love love love riding the subway and I'm pretty freaking good at it.
This morning I woke up at 5 am... all by myself. Radio Raheem didn't survive the journey on the plane, which I'm sort of in denial about, so when I attempted to take a nap at about 6 pm last night I couldn't set my alarm and I woke up at 5 this morning. I was doing so well at not having jet lag. My roommate probably thinks I'm a crazy person. What college kid goes to sleep at 7 and wakes up at 5? How embarrassing.
So basically I'm super independent. More so than ever before in my life. Last night as I was journeying around the country via train I thought to myself "If something bad happened to me right now who would be the first person to notice I was missing?" Then I realized that there are always at least 100 Chinese people around so they would surely notice if I caused a scene. Nothing to be worried about.

So I haven't taken many pictures yet. I've just been enjoying it for myself. Here are a few pictures of the view out my window. I live on the 13th floor which is way awesome.

This one is the view out the other side of my building from the common room. I go wander through that park some mornings with the elderly people who are exercising.

Flights & First Day.

I was a bit skeptical when I began my journey flying from Salt Lake to San Francisco and a way big guy sat down next to me without smiling, saying hi, or even making eye contact with me. Ew. So then I just started reading my book and eavesdropping on the conversation of the two people sitting in front of me because they were talking abnormally loud. Good thing that flight was short. In San Francisco I had a 6 hour layover that I spent doing sudoku and logic problems. Oh and I ate some dinner at Burger King because I didn't know when the next time I could get my hands on some decent chicken tenders would be, too bad the worker was super rude to me. When I sat down she said "We are closing, you only have 5 minutes to eat."

Once I reached the International Terminal it all changed though. I already felt like I was in a foreign land. I checked in way smoothly, headed to my gate, found out they offer free wi-fi and logged on. I spent the rest of my layover abusing the 45 minutes of free internet by using it 3 times in a row. Then we boarded the plane. Lucky for me I was one of the first on, I sat in my window seat and nobody had the seat next to me. Someone was on the other side of the empty seat, but he literally watched movies the entire flight. The next 12 hours went way quickly because I was asleep for basically all of it. When I was awake I did a little reading and watched "How to Train Your Dragon" with Chinese subtitles. It was a way nice flight.

Hong Kong Airport was way smooth to get around. I breezed through immigration, no questions asked. It was a way good feeling when he approved my visa and went to town with the stamp because as he was analyzing it I freaked myself out thinking about what I would do if I had gotten denied entry. So then I had 3 hours to kill until my shuttle arrived... the first hour was terrible. I wandered the airport with all my luggage wondering where I needed to be to meet the shuttle. Then the biggest tender mercy of my life happened and 2 kids approached me out of no where and asked if I was studying abroad at CityU. I said yes and we all became instant friends. Then we ran into a few more exchange students and within 10 minutes we had a group of about 12 people who were all waiting for the same shuttle.

From then on I've been checking in, getting a campus tour, unpacking, sweating in the humidity, and trying not to have an American accent. I've been in several large groups of exchange students where everyone is asking everyone where they are from, but when they get to me they say "You're from the United States, right?" It sort of bugs me, I wish I was more of a mystery. Oh well. What I do love is that I have met people from ALL over the world. Lots from Sweden, lots from Finland, a couple from England, one from Wales, one from Belgium, a few from Australia, and even one from Indonesia. Only like 5 from Hong Kong though... really strange. Turns out Utah is only famous because the Olympics were held there once, such a great claim to fame. I never realized that other people around the world didn't know we have the greatest snow on earth... apparently everything on a license plate isn't true.

Now I'm off to try some hot pot for my first time.