Victoria Peak and Lan Fong Yuen

Tony (friend from back home) took me to Victoria Peak yesterday! Hmm... it wasn't as awesome as I thought it would be, but it was quite interesting. We took Bus 15 all the way up, and I think that took about half an hour? It felt like we were going to Big Bear! It's actually pretty amazing how these bus drivers can navigate around really narrow, curvy roads. For those that get carsick easily, there is a trolley that will take you to and from The Peak! We took the trolley back down, and I think we only sat in there for about 10 minutes?

Anyway, I gave Tony a quick tour around campus before we started our adventure. We took the bus around campus instead of walking because the campus is just way too big. Then, we headed to Central for lunch. He took me to Lan Fong Yuen (蘭芳園)!

This little store supposedly serves the best Hong Kong style milk tea (the batch of tea used to make the milk tea is filtered with silk stockings/pantyhose... it is believed to make the milk tea much more smooth). This place is also known for their pork chop bun and lo ting. Lo ting is basically a plate of instant noodles that have been boiled, drained, and stir-fried with chicken, pork, etc. 

LOl. I'm obviously not much of a photographer, but that was my meal! The milk tea was indeed very smooth. I thought that it was perfectly sweetened, but it might be a little bland to those with a sweet tooth. I was underwhelmed by the pork chop bun. It was the size of my palm. I thought it was pretty good, but it wasn't spectacular. I had to order french toast because... I was not going to be full off that tiny pork chop bun. The french toast was very good. It was lightly sweetened on the inside. The last time I had Hong Kong style french toast was at least 10 years ago (back in California), so it was kind of nice to have it again.

Twenty Observations

1. It's really humid here (as expected).
2. I think it has rained every single day since I've arrived, but it would only be for a very short period of time. I bought an umbrella, but I have yet to use it.
3. Money is really confusing here. The exchange students that I've talked to tend to just pay with bills and keep the coins in their wallets (for now anyway). There are $10 (there's a $10 bill too, lol), $5, $2, $1, $0.50, $0.20, and $0.10 coins. Since we would take quite a bit of time identifying which coin is which, we just pay with bills. People here always seem to be in a rush, and we don't want to anger anyone by holding up the line while we count our coins.
4. People here drive on the left side of the road, while people drive on the right side of the road in the US. I have to take note of that when I cross the street. And, for extra security, I triple check each side of the road before I walk across.
5. Food is really cheap!!!
6. Most students agree that canteen food here is not that great.. at all.
7. This campus is way too big with way too many hills. I feel like I'm hiking every time I walk around campus. So... instead of walking. I wait for the bus, which is free! :D
8. Most exchange students are really friendly. You could generally strike up a conversation with them, and it wouldn't be awkward or anything. I have yet to interact with actual CUHK students.
9. The MTR (train) is really convenient.
10. I'm still a little confused about all the different buses here..
11. I live on the mountainous part of campus. I have mosquito bites all over my legs. I'm very upset, but I also anticipated this. :[
12. Within the CUHK are nine colleges. These colleges have their own dorms/hostels. Every student is assigned to a college, and they really represent their own colleges. In the US, we usually have like... College of Engineering or College of Letters and Sciences, which is totally separate from our dorms.
13. CUHK's freshmen orientation is really interesting. They separate all the freshmen by colleges, and they do a lot of activities with these fellow college mates during their time here. They also run around together in same color shirts. One college would have all blue shirts and another college would have all red shirts. Totally different from UCR's orientation, lol.
14. Freshmen here look extremely young.
15. College in HK used to be only three years. They have one more year of high school and one less year of college compared to the US. CUHK is changing to a four year program now, while other universities are still keeping the three year program.
16. The legal drinking age is 18 here.
17. There are tons of people everywhere at all times. On a Thursday afternoon, there would be a sea of people in the shopping centers. In the US, there would be very few. In fact, people tend to go out on the weekdays to avoid crowds. In HK, there is no such thing as avoiding crowds.
18. Wifi is pretty stable here. I heard that wifi connection isn't very good here... but it's been fine for me thus far.
19. There's a Maxim Bakery on every street, seriously. There are always people buying things from bakeries too. I always see a line of people!
20. CUHK is full of surprises (at least for now). I randomly discovered the place below while trying to figure out how to get back to my hostel. There are also tons of shortcuts that will save you ten minutes of walking if you're able to find them. It involves taking the elevator up and down certain buildings, which means that you won't have to walk up and down certain hills. ;D I got this tip from an alumni. lOL.

