Quick Update Before I Forget

Let's see...Thursday I went to a Chiu Chow restaurant for a friend's birthday celebration. Things started off pretty good, with some kind of BBQ duck or something, but there were also some weird things that made me uncomfortable, like this fried slab of crab/apple mixture and this noodle cake that you pour vinegar and sugar over (the trend here is that I don't like mixing sugar/sweet stuff with things that you shouldn't mix with sugar/sweet stuff). I still ate it all though; I'm a changed person.



On Friday I ended class at 3, took a nap, and then had dinner with Allen's friends. We had California Pizza Kitchen (HAHA), but it was still an experience. Peking duck pizza with cheese, mushrooms, and onions sounds kinda gross, but since I couldn't taste the cheese at all, it was fine. Also, I learned that locals like to use thousand island dressing in place of tomato sauce on their pizzas. That seems really unhealthy.



On Saturday we went to a local dim sum place for lunch. On the way there I spotted two people, a man and a woman, hunched over a really small table on the sidewalk. I think there was a fortune reading going on, cuz the lady looked really engrossed in what the man was saying, and the man had his finger in an empty turtle shell. That was weird.

At home, a good dim sum place has to have a B or lower (well, actually I wouldn't go any lower than a B), but this place was prettttty dodgy. We got seated at a table two feet from the bathroom (but they were nice enough to kinda conceal it with a wooden board). And in Hong Kong, it's not out of the ordinary to seat strangers at a table together when they don't have any spaces left, so two middle-aged Chinese guys were seated at our table about 3/4 into our meal. They started talking to us, and we learned that one of the guys grew up in Bombay (because of a war between China and India that I've never heard of) because his father worked for the consulate, so he speaks really good English. With an Indian accent. LOL.

So we left, and while we were paying our bill, I noticed this guy:


Who still uses an abacus to add up the bills. HAHAHAHAH.



So then we took the ferry to TST (yeah, I've been before, but a member of our group hadn't yet). First we had to get to Central to take the ferry so we took the ding ding (and it's called the ding ding because it ding dings at every stop, I think), a double decker bus thing that runs on...two lines in the street? I don't really know how these things work. So yeah, after the ferry ride we walked around TST for a while, and then I met up with Allen's friends again for some Korean BBQ.

And today we're going to the travel agency to see if we can book a tour package to Thailand, and then we're off to Monkey Park!

An Update Cuz I Feel Like It

I own 7 times tables now.

Skipped two classes Tuesday morning (at 8:30 and 9:30). Too tired...Went to Fortress Hill for dinner and ate at a Taiwanese place. I keep forgetting to bring my camera :(

Today: went down to Wan Chai to get my China visa. It's kinda weird going to the same places (the China Resources Building, and malls and stuff) I did three years ago during my first Hong Kong trip. Why? I have no idea. Also, I got lost getting to the visa place, so I asked a lady, in Cantonese, where some street was. So yay for me! But her English was good so she didn't explain in Cantonese...That makes me sad :(

So after I did my visa stuff, I got some dessert at some French cafe. I got some chocolate/hazelnut mousse thing called "The Temptation". The first bite was good, but then it got disgustingly sweet.

Empty plate after I demolished that sucker.

Some espresso and cream I got with my dessert. This was DISGUSTING.

Then I went to Mong Kok for some more shopping...I'm so bad...Spent too much money; how much, I don't want to say...Then I karaoke'd for a couple of hours, came back pretty early, and now I'm gonna sleep pretty early so I can go to the classes I missed on Tuesday. I feel a sickness coming on too, so I should go to sleep ASAP.

