Noticing Things

Just a few notes about Hong Kong, CUHK and Morningside in general

• MTR motto: Be aggressive. When the train arrives you're supposed to stand to the left or right to let passengers off first, but this never happens. If you have a seat, don't offer it to anyone. That's just weird.
• Buttons in elevators, hand rails on escalators, and even some vending machines have little laminated signs stating how many times per day the surface is disinfected. (Residual cautionary measures from the SARS outbreak).
• People cough and sneeze without covering their mouth. (SARS? Meh)
• Announcements (general): 
• 'The train for .... is arriving. Please let passengers exit first' (MTR platforms)
• 'Please hold the handrail' (MTR stations everywhere)
• 'Mind the doors, please' (Pentecostal elevator)
• 'Please mind the gap' (MTR)
• 'Next station: University. ... and be aware of the difference in levels between the platform and the train' (Specifically for University Station)
• 'Toast' in Cantonese is 'doh-see'. This is useful for ordering $7 toast from Morningside Canteen at 8:30am when none of the English-speaking staff are at work yet. 'Jam' is 'jim'.
• Try Almond Milk Tea. Just try it.
• Sheung Wan is a beautiful neighborhood with lots of galleries and design shops and people walking their dogs on warm April evenings. It also has lots of stairs. 
• Elsa, the lady who runs Cafe Liscio (Tower Block, Morningside College) is a dear - she will make you vegetarian croissants or ciabatta rolls, and if you order something that doesn't quite fit the lunch specials, she will give you a discount anyway.
• Local students will steal your food from the fridge.
• International students will steal your food from the fridge. It sucks, but it happens.
• Lan Kwai Fong on a Saturday night is a must, but be prepared to come back smelling like smoke and alcohol, even if you don't drink or smoke.
• Eating hotpot is a must, but be prepared to come back smelling like hotpot.
• Catch a minibus. Don't worry about where it goes, it's the ride that counts! (Trust me)
• Catch a double-decker bus and sit up the front. (There are several buses that run from Shatin to the Airport, which is probably where you will best experience it). It feels like you are in the front seat of a rollercoaster.
• Don't tip. Don't even think about leaving change. At almost all restaurants you are charged a 10% service fee, so if you leave money, it's just weird.
• If you are at Morningside, during communal dinner, just once sit with the Master. He gets really lonely at his table sometimes. Plus, if you sit with him you get wine with your meal!
• Get annoyed at the Chung Chi College student who loudly practice tug-of-war until 1am on week nights.
• The local students are absolutely lovely, but expect them to always be talking about how much they want to sleep, and how much they hate studying.
• The Park-n-Shop sells Devondale milk, Flora spread, and Cadbury chocolate. Enough said.
• The Hong Kong Central Library in Wan Chai is beautiful.
• From CUHK, it is quicker to get to China than it is to get to Central. Take advantage of this. I should probably write a post about that... Anyway, Shenzhen has some excellent 24 hour spas (kind of like Korean jimjilbang) - the best being Water Cube and Queen Spa. (I went to both. Both had free all-you-can-eat fruit, soft drink and icecream!)
• Buy a jacket or jumper of your college. Morningside's is purple and says 'Once a Morningsider, Always a Morningsider'.
• The University Health Clinic is not just for students. It opens only on week days from 8:45am. If you arrive at 9, the wait time is already half an hour. BUT prescriptions are free!

Tea Appreciation

Here's something different... and FREE!

The Hong Kong Tourism Board proudly presents its Chinese Tea Appreciation Class.

All the info can be found via the link, so I won't repeat it here. Basically during the class you learn about the 6 types of Chinese tea, how to brew them and what kinds of pots the master tea masters use for each type of tea and why, and you get to try lots of kinds of tea. (Including one memorable strong tea called 'Kung Fu Tea'!)

Manca, Vero, Myself, and Mum.

(We met up with my friends after we visited Ocean Park)

The tea master. She was really interesting and made lots of cute, corny jokes

This is the group for the hour-long Tea Appreciation class. There were seven of us, and four others.

As it if a free class, they encourage you to buy tea or tea pots, or have dinner at the adjoining restaurant after the class, but there is no pressure. The other girls stayed for dinner, and they reported the food to be delicious!

Cycling on a lazy Sunday afternoon

While I was doing nothing last Sunday afternoon, Beatriz posted a message on our IASP Facebook group asking if anyone wanted to join her for a bike ride to Tai Po. So, an hour later we met at the MTR. (That's just how things happen around here!)

You can hire bikes at Sha Tin - go through the mall, through Snoopy's World, and to the waterfront. Exit the shopping mall near Shakey's Pizza.

I hadn't ever ventured outside the sparkly-sparkly New Town Plaza (except to go to Sha Tin Town Hall, but more on that later), but I highly recommend it! Right outside is Snoopy's World - a large, Snoopy-themed, children's playground. Apparently, on occasion, you might also see a wedding or two held there...

Here's my fun photo of the day.