Tai Po Market and CUHK Welcoming Dinner

I finally went somewhere that wasn't Shatin New Town Plaza yesterday! It's funny though because my room mate, Herria, ran into someone she met the other day, and that girl invited us to go to NTP with her group. I was thinking to myself... please not again, LOL!

Anyway, it was around 12PM, and I was actually hungry (I had lost my appetite for a few days). Herria took me to Tai Po Market, which is only one stop away from CUHK. We walked around looking for a place to eat, but we couldn't decide where to go. She told me about a nearby food court, so we settled for that.

This is only a very, very small section of the food court. It's huge! There's probably like thirty stores on this one floor.

I had noodles with pork chop (上海粗麵＋雪菜＋豬扒) for $25 and a lemon tea (檸檬茶) for $11. :)

Something interesting... so this is my first time eating at a food court in HK. In the US, we usually order, pay, wait to get our food, then find a table to sit and eat. Here, we sit at a table, order, wait for the food to come to our table, pay, and then proceed to eat. Also, no one tips in HK.

On the first floor of the building with the food court is a wet market. I forgot to take a picture, but it's basically a market with different vendors that sell fresh meat, fish, etc. There are butchers waiting to meet your needs! It smells pretty bad though. We ventured outside to where there were vendors that sold fruits and vegetables.

I bought some grapes that were as big as golf balls. :O I was so excited to see big grapes, lol! I really miss eating fruits and vegetables. I've been a carnivore here. It's like they don't like to serve a lot of vegetable here... D:

I was telling Herria about these snowy moon cakes. LOL. I make them sound like they're really special, but they're really not. I think I've grown to really like eating them... that's all. But, anyway, we found a store that sold snowy moon cakes, so we had some for dessert. :)

Later that day, all the exchange students met up at Yasumoto International Academic Park (it's really a building--not a park) to take a picture. Then, we all got on a bus to go to a restaurant called Super Star Seafood Restaurant (鴻星海鮮酒家). CUHK planned a welcoming dinner for us. They served us a Chinese banquet style meal. There were seven(?) different dishes. It started off with an appetizer. Then, we had about five main dishes... and it ended with dessert. Each dish is brought out after everyone is done with the previous dish.

This was our dessert! :D

Dinner was decent. It's nothing to write home about, but it was very satisfying!

I went back to the dorms to pack everything because we were going to move into our permanent hostel the next day. It took a long time to pack actually because I had to figure out how to fit everything into my two suitcases and one duffle bag. I didn't want to have to carry everything around. Though we check-out at 8:15AM, our check-in time is at 10AM. So, I just sat around in my hostel building (Chan Chun Ha) waiting until 10AM. Other exchange students don't get to check in until 4PM!

I'm currently waiting for my luggage to come so that I could unpack. My room mate's not here yet either. :o Another post about that later!

Jenn

Exploring Shatin

Yesterday, CUHK set up a luncheon for all the exchange students that will be living in United College (my permanent hostel). It was just a small room full of people. I expected more students to be there. o_o But, anyway, I met a fellow UCR student (Rick) there. I was going to go Jusco (it's like the Dollar Tree of HK... everything costs $12 HKD!) in the Shatin Galleria to buy more things, so I invited him. I actually invited another girl that I had just met, but she was busy when I was about to leave. We took a bus there (found the directions on Google Maps). I knew that the galleria was really close by, but I wasn't sure which direction to walk. Rick was Googling it, and I tried to ask a lady. She attempted to give me directions, but she was actually totally off. LOl. But I realized that she didn't really know what she was talking about half way into the conversation. After a bit of walking, we eventually got there.

After we bought our things, we decided to go to IKEA too (actually, it was my idea because I really wanted to go and I was totally not happy that I couldn't find it the day before, LOL). Anyway, we got off at Shatin and entered the Shatin New Town Plaza (my third time -_-). Though we were lost for a while, this time I actually decided to ask for directions.. so we eventually found it! The first time I went looking for IKEA, I thought it would be super close by so I wouldn't have to venture too far away from the plaza. But... I realized that it was not as close as I expected it to be, so I decided to just go back home. I didn't want to get lost on the streets by myself. LOL. But, we found it, and I bought my pillow, blanket, etc. there. Then, we went to dinner at some porridge place in the Citylink Plaza, which is right next to the Shatin New Town Plaza. Food is so cheap here! We both got a bowl of porridge (decent sized), a plate of chow fun, and a drink for $38 each (equivalent to about $5 USD). LOL I was so thrilled.

Anyway, that was part of my first week here in HK! I'll blog more about how I feel about it later. I just wanted to post my activities before I forget (my short-term memory is terrible...).