Oh! When I was shopping I managed to save my friend 60 HKD on a jacket hehehe. And one of the shop keepers even said my Cantonese was good for being in Hong Kong for only three weeks. Too bad I grew up with it T_T

So I've been here for three weeks already, but it feels like FOREVER. It wasn't until yesterday that I realized how much I like being here. I mean, I've been here before, so I knew exactly what to expect (well, there are some things that required actually living here for more than a week to notice and take in, I'll elaborate later): I already knew how crowded major shopping areas would be on weekends, how often you can get cigarette smoke puffed directly into your face, how nasty bathrooms can be, etc...So at first, I was very unimpressed. Well, I wouldn't say VERY, but I was pretty indifferent. But I realized just a couple of days ago how different life is here than back at home, and how I'm really happy that I get to be here. Also, Hong Kong trees are way cooler than California trees.


Being on your own in a different country is definitely different from being on your own an hour and a half away from home.

Shopping and Stuff

Pictures after I shower cuz I stink.

Food pictures!

7 dollar all-you-can-eat conveyer belt sushi. It tasted like 7 dollar sushi.

Who puts pork sung in sushi? I don't remember if it was good or not; probably means it was bad.

First dim sum in Hong Kong! Honestly, it just tasted like dim sum at home, except not as good because everything was ordered for us. No ha gao :(

Hong Kong street food. Looks really unsanitary and contains all sorts of animal parts I've never heard of. Also smells really bad thanks to stinky tofu.

I took this picture for G'aw, who wanted to know what I ate for every meal. I had this cheddar cheese bun for lunch. It was pretty good.

I ate McDonalds for dinner today HAHA. It's only the second time since I've been here, I swear! But I've been a little more adventurous with food since I got here, and even tried pork blood (it didn't really taste like anything), and ate a shrimp at hotpot that was still moving on the stick. That was the best shrimp I ever had, probably flavored by its tears as it was boiled alive.

Here's the Facebook album for a lot of my pictures; uploading them onto Blogger is really time-consuming, so I try to choose the more interesting ones to post here.

More Pictures!

I also uploaded the pictures of food from Yoshi's from when I was in Berkeley, so click here if you wanna see all the yummy food I was fed.

Taking It Easy Tonight

Went to Lan Kwai Fong last night to try it out, since I shouldn't say I don't like things I haven't actually tried. But yeah, tried it, didn't like it, and I probably won't go back there ever again. So getting back kind of late last night + class at 9:30 AM this morning = staying in tonight to read/write down some thoughts since all I've been doing is posting pictures/etc...Sooooo

Things I like about Hong Kong:
Clothes shopping
Egg sandwiches
Chocolate Vitasoy
Bakeries
HKU's Campus
Cheap food
Asian food in 7 Eleven/Circle K
Nice malls
MTR (Subway system)

Things I don't like about Hong Kong:
Clothes shopping (I want to buy everything T_T)
Cold weather
Unabashed starers
HKU's course enrollment system
The absence of down escalators on campus
Having to pay for and take the bus to school everyday
Tiny bathroom stalls
Inefficient bathroom hand dryers
Inefficient clothes dryers
How every single mall BLASTS the air conditioning

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be going to see some more scenic tourist traps, instead of walking around the more commercial tourist traps for rich people (malls filled with Coach, Burberry, and Armani stores). Be back later with more pics and stuff.

Random Things at APM

I ended class at 10:30 on Wednesday, so I took a trip to the APM mall at Kwun Tong. Hong Kong sucks because everything is so cute so I want to buy it all -_-

Chinese New Year decorations already.

APM has like, 8 floors.


I don't know, it was cute.

What is up with the fascination with poo?

Should I get it? It's actually not that expensive, but I guess there could be problems bringing it back...

Cuuuuuute.

Shrimp Mos Burger for dinner. It was pretty good.

Asian style food court.

Anyone want some sandwishes? I have two other new posts below this, just in case you missed them...There's 56 views on my first video...too many people saw my embarrassing video :(

Ferry Trip to TST

Last week I took the ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui. The weather was really nice that day, even though it was still a bit chilly.

Taking the ferry costs 2 Hong Kong dollars, which is about a quarter.




This is the IFC (International Finance Centre). AKA the tallest building in Hong Kong AKA the building Batman jumped off of in The Dark Knight.