Moving on. There are several bike shops down at the waterfront, and expect to pay about $20-$30 per hour. When we arrived it was 4:30pm, and as the ride to Tai Po takes about 1.5 hours, we decided to take the option of returning the bikes at the shop Tai Po. We paid $60 for bike hire and $10 for helmet hire. Helmets are not compulsory in HK, but if you come from a country like Australia where you just grow up with helmets bring normal, it feels unsafe to ride without one. 

So, we set out!

The bike track is in really good condition, and it follows the river the entire way. At times, the bike track is shared with pedestrians. Sometimes the bike track is wide enough for two people to ride side-by-side and sometimes the bike track is wide enough to only ride singe file. At times people's bikes will have speakers attached, blaring music, powered by their cycling. At times you will come up behind a family with the little kid on a tricycle going all over the track, and the parents barely giving the other cyclists a glace of apology.

And at the entire time the view is amazing.

Ocean Park

Well, OK. It's kinda true.
Credit: Hong Kong Memes

Today I took my mum to Ocean Park. I'm not really a 'theme park person' (I don't plan to make the trek to the world's smallest Disneyland) but I had heard that Ocean Park had a spectacular aquarium... and pandas. It actually turned out to be a fantastic day! So, here are some tips to help you and your parents also get the best out of Ocean Park.

When to go:

We arrived at Ocean Park at about 10:30am. The park opens at 10, and like any theme park anywhere in the world, the earlier you get there, the better your day will be. Mum and I stayed until 3pm, and as walked out the main gates, there was a line up for tickets at the ticket office, and a ridiculously long line for bag inspection (I'm not really sure what they inspect for, but mum was allowed in with a bottle of water...). Also note that Ocean Park closes at 7, so why you would want to get there as late as 3pm seems a little strange to me...
We went on a Friday. Though it was busy and in the rides area (there was about an hour line up for each ride), the park itself wasn't crazy-crowded like I assume it would be on a weekend. We saw just two school groups. 

How to get there:

Take the MTR to Admiralty, and head towards Exit B. On the way out the station you will see an MTR Shop selling all sorts of cool MTR merchandise, like key rings and coffee mugs and crystal trains etc. They also have document holders and other stationary with maps of the MTR (good for souvenirs!) But, most importantly for you, they currently sell Ocean Park entry tickets for just $250! (Adult normally $280. Note there is no student price or seniors price, just adult price, child price of $140, and children under 3 are free.) Mum noticed that once we exited the station and lined up for our special 629 CityBus bus to Ocean Park, there was a counter selling Ocean Park tickets at full price.

Paying for the bus ride: OK, bus ride is $10.60. You can pay by Octopus card, bus ticket (though why you would line up to buy a special bus ticket just for Ocean Park I don't know, but the counter that sold full-price Ocean Park tickets also sold special Ocean Park bus tickets), OR cash. However, there is a catch with the cash option - you must have exact change. I mean, EXACT. You walk on the bus, put your money in a little container, and the bus driver doesn't give you a second glance. The bus driver has NO MONEY. Therefore be prepared. Mum tried to give him $20. He took the $20 and put it in the container and waved her in. The frustrating thing was that I had already paid with my Octopus Card, so really we paid for an extra person. Oh well, win some lose some.

Ocean Park:
This is the map that you will receive when entering the park. As with any theme park, if you want to go on the rides, like at any theme park, be there when it opens and go on all the rides first. Note that to get to the rides side you'll have to take the cable car or the express train to get there. Also note that the rides side is REALLY REALLY SPREAD OUT and there is not much by way of food/drink/snack stalls, so make sure you have enough snacks to last you the morning.
Recommendation #1: The Cable Car
Even if you don't want to go on any rides (like me and Mum), line up for a ride on the cable car anyway because it is AMAZING! The views of the South China Sea are amazing, and the cable car is really smooth and quiet. You can see both sides of the park from the air - journeying from the roof of the panda's enclosure to smoothly sailing by the yellow rollercoaster on the rides-side. One way takes about 15 minutes. At the rides-end of the cable car there is a restaurant with a beautiful view of the ocean, and a canteen serving mostly Chinese food, but unfortunately for me and Mum who just wanted a coffee, there was no cafe or ice-cream to be found...
Recommendation #2: The Panda Enclosure
Panda enclosure has both Giant pandas (2) and Red pandas (maybe 3?), both of which are adorable. There is also lots of information and educational activities for the kids.
Recommendation #3: The Chinese Crocodiles.
They're like a minature version of our Aussie freshwater crocs, but they were very photogenic the day we visited. They swam right up to the glass and periodically submerged and surfaced so that just their eyes were above the water. Show offs. Sadly, the sign said that there is only a few as 150 left in the wild due to encroachment of farmland into the croc's territory.
Recommendation #4: The Aquarium.
Hammerhead sharks? Sting rays? Dory fish? Moon Jelly jellyfish lit by various colour-changing lights? Yep, it's all here, and it's all awesome. I could have sat for hours just watching the rays and 1.5m long grouper(?) fish gliding by and above. It was very cool.

And... the rest you can discover for yourself! See if you can find: The stone python above the waterfall. The Mandarin ducks. The cafe that sells HUGE mocha eclairs. The tired kid swinging his arms as his parents push his little sister in a stroller. The Old Hong Kong area (actually, I really recommend this part if you can't make it all the way to a traditional village like Tai-O), where the amusement games are inauthentic, but the tram makes for a good, authentic photo shot.