I've been getting sleepy around 9PM and waking up around 7AM for the past few days. lOL. It's pretty early compared to my sleeping schedule back home (3AM - 12PM).  I tried to stay up until 12AM yesterday so that maybe I would sleep in a bit more, but that didn't happen. I woke up at 7AM again. T_T

Jenn

Exploring Shatin Again / Moon Cakes

I took my Chinese placement test and got placed in level 4 Cantonese and level 3 Mandarin. I just realized that my Cantonese class has a limit of 9 people, and there are currently only 3 enrolled. LOL. I'm kind of intimidated by that. This is going to be quite interesting.

I went back to the Shatin New Town Plaza by myself because I wanted to do a little bit of exploring on my own. I also needed to buy a few more things, and I wanted to go to IKEA. It took me an hour to find the supermarket (City'super). Then, I used Google Maps on my smartphone to look for IKEA. From what I could tell, it was outside of the plaza but not super far away... so I thought I could do this on my own. I walked in circles for an hour or two before I gave up and went back to CUHK, lol!

Oh! I tried something called a snowy moon cake (冰皮月餅). It looks something like this...

And a regular moon cake looks something like this...

It's pretty cool. I heard about it in the US. I think I might have tried it once before, but I don't remember. It's almost Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節), so there are moon cakes everywhere! The snowy moon cake is just like a mochi with a slightly tougher skin and more filling. lOL. I thought it would be amazing because I always heard good things about it. I mean.. it was good but not super delicious or anything.

I've Arrived!

I arrived safe and sound. My uncle picked me up and my adventure in HK officially started. I didn't know where we were going half the time. I just followed him around. We took ones of those buses to the train station. Then, the train took us straight to the entrance of CUHK (University Station).

It was kind of a hassle getting around. We took a bus to S.H.Ho College, where I was supposed to check in. The student workers there gave me a key to my temporary room and told me to check in at the Office of Academic Links (OAL) at Lady Ho Tung Hall. After that, I walked back to the place where I first checked in and waited around for a shuttle to take my luggage to Pentecostal Mission Hall High Complex (my temporary hostel). It was actually right next to Lady Ho Tung Hall, so I could have taken the luggage there myself. -_- The student workers made it sound like it would be super far away. After that was settled, I went back to the OAL to get a short tour around the school. I didn't get much out of it because I couldn't really hear the tour guides, so I was just following the crowd. The tour ended at Pi Chiu building, which was where we get our student ID cards. The tour guides kind of just left us after that, so I had to get back to OAL on my own. I totally did not know where to go. At first I tried to figure it out on my own, but I figured that I would be better off asking for directions, lol! :p

My uncle was waiting for me at the OAL the whole time. The whole process took around 2-3 hours. I felt so bad. D: We walked to the train station and went to the Shatin New Town Plaza. It's literally two stops away from the University, and when you exit the train station, you'll be in the mall. It's huge with seven stories of shops It also connects to these other buildings with multiple stories of shops. I didn't really take pictures these few days, but I will after I move to my permanent hostel. Anyway, I went to this plaza three days in a row just shopping around for necessities.

My uncle took me to visit my grandpa after that. :) It was actually really far away from school. It was a little awkward interacting with him because... I didn't really know what to talk about. I was just watching people play mahjong until dinner time. Then, my grandpa took me back to CUHK.

View from my temporary dorm

I met my temporary room mates for the first time when I got back. I have two! One is from Switzerland (Daveline) and one is from China (Herria). We are getting along very well thus far. It's too bad that we will be parting on Saturday. D:

Jenn

Day of Departure

My silly friends made me these random patriotic-ish posters. LOL! #insidejokes

Mom & pop

My flight was at 1:30AM on Monday, September 3rd. I left to the airport around 9:30PM on Sunday. My parents like to go to the airport really early. Most of my friends went to the airport to send me off to Hong Kong. :') I entered the terminal at 12:30AM. I started crying as I hugged everyone good bye. When I hugged my mom and dad, they kept rushing me to leave. T_T

There wasn't really a line for the security check. Everything went pretty smoothly. Since I got in early, I went to take off my make up and change into more comfortable clothes. I actually ran into a friend from high school (Tony) while waiting to board the plane! I think I'm hanging out with him on Monday. Yay to more exploring!

The airplane left on time. Cathay actually served pretty decent food. I didn't eat any snacks because I had no appetite. I was awake for about three hours. I slept for about six and stayed up for the remainder of the flight. It was really hard finding a comfortable position to sleep, but that was expected. I sat on the right side of the airplane near the aisle. The person in the middle didn't show up, so there was actually a little bit more room. :) I landed at 6:30AM (HK time), which was about 30 minutes earlier than expect.

Jenn