Shenzhen, Po Toi, and Lamma Island

On Friday, Cornelia and took the MTR up to Shenzhen. It is so crazy how different it is from Hong Kong being so close. The pollution was much worse—in fact my eyes started to burn halfway through the day. There were a lot more beggars and people trying to sell us things too. I had a little bit of trouble crossing the boarder because when I cam back from Macau, they put the wrong stamp on my passport: instead of giving me the student stamp, they gave me the visitor stamp and I guess they did not believe I was still a student. Right after walking out of the MTR station in Shenzhen, Cornelia and I were immediately approached by this woman wearing a purple shirt saying, “Hey missy, hey missy, come to my store.” We were like no thank you, and she would not leave us alone! I am not kidding, she followed us for about ten minutes and we knew she was right behind us so it was really awkward. We thought we had lost her when we got on the escalator, but right when we looked to our side, she was on the escalator right next to us asked us to come to her store again after she knew we recognized her. She finally left when we ignored her for long enough. Not even a minute later, another person did the same thing. It was kind of unnerving and stressful. This happened for the rest of the day—the funny part was everyone called us missy.

Before we started our shopping we went out to eat because we were both starving. We wandered into the fancy Shangri-La hotel where we had all you can eat dim sum for $98! Everything in mainland is so cheap: we were at the fanciest restaurant we could find and had amazing food for only $12 USD! We ordered so much! My favorites were the vermicelli wrapped barbecued pork with vegetables, barbecued pork bun, of course the sha lum bao (I don’t know what the English name is), and the egg tart.

Next it was off to shop. There was a big mall right where we got off the MTR (big surprise…I literally have been to more malls in this past month than I have in my entire life) so we went there. I had never bargained before so I decided to test out my skills with some women selling sunglasses. I ended up doing pretty well; I talked her down from $100 Yuan for one pair, to $30 Yuan for two pairs. I didn’t really want the sunglasses though so I didn’t buy them even though they were only about $2 USD for each pair. After that, I ended up buy two headbands for $31 Yuan. I bargained with the lady selling them for a long time. She wanted me to pay $120 claiming that the jewels in the head band were real crystal. I of course laughed at her and told her I knew they weren’t, especially since one was missing. When I said I would pay $30 she was like "American money? " and I had to laugh again because that is way more than double of what she initially offered me. She finally gave in though when I handed her the cash.

When we were done shopping accessories, we wanted to find a tailor to get some swim suits made (the biggest bra size here is a C and both Cornelia and I have a lot bigger boobs than that LoL). When we were on the escalator up to the next floor, a young man behind us asked us if we wanted to buy DVDs and we said no of course and said that we were looking for a tailor. He said he knew one and would show us. We decided to be adventurous so we followed him. The tailor didn’t really have what we wanted so we left. The man who showed us there was waiting for us and ready to take us to the next place we wanted to go. His name was Jimmy and he was very friendly. While we were in that mall there started to be a lot of commotion and we thought maybe there was a fight, but Jimmy told us that the police and just came in and busted someone for selling things illegally. Jimmy acted as our guide for the rest of the day—even when we left to go to a different part of Shenzhen he showed us to the MTR and helped us buy our tickets. When we went back to that mall later in the day he found us within minutes and helped us out. I think he was just excited to use his English. He was a nice guy.

We ended our day in Shenzhen with some pedicures and manicures. I got both for $50 Yuan. But let me tell you, that pedicure and manicure was the most stressful one I have ever gotten in my life. The minute we sat down and our hands and feet were occupied people would come up to us and try to sell us massages, eyebrow threading, drinks, and more. It was hard to tell them no especially since we couldn’t use our hands to make gestures. The worse part was that the people doing our nails were trying to sell us things too. For example, they did this weird Chinese medicine where they pulled things out of our feet, like corns or something (which was really scary because we had no idea what they were doing when they pulled out these needle looking things and weird potions because their English sucked), and then they said that there were like eight more in our feet and that if they removed them it would help with back pain and they could do the rest for $180. We were like, “no we don’t want that” and they tried to keep going. Then the woman who was doing my fingernails buffed one of them and made it really shiny and said only $20 more for the rest of your nails. And I told her no I just want them painted and she said but this is much prettier and was arguing with me and being really annoying until I sternly said no. Then she got all sad/angry and didn’t look at me after that. The best part was when she went to paint my toes and I asked her to do the thing where they shave all the dead skin off your feet. She went to pick up my foot her eyes got so big like she was disgusted of my giant feet (which are only a size 8 which is average in the US!). Cornelia could not stop laughing especially because when she was done she put my foot down and shook her hand out like she was in pain. Also during that manicure/pedicure, some random person working there took a picture of us like it was no big deal. I think we might have been the first white people to ever go in there.