Here is a photo from the Whisker's Harbour area (the kids area)

It's a grandfather goat!

So, I do recommend that you make time to go to Ocean Park. The entry fee goes to rehabilitating animals and conservation work. I believe that if there were no endangered animals, there would be no need for zoos, only open-plan sanctuaries (like Monarto Zoological Park in South Australia). But until that day, conservationists needs ways to raise funds for their work and research, which is where zoos should come in. From mine and Mum's perspective, it seems like Ocean Park also believes in this philosophy, so I feel really good about the visit.

Enrollment

So, this will be a bit of a boring post for those of you not interested in actually attending CUHK, because this is all about enrollment and subjects and the agreements between Adelaide Uni and CUHK about exchange students etc etc etc.

Back in November (when we had a million other things to do) we also had to 'pre-enrol' in our prospective subjects. It basically guaranteed us a place in the subjects we wanted to take at CUHK, which was great and it gave me a sense of security. HOWEVER, having spent hours in the previous weeks planning a perfect timetable with a wonderful balance of subjects, we were told in the pre-enrollment email that there is a 'list' of subjects for exchange students to pre-enroll in - NOT ALL SUBJECTS were open to us for pre-enrollment. Unfortunately for me, Japanese Language and Korean Language were not on the list of classes available for pre-enrollment, and after sending an email to CUHK about it, they replied that my only option would be to wait until I arrived at the university and hope that there would be places available in the classes I wanted.

So that's what I did. I pre-enrolled in four courses (the minimum number of subjects the Humanities Dept. at Adelaide Uni allows for exchange students to CUHK), two of which I wanted to take - Semantics and Language Disorders - and two which I thought I might drop if I could enroll in the language courses.

The next issue that came up was to do with the number of subjects I would take. It seems every university has a different agreement with CUHK regarding how many units at CUHK corresponds to how many of their institutions units/credits. My friend from LaTrobe University in Melbourne is doing four subjects of 3 units (most non-law, non-specialist undergraduate courses at CUHK are 3 units), which equates to four subjects of 3 units  back at LaTrobe. Simple.
For REASONS UNKNOWN, Humanities and Social Sciences Dept at Adelaide Uni has decided that your average full-time, 12 unit semester is equivalent to 16 units at CUHK. That means taking SIX subjects at CUHK! Note that six is the maximum number of subjects any student at CUHK can enroll in in one semester. It is ridiculous because I find the workload for each subject here to be pretty much the same as at Adelaide. Where they pulled the 16 unit requirement from I have no idea. But after a week experiencing the workload for classes here, I sent an email to HUMSS arguing that five subjects (15 units) should suffice to be equivalent to full time study, and they agreed.

After chopping and changing subjects and trying to figure out which department back in Adelaide will give me credit for which subjects (that part still hasn't quite been worked out, but I hope to credit for a subject of generic HUMSS, two Linguistics subjects and an Asian Studies subject) the following is the list of subjects I am enrolled in and that I now cannot drop (as the add/drop period is over):

Language Disorders
Semantics
English as an L2
Korean II
IASP Senior Seminar

Japanese is a long story. Cut short. I was able to enroll in a Japanese class that I thought and that the Japanese teacher thought was appropriate for my level. The grammar and vocabulary was familiar, but they were expected to learn/know 50 kanji a week and speak every class - two skills which I thought would keep me very busy! After attending Japanese classes for two weeks and trying to finalise enrollment (there were pieces of paper involved, very low-tech)... it didn't happen. There was something to do with my grammar being too advanced for that class. There was something to do with the exam only being in Chinese (then why they offered classes where the medium of instruction was English is beyond me). Basically, it was all very weird and with different teachers signing different forms and not agreeing with each other, it is not an experience I want anyone else to go through.

Korean on the other hand was totally different. I went to the head of department's office, gave her the form for the class I though was my level, and she said 'Well, introduce yourself in Korean'. So I did. She said for me to review the chapters already covered in the textbook, and she signed the form. Done.

Veggie Dinners - Bangkok Thai Restaurant

We haven't had an official Veggie Dinner for a few weeks due to most of us being away for the two Fridays either end of Lunar New Year, and then several people were away in Taiwan last week for the Lantern Festival. I am yet to make it to Taiwan, but flights are cheap and frequent, and it takes only about 1.5 hours to get there.

On Friday we had planned to go to Shanghai Vegetarian in Sha Tin because their food is excellent - noodles,  stews, and the best assortment of vegetarian dumplings and dim sum I have found so far in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, there were eight of us for dinner that night and we hadn't made a reservation, so we had to wait. The host recommended (in Cantonese, Victoria translated for us) that we split into two tables of four, then the wait would be shorter. Note that the wait for restaurants, especially in places like Sha Tin's New Town Plaza, can be anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour. However, I am yet to have a disappointing meal (except for when I ordered a margherita pizza from Shakey's Pizza - thin dry crust, tasteless cheese, just THREE cherry tomatoes that had been halved and randomly scattered, and a sprinking of chopped dried basil that looked like it came straight out of a Masterfoods shaker). I hate cooking, there are very few vegetarian options available for dinner on campus (outside the meal plans for places like Morningside College and S.H. Ho College) so eating at restaurants is my best bet for a stress-free meal.

