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.

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