Coming back to Hong Kong was so nice. After a day in that pollution, haggling, and stares (we were the only westerners we saw all day) we were worn out and the next day we had to leave at 8:00am for our school excursion.

We started our school excursion off in Po Toi where we had a seafood lunch which was decent…I ate a fish eye too! We did some hiking there which the weather was perfect for. The view of the ocean was beautiful and there were a ton of huge fishing boats. After Po Toi we went to Lamma Island which we only had an hour there so instead of exploring we got ice cream and waited for the boat to leave. We decided it would be a lot more fun to go there for a whole day when the weather was nice because there was a beach and a cave and some nice places to eat on the water.

I forgot to write last time that next weekend I will be gone in Singapore and Malaysia. I am so excited for that. I am going with Lena, Matt, Pat, Trevor, and John. We leave on Thursday after school and come back Monday before school. Today, Matt and I planned out a trip for Chinese New Years. We spent all morning searching for the best deals. Everything during the New Year is pricey so to keep our costs down we are taking a one way flight to Saigon, Vietnam and taking trains, buses, and boats through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and China to get back to Hong Kong. Going along with us is Lena, Mike, Kiwan, and Koen. It should be a pretty exciting backpacking trip especially since I have never done anything remotely close to this before. I can’t wait!

First time in Mainland China.

Shenzhen from the 29th floor of the Shangri-La Hotel.

Some women selling fruits.

A big freighter we saw on the boat to Po Toi.  You see these all the time when you are near any water in Hong Kong.

Mike and me on Po Toi Island.

Some of the fishing boats.

It looks like I'm jumping off into the sea.

A giant fish.  This was why we wanted to wait to come back to Lamma Island, so we could eat something like this.

First Time Gambling Winnings = $675HK

So we didn’t end up making it to Shenzhen this weekend because Macau took up most of our time. We left the International House on Friday at around 3:00pm and a stop at McDonalds and one wavy ferry ride later ended up in Macau at around 7:30pm. Right before we left CUHK, we booked one room at the Presidente hotel for the eight of us that went. When we got there we checked in and dropped off our things, then went to dinner at this very good Portuguese restaurant. After dinner we went to the Venetian, which is the second largest building in the world. Some of the boys did some gambling while the rest of us just walked around the hotel. It was very cool inside! I am told it looks just like the one in Vegas.

After leaving the Venetian, we wandered the streets and found a bar to sit at for a while. By bar, I really mean a 7 Eleven type store with some outdoor seating. We hung out there for a bit and then went to check out the MGM. We didn’t stay there long because the minimum bets were too high so we ended up going back to the Presidente to gamble. I got talked into playing some black jack and ended up winning $675HK which pretty much paid for my whole trip (round trip ferry, hotel, food, etc.). We left casino around 3am because Erik wanted to go clubbing. He had been reading about this club in a travel book called D2 so some of us went there. Right when we walked in, I could have swore we were in a gay club from all the house music and the buff man dancing on stage. It ended up not being a gay club so we danced for a bit before we headed back to the hotel. Erik ended up sleeping in the bathtub, three guys on the floor, and the girls of course got one of the beds.

The next day after we checked out we did some site seeing. Having been a Portuguese colony, all of the architecture in Macau is very European. It reminded me a lot of some of the places I have been to in Spain. We left Macau in the late afternoon and headed back to CUHK.

The rest of the weekend, my mom and Mark were in town so I took them up to the Peak and told them some things to do for the rest of their time here since I was in school. Before they left, we made it out the Cheng Chao Island which is a small fishing town. There are no cars allowed on the island, but it is so small it doesn’t really matter. We then went back to Mongkok and had a huge hot pot dinner which was probably the best dinner I have had since being here. Hot pot is fun because you get to cook your own food, just like Korean Barbeque but in boiling broth.

Mom and Mark left today and tomorrow is my last day of school this week. The plan for the weekend is to make it the Shenzhen on Friday with my Swedish friend Cornelia. On Saturday a bunch of us are going on a school planned excursion to Po Toi and Lamma Island which are both in Hong Kong! For now, I am just waiting for the International House Orientation Party to start where apparently the warden is going to cook us some good food!