So in the end, we made the executive decision not to be split up, so we investigated a few other places (the 7th floor of New Town Plaza is ALL restaurants) and ended up at Bangkok Thai Restaurant at a huge table with a lazy susan. We had lovely Victoria (from Georgetown University I think....) order for us because the menu doesn't necessarily tell you if the meal or the stock is beef or fish based - bad for the vegetarians and bad for Vero, who is highly allergic to seafood and dairy. 

I will say this: It is not difficult being vegetarian, vegan, or having special dietary requirements in Hong Kong, its just that when you go to restaurants, you ABSOLUTELY MUST have someone who speaks Cantonese to be able to talk with the waiters about what is in the meals.

Basically, the food was excellent. We had two kinds of curries, a vegetable stew, a papaya salad, vegetarian pad thai, and each of us had a bowl of rice - six dishes was just perfect to fill the bellies of 8 hungry girls.

Most of us also had drinks. In the picture I had the Iced Coconut Juice, and Vero had the (very gingery) Lemongrass Ginger Tea. Splitting the bill meant that we each paid $112 - definitely worth it for the delicious dinner we had!

Grey Mornings

Pretty grey kinda morning, isn't it.

But in Hong Kong, you never know how the weather for the day will turn out - it could start like this and end up being super sunny. I have a rule for dressing here - I look at the humidity first. If the humidity is/will be over 80%, it's summer dress time. If the humidity is under 80%, only then do I pay attention to the temperature.

For example, today, according to Google Weather, will be 91% humidity at 11am. Ignore the fact that it is 20 degrees - a dress and jacket will suffice. However, know that if you do follow my rule and wear clothes that won't have you sweating profusely, you will stand out. (Well, more than I already stand out as a non-Asian). All the local students will be in jeans and puffer jackets of the kind similar to those worn by trendy Koreans during the snowy Korean winter. I guess if you have always lived with humidity, you don't feel it so much. But I, who have only ever known Adelaide's dry heat (bar one ridiculously humid week in Panama), am just not used to it.

Movie Night

So, Wednesday night is movie night here at Morningside College, and tonight we watched that seminal American tale One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I read the book years ago, and while I was in high school the year 12 drama students did a performance of it, which was absolutely brilliant. So, seeing the movie for the first time, finally, was excellent.

In the Tower Block (where I live) on the Upper Ground Floor we have a TV Room with lots of comfy sofas and armchairs and a big flatscreen TV. Anyone in the college can use the TV room, unless it has been booked for an event.  Once Lavinia (an exchange student from Melbourne) and I tried to watch a movie from her hard drive (because the TV has a USB port), but we couldn't quite get it to work. The TV has regular HK channels, but there is information circulating about the possibility of getting cable channels, depending on the cost and if the college can find the money for it. The package being considered is the NOW TV Sports package, which has the rights for the English Premier League and the FA Cup, as well as other channels like Discovery Channel and Al Jazeera English. So, perhaps by the time next semester rolls around, you'll have cable!

The guy who organised the Movie Night, Edwin (a local student, pretty sure he's a graduate student...) bought a DVD player and a speaker to play tonight's movie, so I guess that's the most reliable option. And because he applied for funding for the movie nights, we had snacks (chips, Pocky, Maltesers etc), plus juice, and even a bottle of red AND a bottle of white! Of course, those who didn't think to bring wine glasses drank red wine from plastic cups. After the movie he asked us that if we had any requests for what we would like to watch next week, then just send him an email and he will try to find it. He gets the DVDs from United College's Media Library, so it's all legal and above board for the college to have us all sit around using college property to watch movies.

Normally I wouldn't be able to make the movie night because I have Kung Fu lessons on Wednesday nights, but I didn't go this week because I am sort-of getting over/sort-of still in the midst of a cold (blocked sinuses, in case you were wondering), so two hours of martial arts was just not going to happen.

Back soon!

Look what I bought at New Town Plaza today! Very excited...



So, I didn't intend to buy a computer today, but I'm glad I did. Today I planned to meet my friend Aimee (we did Japanese together at the beginning of the semester before I got politely kicked-out) for lunch. So we went to Sha Tin and had takoyaki and omraisu, and talked about how she wants to transfer out of Bachelor of Business Administration (pretty much the most popular degree at CUHK) into.... Bachelor of Lingustics!

Anyway, after we had a good chat, we went window shopping and I came across this little Vaio in Fortress (kinda like the Hong Kong version of Harvey Norman or Dick Smith) for $3,980 (just under $500AUD). Although it just has a 1.75GHz AMD processor and a smaller-size keyboard, I was pretty sold on the other features: the 1-Year International warranty, 500GB HDD, the fact it is pink, the fact it is Sony and therefore durable/reliable, and the fact that the main reason for buying a laptop is for me to write essays and watch drama - nothing more. By going with a local, Aimee also helped me to get two document holders (why they are 'The Little Prince' themed I don't know), a laptop sleeve, an 8GB USB, and a set of speakers - just casually THROWN IN FOR FREE! So I'm glad I didn't end up shelling out over $1000AUD for a replacement MacBook, and after my little Vaio is up and running, I'll get back to posting regularly.


