Today is my third full day of being in Hong Kong. I’ve been too lazy, busy, and tired to write a blog post so this is a very LONG post giving an overview of the past three days. I’ll post some soon with some more detail about my experiences so far.
I arrived on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. local time (8 a.m. EST). The flight from Chicago to Hong Kong was almost 16 hours long. I switched seats so that I was able to sit next to my friend Tyler and nearby Siobhan. The only problem was that it put me in a middle seat between Tyler and another person. I wasn’t able to sleep on the flight, so I was very tired by the time we arrived at the airport. I spent most of the flight watching movies and tv shows.
They fed us well on the plane, though I was very unfamiliar with most of the food they served us. The plane was HUGE and most people slept during the flight. It was overall a good experience flying with Cathay Pacific which is reassuring because I am using them to get home too!
We got through customs quickly (which was surprising because there was a huge line) and then we were able to get our baggage immediately. We found the Lingnan group and waited until 9:45 to take a bus to campus. It was about a 30 minute drive. It was bizarre to be driving on the left side of the road. It will definitely take some getting used to! By the time I got settled in my hostel it was 11:30.
The rooms are very small. There are two beds and two desks that are built into the wall and then a wardrobe that is very small. There is about three feet between my side and my roommate’s side, though I have yet to meet her. Classes don’t start until Sept. 10, so maybe I will be on my own for a while.
One of the biggest adjustments for me has been the jet lag. No matter how tired I am or how late I go to bed I still wake up super early. I’ve been waking up around 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. but usually don’t get out of bed until 8 a.m. Though I am exhausted, it makes it easy to check in with friends and family in the U.S. Hopefully, I will get used to the time difference soon and be able to sleep through the night and not wake up so early!
On Thursday, we had orientation which was just a lot of information about the school including a talk from the Tuen Mun police and an informational talk about hostel living. There are 194 exchange students, 14 from the U.S. The largest number is from mainland China. There are a lot of South Koreans and so many Europeans! There is a noticeably large number of French and German students. We had lunch at the school’s Chinese restaurant. Most of the dishes that came out, I couldn’t eat because they were almost all meat. I was able to eat some vegetables ( I don’t know what kind they were!), Chinese broccoli in garlic sauce, and noodles with mushroom. For dessert we had sweet soup with water chesnuts. Everyone at the table was very concerned that I wasn’t getting enough to eat, so they made sure to keep all the veggie dishes at my end of the table. We all talked about where we are from and what we are studying and got to eat with two student buddies who are locals of Hong Kong.
All of the meat here has bones in it and the chicken was served with the chicken’s head on the platter as a decoration.I wanted to take a picture of it but my phone was dead because I didn’t have a plug adapter at first. Every meal is eaten with chopsticks and I’ve noticed there are not really any napkins. Most natives carry around little packs of tissue with them and use them to clean up after meals.
After lunch we had a Cantonese class, which was very overwhelming. Then we went on a scavenger hunt on campus and around campus to the Fu Tai shopping center. After the activity I was able to buy an adapter and then had dinner at “Home Fairy” with Ian, Tyler, two mainland exchange students and a Hong Kong buddy.
At night Ian and I went to Gold Coast Beach with around 50 other exchange students. We all just hung out and talked and enjoyed a few beers. (The drinking age in Hong Kong is 18). The water was SO warm, which is definitely not something that I’ve ever experienced on the East Coast.
Yesterday, we had no orientation, so Ian, Siobhan, Tyler and I took the train into Tuen Mun (sounds like Toon Moon) town center. We spent most of the afternoon in the TMT plaza…a HUGE shopping center. We had an American lunch at a place called 360 Spaghetti and also had Starbucks. Afterwards we spent some time in the Tuen Mun park, where many people said hello to us in English. We definitely stood out as the only non-natives in the park. It was very beautiful and we want to go back again.
We ate dinner again at Home Fairy and spent the night on the beach again since Siobhan and Tyler didn’t come on the first night. We also had a chance to go grocery shopping. We’ve been able to find a lot of American products which is comforting especially in the food department!
Today has been very low key. I met some other exchange students and got to speak Mandarin with an exchange student from the mainland.
Adventure in Hong Kong 