The boat to Macau: what a great name!



First view when getting off the ferry.



Gondolas in the Venetian.



Club D2. (The buff guy I was referring to is on the left.)



Ruins of St. Pauls in Macau.

I Used My First Squat Pot Yesterday

I finally met my roommate! Her name is Eva, and she is from mainland China. She is very nice and intelligent. This is her fourth year of college and she has lived in the international house for all four years, so she has had a lot of different roommates. She plans on taking a year off after she graduates and then wants to go to America for graduate school.

I started class on Monday. In my first class, I was one of two western people in a group of about 70 students. Our teacher had us go around and introduce ourselves, and I as well as the other American, got an applause. It was very strange. I also found out that the finance course I am in is taken by freshman at CUHK but at the UW it is taken by juniors or seniors. One major difference I saw from the local students and American students is that they are very disrespectful in class. I do not know if it was just that instance, but all of the student were talking very loudly while the teacher was trying to speak.

After that class, I went to my Chinese grammar class. I felt like I knew more than a lot of the other students which was nice, but once I went to my speaking class, I was very lost. My teacher barely used English and I did not know a lot of the words. I am going to have to catch up on my vocabulary and study a ton this next week.

The next day I went to my other classes. I went to my intermediate economics class to find out that it was really beginning macro economics which I have already taken. My professor explained in the beginning of class that he is not assigning a textbook because all of the macro economics textbooks are written by Americans and he didn’t think they were that good enough. He then asked if anyone had any experience in the subject, and I was the only one to raise my hand. He asked me where I had taken it, and I said “in America”. Then he asked me if I was an exchange student (which I thought was pretty obvious because I was the only white person in this class of 60) and I said yes. I am dropping that class: not because of that experience, but because I have already taken it before.

Now, I only have a business class that I am required to take for the UW (finance), another business class called Global Entrepreneurship, and two Chinese language classes. I only have one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and no class on Fridays! Today after Chinese, I went to lunch at a campus canteen with my friend Ryushi who is an exchange student from Japan. He has already been here for the first semester and gave me some good tips for eating on campus (a lot of the people who work at the canteens don't know any English, only Cantonese). What we did was found what we wanted on the menu board on the wall, took off the plaque that said what it was, and handed it to the cashier who laughed at us because she knew exactly what we were doing. After she rung up our order and gave us our ticket, we asked a local student how to say our number in Cantonese and waited for it to be called.

Last night, a bunch of us went to the horse races in Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island. It was my very first horse race and I learned how to read all of the boards and understand the betting. I did not bet on any horses though, but if I ever do, I will probably base it off there names. The best horse name that I saw last night was Superior Unit.  It was kind of weird because since Hong Kong used to be British, everything is British.  They call elevators lifts, and the horses run the counter clockwise around the track. We just hung out in the beer garden for the races which is free to get into after 8:00pm and watched about three races until we headed back to CUHK.

This weekend, I am planning on going to Macau for a day (which is the Vegas of China) and also to Shenzhen for another day. Shenzhenis in mainland China, but right on the border of Hong Kong so it is only about four stops north of the University on the MTR. The MTR is sooooo cheap! I finally got my student Octopus card where I get to ride for half the price – which is roughly $0.50 USD to get from one end of Hong Kong to the other.

First view of the track.

Before the races.

My first horse race.

Orientation Week

I start school tomorrow and I don’t really want to.  This first week flew by!  I met so many new people and made a ton new friends.  The only bad thing that has happened was my sonicare not being able to charge so I have to use a normal toothbrush for the next couple of months. I moved in on Monday, and have yet to meet my roommate.  Hopefully she will be here tonight.  This week we also had our orientation and I still need to change some of my classes around.  It is a lot harder to add and drop classes here than at the UW so hopefully I can get everything figured out during the first week of classes.

Yesterday we went on a city tour where we went to The Peak, Stanley Market, and the Avenue of Stars.  After a long day of sight seeing a bunch of us went to Korean BBQ!  It was so good!! Then we ended our night in “Bar 4B” which is what we call our guy friends flat because we are always hanging out there.

Sorry this isn’t very detailed:  I don’t really have a lot of time write now.  I will try to write more often though!

This is my dorm room.


The view from my flat.


This is the view from The Peak on Hong Kong Island.