Macbooks and Taxis at 5am

The main reason I haven't updated this blog in a week is because my Macbook, after 5 years of failthful service, has finally given up the ghost. I killed the battery about a year ago by leaving the poor thing on standby for a week, and on Monday night the hard drive died. After making an appointment for the Genius Bar online, I took it in to the Apple store in Causeway Bay (Exit F1, and you WILL have to walk down a long corridoor underground with no ventilation - not good when humidity is at 85%). The store is open until 11pm on weekdays, which is extremely convenient, and you can make appointments up until 9:45pm. The 'Genius' sales assistant said they could replace the battery and the hard drive, give it the new Mac OS (what is it now, 10.7? 10.8?) for $3300, which I thought was pretty reasonable. But then I pointed out that my Mac has only 1GB of RAM, so wouldn't the new OS chew through that pretty quickly, leaving exactly no room for Apps? "Oh yeah. Well, you'll have to buy new RAM then" says the Genius. But he was nice about it and recommended I go to 298 Computer Zone on Hennessey Road and buy it there (which I later walked to and found it is a huge electronics building with lots of tiny shops and lots of good deal to be had... if you know exactly what you are looking for). And if I wanted I could also buy the hard drive there, and Apple would install the new OS for me and only charge for labour. The thing is, my Mac currently has trouble playing videos over 720dpi, so I would have to look at a new graphics card too (if that is even possible).

BUT, my Mac is the 2007 second generation Intel-procesor WHITE Macbook. Today, all Macbooks - Air or Pro - have the most boring, most impersonal, grey-and-black colour scheme. So... if I have time time and inclination, I might try and source some parts to just keep my darling alive, but when I return to Hong Kong I'll go to Computer Zone and see what I can find in terms of light, fast netbooks that can play all my movies (that I keep on my external hard drive) and that I can use for uni work.

Which brings me to my next point... I might not update for the next week because I'll be in Japan! For family who read this, I'll be posting on Facebook while I am away. But one last note about Hong Kong before I leave.

Next week is Lunar New Year - the one week of holidays I have all semester. I had booked flights to go to Japan before I left Australia, because this THE busiest time of the year to travel in north Asia. Last year I was in Korea in January and I had to change my flight to return home earlier than planned - ALL flights on Cathay Pacific that week (it was Lunar New Year) were booked out - except Business Class. But that's another story! So, knowing my flight was leaving HK at 8:30am, meaning I had to be checking in at 6:30, I decided to book a taxi for 5:30. The long and the short of it: because I had been told there are no taxis really available that early, I booked a taxi to pick me up at the Taxi Stand of University Station at 5:30. I was at the taxi stand at 5am. I stood there for 15 minutes, and in that time 3 taxis showed up. By the time a fourth taxi (a green one - the ones that are cheaper because they only service the Airport and the New Territories), I called the taxi company to cancel my taxi and just got in the one available.

SO, moral of the story - taxis are available, but I would suggest just get to a MTR station taxi stand early and wait. There will be taxis pulling in even at 5am.

OK, I'm off to Japan. Happy Lunar New Year everyone!

Veggie Dinners - Herbivores

On Friday night Emilia, Maria, Rebecca and myself had dinner at The Herbivores, a small vegetarian/vegan place in Central.

It was realtively easy to find, but note that walking from Central Station to Herbivores will take you up several hills at a 45 to 55 degree angle. If you are wearing shoes like this:

make sure to bring someone to hold on to for the walk.

(I swear I actually saw a lady wearing these shoes the other day!  They could have been imitation Louboutins, but with two concept stores and 11 retailers in Hong Kong, I'm inclined to believe they were real).

This review notes that Herbivores is small - and it is. When we arrived at about 8:30pm, the inside table (tables? I didn't venture inside, but the shop is quite narrow and I only saw one long table in the middle of the shop with about 10 people) were full, so the four of us sat at the single outdoor table.

The food was good, but the prices for a main meal started at $148. When you live on campus and a meal and dessert and a drink doesn't even total $50, you forget what the price of a 'normal' dinner is.

I ordered a rice omelette, made with mushrooms and served with a pasta-style tomato sauce. The parsley belonged back on the tree though, not on my plate.

We spent dinner talking about the finer points of second language acquisition in bilingual environments (like Sweden) as opposed to monolingual environments (like the US or Australia), and about how burnt Emilia got on her hike that day.

Although the dessert options were tempting, we walked back down the hill to one of my new favourite places - Yoppi - for make-it-mix-it-yourself frozen yoghurt.

Closing remarks: I had bought the bag earlier that day from H&M. I would like to revise my earlier comments on shopping - if you go to the H&M at Sha Tin on a weekday as soon as it opens (at 10:30), you won't have to wait for a changeroom. I bought two dresses and a bag within an hour. Excellent.