All of these pictures are at the pier in TST. We walked on the Avenue of Stars (I think that's what it's called, I never clarified) and I took pictures of Jackie Chan's and Jet Li's and Sammo's stars and stuff, but those aren't very interesting. Oh yeah! And Bruce Lee's.

I take nice pictures.

Happy Birthday Candace!

Happy birthday, Candace! More stuff for you to watch. It got cut off at the end, but I was just talking about where I want to go this weekend, so if I do actually go where I said I wanted to go, I'll post pictures. Yeah.



I'll be back to update with pictures and more detailed accounts of my adventures after I shower and do my laundry.

Still Settling In

I'm still majorly jetlagged. I've gotten 4 hours of sleep for the past two days, but surprisingly I've had enough energy to go exploring til pretty late. I recorded a really lame video for you all. It is extremely embarrassing, but showing video of the dorm is more efficient than taking a bunch of pictures. I'll upload that later when I have time. In the meantime, here is an equally embarrassing video of me talking about stuff:



The campus is really nice but really confusing, and the distance from it to my dorm is really inconvenient (I'll have to take a bus to class everyday). I haven't really gotten to explore yet, but there are some pretty interesting things around here. Like the cemetery right next to the hospital. I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but I think it's pretty cool, even though it is kind of morbid. This is also kind of morbid, and I have no idea what it's supposed to represent:






For some reason my blog won't let me post any more pictures right now...so more later, I guess.

Old Post I Wrote When I Didn't Have Internet

It is 10:05 PM Hong Kong time, which is 6:05 AM Pacific, and I am surprisingly awake. Better write this all down before I forget something.

The plane ride felt shorter than I remember. Maybe because it was minus the layover in Taipei, but probably more-so because the entertainment sets actually worked. I sat next and talked to a nice girl who studies at San Francisco State, and since two old ladies asked to trade seats with us so they could be closer to their friend, I ended up not getting an aisle seat. That made things pretty uncomfortable; I can’t imagine how people with legs longer than mine can handle it. Also, the old lady sitting next to me accidentally rested her head on my shoulder during her nap.

I took no pictures between Berkeley Adventures and arriving at my dorm, mostly because I was talking to my Buddy and I felt really sick towards the end of the plane ride. So I’ll show you later how different Patrick Manson Non-hall Residence looks from the pictures of it they posted online.

I was really thirsty so Ian (My buddy) took me to a mall so I could buy a bottle of water. I was in line with my money out and everything when he pointed out that I was about to pay with Mainland money. THANKS ANN.

Dirty room fiasco: when I got here I was assigned a room on the first floor, so when me and my buddy went to drop my stuff off, we found that nobody cleaned it after the previous inhabitants left. It was preeeeetty nasty. Like, old towels still on the bed, trash everywhere and huge dust bunnies and hairballs everywhere. Ian is really nice and started cleaning everything up and sweeping the floors and was about to start mopping when somebody came by and just gave me another room that was clean. So now I’m in 207A. Bad first impression, HKU.

I’m getting sleepy and starting to forget things…Or maybe there isn’t that much to remember between getting on a plane, sitting on a plane, and getting off a plane and taking a cab to the dorm. I’ll probably sleep now.

Berkeley Adventures

So I spent about a day and a half in Berkeley before heading out of SFO on Tuesday. While everybody was at work/school I took a trip to CVS to buy stuff for the trip and then Safeway to buy some lunch. Where I got hit in the face with a bee. Maybe I embarrassed him and invaded his privacy so he decided to get me back half an hour later in the Safeway parking lot. Then I went back to the apartment and watched TV for the first time in like, a year. That was nice.





So Amy came back and picked me up and we took a bus down to the Montgomery Bart Station. This was actually my first time in San Francisco. Look at the nice buildings:





Yes, Amy is a nice building.

So is G'aw.

We went to Yoshi’s, which was realllly nice and fancy:




I was gonna post all the food (mostly sushi and other fancy stuff), but I'm tired and still have to post actual Hong Kong pictures. It was really good though :D

Edit: Sushi pictures!