Me and my new friend Mike from USC on the Avenue of Stars in TST (Tsim Sha Tsui).

Lots To Catch Up On

It has been a couple of days since I have written so I have a LOT to talk about. So I will start with two days ago… Megan and I woke up and went to meet her uncle for dim sum. Her Uncle is so nice and told me that I can call him Uncle Yeung or suk suk which is Cantonese for uncle. He only knows a little bit of English. The place we went for dim sum is the place he goes everyday from 9:00 to 11:00 in the morning. One thing that different for me about dim sum, is that before each meal you clean off and rinse your own dishes with tea. After lunch, we went to meet one of Megan’s friends, Connie, who also goes to the UW but has family here. She was with a few of her friends who go to UCSD. After we met up with them we decided to go to this crazy restaurant called the Modern Toilet. Everything in the restaurant has to do with a bathroom, and all of the food is served in dishes that look like toilets, bathtubs and such. It was very strange but a lot of fun. One of the desserts we ordered came in a traditional Chinese squat pot (which if you don’t know what that is, you should Google it).


After the Modern Toilet, we went to a night market. It was sort of in a sketchy area downtown but I felt pretty safe since we were in a big group and a few of the people we were with grew up in Hong Kong. The night market was huge! The streets were separated by items. One street sold all kitchen things, and the next socks and, the next was something else. There was even a street that was all…bedroom toys. It was kind of gross. We were all pretty shocked.


We left the night market to go to Tsim Sha Tsui where you can see the skyline of Hong Kong Island. Every night at 8:00 they have a light/laser show. It was pretty foggy but still cool to watch. The whole show was also to music. When that was over we walked on the Avenue of Stars which is basically Hong Kong’s version of Hollywood Stars. The only ones we recognized were Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Bruce Lee. There was also a statue of Bruce Lee that Megan and I took a picture with since we are all Huskies! While we were walking along, one of the people we were with, got some cuddle fish from a street vendor. It was so good! The best way I can describe it is beef jerky that tastes like fish.


From the avenue of stars we headed off to meet Megan’s aunt and cousin where we went to dinner. In Hong Kong, most people go to dinner around 9:00pm which is pretty hard for me to get used too. We had so much amazing food! I loved the Peking duck, but wasn’t too fond of the jellyfish.

The Modern Toilet restaurant.

Light show in the fog.



With Bruce Lee.

The next day we changed rooms, for the second time. The room we moved too is just as nice but not as big and it is less expensive. After moving we went to meet Megan’s cousin for breakfast. We took the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) to Shek Kip Mei where he lives which is a huge residential area full of government housing. We had congee for breakfast which is a rice soup with pork, hard boiled duck eggs, and deep fried bread. We got three big bowls for under $6 USD! After eating, we went to a market where I saw lots of fresh food and the place where they cut the heads off live chickens and you pick your own fish from the tank. After that, I got to see Megan’s family’s apartment. Since there are so many people in Hong Kong, space is very expensive. All of the government housing is a small room for your entire family. While we were there we had some tea and Megan’s cousin wrote down all of the foods I like in characters so I know what to look for when on menus.


This day was our sight seeing day, so next we headed off to meet our American friends in Tung Chung where we took a Crystal Cable Car (a gondola with a glass bottom) to the Po Lin Monastery where the Tian Tan Buddha is. It was so foggy but it made the mountains look very cool. The fog started to clear when we got to the Buddha and had to climb up 250 stairs to see it up close. After trekking back down we hiked to the Wisdom Path. Daniel and Frances, the friends we were with, told us about this really cool thing called Atlas Quest. It is a website you go to that has clues to find hidden letterboxes in different cities. These are planted by different people all around the world, and there are even some in the states. In each box is a stamp and a log book. You can stamp something to prove that you found the letterbox and sign the log book so there is a record you where there, and you can look at all of the other people who also were there. The stamp in this letterbox was, of course, one of Buddha.


Right when we were leaving, all of the fog cleared and there was a beautiful rainbow coming from one of the mountains right by Buddha.


We were pretty hungry after all of our hiking so went back to the Tung Chung Outlet Mall (which is where the MTR stop is) and ate in the food court. We had all you can eat sushi for $88 (about $11 USD) which came with a free drink and plate of sashimi. We ate so much sushi I felt like I was going to explode. I had about 10 plates, Megan had around 15. We made sure we got our moneys worth! Daniel, the boy that was in our group, had about 30 plates! We couldn’t move after that and Megan said that she “got pwn3d by sushi” LoL.