Tai O and the Big Buddha

Today IASP had organised for us a tour to Lantau Island to visit Tai O village and to have a vegetarian lunch at the Po Lin Monastery. We had to meet at the Pi Chu Building at Central Campus (a 10 minute walk from my dorm) at 9am, which was not so easy for a Saturday morning. All the tours organised so far have used consistently nice coach buses (sometimes the air-conditioning can make the bus resemble Antarctica) but this time our tour guide talked REALLY loudly on her microphone the whole 1.5 hour trip to Tai O (our first stop) so only the very determined managed to catch up on some sleep.

Some things I learned from Hilary-the-tour-guide's LOUD talking.

1. Lantau Island is where the Hong Kong Airport is, and where the world's smallest Disneyland is (actually, I knew this already. Actually, we all knew this already. Tour guides just like to remind us.) 

2. Hong Kong comprises 236 islands - Lantau is the largest (which I found surprising because I thought Hong Kong Island was the largest... but I was wrong)

3. Statues of the Buddha have him with one hand facing palm outward (like waving 'hello') which means "do not fear", and the other resting on the knee with palm up meaning "peace to all the people of the world".

4. There is only one bridge going to Lantau Island, and even the Airport Express has its own area of the bridge. If there is a typhoon, the upper level of the bridge is closed (because cars can get damaged) and only the lower level is open. If the typhoon is category 10, then the whole bridge is closed and the only way to the airport is on the train!

Tai O is a tiny tiny fishing village on the west coast of Lantau Island. Here are some photos.

The residential area of Tai O, where people live in houses on stilts because they feel closer to the sea (says Hilary)

Korean Megan (민경) who is also my neighbour at Morningside, and Finnish Katrin.

We had about an hour and an half to look around, so we did, but didn't buy much. There was a lot of live seafood, and a lot of dried seafood, and a lot of pickled seafood... you get the idea.

Trying to be artistic, I took this photo because I liked the contrast of the 50s-style glass engraving on the window as contrasted against the iron sheets.

While walking through the market I heard some distinctly French piano-accordion music, and when we investigated we found a cafe - "Cafe Solo" 86 Kat Hing Front, Tai O - with some tables looking over the water.

I had the red bean and green tea cake, and Katrin had the cheesecake.

The view from the cafe. Because Chinese New Year is in less than two weeks time, there are red lanterns and red banners everywhere.

After Tai-O we got back on the bus to go to have our lunch at the Po Lin Buddhist Monastery. It was quite nice - typical banquet-style vegetarian Chinese food, but with circular tables of about 12 people and no lazy susan in the middle to move the food around, it was kind of awkward. 

At the monastery there is the Big Buddha.

And yes, I did walk all the way up there, but I don't have any good photos closer to the Buddha because the sun was behind the statue.

This is one of the six smaller statues facing the Big Buddha.

There is a 3-level exhibition hall inside the Big Buddha, and many old doors leading inside that are no-longer used.

Although there was a ton of people all visiting the Buddha, sometimes you get lucky and get a photo that makes it look like you are the only one there. (Thank you Megan!)

By 3pm we were all exhausted, and thankfully Hilary didn't talk on the bus on the way back to the University. Most of us slept.

So, although it was a little touristy, I did enjoy today's excursion. I also highly recommend that if you do want to go to Tai O and the Monastery, go with a tour because the area is really isolated and there isn't much public transport.

Kung Fu

Neo: I know Kung Fu.
Sophie: So do I.

OK, so maybe I don't really know Kung Fu quite yet, but the last two nights I have been going to Kung Fu classes organised by IASP and taught by the brilliant Shane Yan. I really enjoyed it - so much so that I have signed up for 6 weeks of classes! I've never been really interested in martial arts (apart from my love of the the Matrix movies) and so when I signed up for just the 3-evening short course, my only thought was that it would be good exercise. But Shane is a great teacher, and we use a little bit of Mandarin in class (just for greetings and counting the moves and for some positions) so it feels good to hear and use the little Mandarin I remember. It's weird how, even though I can hardly speak or read any Mandarin, after listening to it twice a week for ten years in school, it feels far more comfortable than Cantonese, which I listen to every day.

The exchange program at CUHK - the International Asian Studies Program - is really REALLY well organised. Although before you arrive here it might seem like they are really slow to process documents and then they require a hundred things from you in a week, once you arrive it's a different story. There are free tours organised during the Orientation Week (the trip to Stanley I wrote about also included stops at Victoria Peak, Aberdeen and Avenue of Stars), but all through the semester the people in the i-Centre who run the IASP send you emails about upcoming events and opportunities and tours and all sorts of other good things. There has been a trip to the Hong Kong History Museum, and a trip to the Hong Kong Museum of Art (Warhol's 15 Minutes Eternal was showing). This short-course Kung Fu was $200 for 3 1hr lessons. On Saturday I'm going on an excursion to the 'Big Budda and Tai O Village', with Vegetarian Lunch included, for just $175. For me, this set up of having lots of things organised by someone else and letting me pick and choose the activities I want to try is FANTASTIC! I don't have the time or the inclination to search out the best yoga studios in the city, or where to hire the cheapest bike etc - but note that if you DO want to do these things, chances are other students in the IASP program would want to do it (we are all part of a Facebook group, so every day there are new requests by students asking if anyone knows where is the best place is to do certain sports or activities).

So, all in all, things are going well here. My 5 subjects have been finalised and I'm into a routine of going to classes, studying, seeing friends, and doing activities that I can remember as: I did that in Hong Kong.

Veggie Dinners - Harvester

Friday nights are now Vegetarian Restaurant Night. Emilia is our proud, fearless leader, and we follow her to wherever she recommends in Hong Kong's meat-free landscape.

Last week we went to Harvester, a self-serve buffet-style, vegetarian/free trade/organic, Chinese/Western restaurant in Sheung Wan where you load up your plate with whatever you like and pay per 100g.

Pros: The food is really great! Look here and here for reviews. Also there is unlimited soup, rice and congee that you help yourself to after you have paid for your main plate, so you definitely won't go hungry.

This was my meal, and it cost $75. Not bad at all.

Cons: The chairs are pretty uncomfortable. You don't notice it when you first sit down, but by the time you've finished eating and are feeling happy and content with the world from all the delicious food, you realise your bum's gone to sleep.

Although the people in the shop don't speak much English, they are very accommodating. When the 11 of us filed in the front doors (we had a lot of interest for Veggie Dinner this week!) they immediately started pushing tables together for us.

There is apparently also the option to have a hotpot if you have a large group of people, but we only know this because a group of elderly people sitting at the table next to us were eating this. However none of the reviews I've read on the Internet have mentioned this. Next time we plan to go with a Cantonese speaker!

----

Here's the thing. I LOVE food, but I'm not a 'foodie'. If it doesn't taste awful or too ridiculously bland, I'll just eat it and say it was a nice meal. I'm not going to write reviews of restaurants because there are enough people out there on Foursquare etc who have already done this and can do it far better than me. I'm just going to write where I've eaten, and any comments I have about the restaurant.

Breakfast

Just wanted to share with you my typical breakfast, all purchased from the Park N Shop supermarket on campus: normally fruit, yoghurt and crackers with nutella or peanut butter (they only have Skippy brand).

Bananas, oranges, mandarins, about 5 kinds of apples, red grapes, dragonfruit and a few kinds of pear are available at the Park N Shop, and depending on the day/time of day, with varying degrees of quality. Note: you won't find bananas after 6pm - they sell out pretty quick. Also at the supermarket, every shelf has a little flag on it to show you where the product is from if it is imported, so if you are really picky about your food and where it comes from, at least that helps.

Also, as cute as these little milk cartons look, note they are not vanilla flavour, or malt flavour - they are plain soymilk. I had bought the same brand in a brown pack before, and it was chocolate soy milk, so I guess I just thought all that brand was flavoured. But plain soymilk as a snack? It just isn't to my taste.

Normally I buy a few days supply of breakfast, but the supermarket is open every day until 9pm or 11pm, so it's pretty convenient if you have just finished your homework and have a craving for pistachios or chocolate milk.

Shopping in Mong Kok

Although most exchange students would rate Lan Kwai Fong,  Causeway Bay or Wan Chai as the best areas (read: party areas) in Hong Kong, I'm completely sold on the charms of crowded, smoggy, lively Mong Kok.

Case in point - Aussie Kitchens. On Australia Day. Just made me smile.

There is even an ANZ branch!

Courtesy of Google, below is a Mong Kok area map. Note that there are two separate train stations - Mong Kok and Mong Kok East. A walk between the two will only take about 10-15 minutes, but that's not taking into account the busy-ness of the streets. Mong Kok Exit C4 is actually inside Langham Place (shopping centre) - helpful if it is raining and you don't want to get wet.

View Larger Map

The first night I arrived in Hong Kong I came to Mong Kok for dinner with John and his friends, and after just a few visits now I feel like I really know the place. Today I went shopping with my friend Heilie, an Aussie-raised Hong Konger who I first met when I started studying Japanese at Adelaide Uni's PCE. She's finishing her PhD in pharmacology, and spending the next month with her family in Hong Kong. 

Having a snack at Hui Lau Shan, Argyle St.

A few notes first.

1. A large number of shops, actually I'd say the majority of shops, don't open until 2pm on Saturdays.

If you want to act like a tourist and only shop in the shops that can afford the prime real estate that is THE GROUND FLOOR, (Chow Sang Sang for jewellery, Broadway for phones etc) then by all means, turn up in the morning. But note that even H&M in Langham Place doesn't open until 11am on Saturdays. Most of the shops in places like Sino Centre and Argyle Centre don't open until 2pm, so don't worry about waking up early to go shopping and avoiding crowds. It just isn't going to happen in Hong Kong.

2. Do not wear open-toe sandals or thongs. Your feet WILL get run over by heavy suitcases. Confused? Let me explain. Imagine every 3rd person is wheeling a suitcase or large bag etc around with them - in the shops too. THIS happens in HK because lots of Mainland Chinese come to HK on the train to shop for the day, and as they shop, they just fill up their suitcase. I went to Sasa to buy some eye make-up remover (Sasa is kind of like National Pharmacies, but sells 90% make-up) and I saw no less than 4 people with large-size wheelie suitcases totally blocking the aisles wherever they walked. Heilie said that the Chinese like to come to Sasa because they know the cosmetics sold there are not fake versions of the brands.