Once we got the energy to move, we headed to the biggest airport in the world, the Hong Kong International Airport, to see a movie. I think it was weird that people go to the airport to see movies. There is also an entire shopping mall in the airport. We headed here with the intention of seeing Avatar f 4D…yes, 4D. 4D is 3D plus other effects such as wind, fog, bubbles, smells of food, etc. Watching 3D movie in Hong Kong is pretty typical, but 4D is special. Avatar was sold out so instead we watched this 20 minute made for 4D movie that was all in Cantonese. I, as well as two of the other people we were with, did not understand any of the movie, but we could kind of figure out what was happening since it was a kids movie. Other than that, the effects were really cool though. From the airport we hopped on a bus to Central where we walked to Lan Kwai Fong. Lan Kwai Fong is a street full of bars. Apparently, the party scene in Hong Kong is all night long and people don’t go home until 6:00am, so getting there after midnight was not unusual. We stayed just for a bit and then went home because we were all very tired. When we got back to the University, the campus shuttle was not running so Megan and I had to walk up some huge hills. I don’t know if I have already said this, but the CUHK campus is on the side of a mountain.

Tian Tan Buddha.



The letterbox I found. It was hidden under rocks and camouflaged.

 

Some of our sushi plates.

4D movie!



Lan Kwai Fong after a long day of being tourists.

Yesterday—New Years Eve—started out with some dim sum. Megan and I slept in until noon because we were so tired from the night before. We met her family at 2:00pm. I tried some pretty interesting things at this meal including pig stomach and a full pigeon. The pigeon was hard to eat with chopsticks, especially since I am not that good with them. I was embarrassed because every time I would try something new, everyone would watch me so they could see my reaction, and I kept dropping things. They told me to just use my hands. I’m sorry, but it is hard to pick up a pigeon with chopsticks! Good thing I will have lots of practice in the upcoming future: I have not seen one fork yet. Oh yea, but pigeon was really good!


Before we knew it, it was 4:30pm and we were still at dim sum. Megan and I had plans to meet one of her mom’s friends for dinner at 5:30pm! We left to meet her friend. Luckily she was running a little late so this gave us time to digest our lunch and do a little shopping. There are so many malls in Hong Kong; from the few days I have been here, I have learned that this city is all about shopping and eating. We ended up eating dinner around 7:00pm and then we went to get a Chinese foot massage. I don’t know if any of you watch the Amazing Race, but they did this when they were in Beijing. Chinese foot massages are known to be excruciatingly painful, but I don’t think we got the painful kind because it did not hurt that much. Our foot massages were 50 minutes long and cost $146 (about $18 USD and you don’t tip). When we were paying we saw that you could get a one hour full body massage for $168 ($21 USD) which we regretted not seeing that before or else we would have done that instead.


After leaving the massage place, we headed for Tsim Sha Tsui to welcome in the New Year. We met up with one of our American friends, his cousin who is from Hong Kong, and all of his cousin’s friends. They took us to this bar where it was all you can drink for a set price of $250 ($32 USD). I am pretty sure they do not have these types of bars in the states. Megan and I didn’t want to drink or stay there so we went to the streets and found a spot to watch the fireworks. We read on DiscoverHongKong.com the plan for this holiday: “To ring in the New Year, you are invited to take part in a synchronised community countdown by saying 'Hong Kong Happy New Year, Give Me Five!' - a celebratory gesture that symbolises joy and togetherness." (I copy and pasted that directly from the website so I know some spelling is wrong) so those were our first words of 2010. After midnight we walked as fast as we could to the MTR, but it still took about an hour to get back with all of the people traffic.

Midnight!

Megan left this morning so now I am alone. I just got done exploring campus which is huge, and I probably walked over 1000 stairs. I am feeling a little homesick, but I think a large part of it is due to the fact that I have no one to talk to and I am all alone in a place I do not know very well and I don’t speak the language. When I was walking back to my room, a taxi driver stopped and started asking me a question in Cantonese, and when I turned around and he saw I was white (or guilo meaning white ghost) he said “sorry bye bye” and drove off. It is really weird being the minority. Tomorrow, my friend Lena who I met on facebook from the CUHK Exchange Student group is flying in. We are staying together until we can move into the dorms on the fourth. I am excited not to be alone anymore!


I miss you all! For more pictures, you can look at my facebook!