Where else did we go?

Sino Centre (aka: Otaku heaven) where you can buy Japanese manga in Chinese (traditional characters). Apparently there are two publishers, one based in Hong Kong and one based in Taiwan, and Heilie's verdict is that the Taiwanese produce better translations. One day I'm sure I'll be able to form my own opinion too.... one day! In Sino Centre you'll find lots of CD shops, figurine shops, trading-card shops, hair accessory shops, phone accessory shops etc. Essentially its pop-culture central. I bought this nifty Shinee-themed MP3 player for $150. 

It holds 2GB of songs and is light as a feather. Because my iPod died a while ago I've been playing my songs on my phone, but it does make the battery drain quicker. Now, problem solvered! The place had a zillion designs to choose from - 2PM, Super Junior, DBSK, JYJ, SNSD, AKB48, Lee Min Ho, Nickhun (but no Woo Young, sadly) etc, plus a lot of Japanese pin-up girls in suggestive poses. 

Snack #2 was a happy-looking red-bean bun from Bread Talk.

We also went to Muji in Langham Place for stationary (the shop has Japanese stationary, bedlinen, furniture, clothes, organic snack food and cosmetics, but it is all so seamlessly laid out that it feels totally normal).

And to H&M. I really really hate clothes shopping, but at H&M it seems bearable, and I really like the style (plus everything is comparatively cheap). But note that the lines for the changeroom can be up to 20 people long, so either get there as soon as it opens, or buy lots of things and try them on at home. 

Drinks, ladders, plants

Just a few observations I wanted to record before heading to my Semantics tutorial.

Vending Machines are pretty plentiful around campus, not only inside the buildings, but also outside (like this one outside Sir Run Run Shaw Hall). But it seems that MOST vending machines only dispense drinks (both hot and cold), not food. The only one with food I've seen so far is in the Maurice Greenberg building of Morningside College, which has chips, chocolate and cup noodles. Maybe I should make a list of the locations of all food vending machines....
Oh, and most vending machines take Octopus Card. 

Moving on to ladders. This isn't really CUHK-specific, but growing up in Australia where few people live in apartments, ladders such as these (with the cage around them) was something I only saw on American TV. My question: why is there a cage around the ladder?

(Picture: behind the Y. C. Liang Hall)

Finally, greenery. One thing to love about HK is that wherever there is the tiniest bit of space for a tree, shrub or potted plant, there will be a tree, shrub or potted plant! For example, between two power-generation-machine-things to the right of Y. C Liang Hall.

And at Hong Kong University too! (photo courtesy of Aleksis)

Burns Night

There is a tradition at Morningside College of holding a 'Burns Night' in honor of Scottish poet Robert Burns during the week of his birthday. Last night, Master of the College and Head Scot, Professor Sir James Mirrlees read Selkirk Grace (with a beautiful Scottish lilt) before an Asian man in a kilt playing the bagpipes performed the "Piping-in of the Haggis". Seriously. The bagpipes were played, and the haggis was rolled in on a silver platter by the chef. (Well done to John for capturing the moment, as it all happened so fast!)

An extract from the Address to the Haggis was then read, then we toasted the Haggis. Then we ate the haggis (with mushed carrot and mushed potato-cauliflour).

Well, most people did. They also served fish with vegetables, plus the table staples of rice and soup (last night was regular Asian-style chicken soup. More on irregular Asian-style chicken soup to come!)

For the third out of four nights my vegetarian meal was... pasta! But sadly it was not Scottish-themed. So far I've had spaghetti in napoletana sauce, spirali in yellow curry (that was interesting) and penne in napoletana-with-broccoli-and-carrot-chunks. I'm not complaining. The serving is huge and my food is never cold (unlike some of the regular meals that can take a while to get to your table and become cold in the process).

We also had two of the resident professors give speeches - Professor Simon Haines spoke of Robert Burns and his achievements (both literary and... extra-curricular) and Professor Colin Graham - who actually grew up 8 miles from Burns' hometown - read To a Mouse. We were given a program:

And in the program there was a copy of the poem in its original form (as it was read on the night), plus a "Standard English Translation".
Anyone who has ever read Burns and tried to figure out what 'skeekit', 'whyles', 'daimen' and 'cranreuch' means will appreciate the gesture.

We then all stood up and sang Auld Lang Syne (again, the verses were in the program, and some of us sang more heartily than others!) then it was trifle for dessert.

I thought the whole occasion was thoroughly enjoyable! The case for Morningside College being the best of the residential colleges is, in my opinion, getting stronger by the day... but I won't give my final analysis until I've lived here for at least one month.

Bad Morning

Sometimes you have a bad morning. The bus driver closes the door on you while you are getting out and you get squished and he barely lets out a 'sorry' before driving off and you know you will get a huge black bruise on your thigh (and it still really hurts!).
And then you get totally confused about where the English Department is because you are standing in Leung Kau Kui when you want to be in Lee Shau Kee (the buildings are next door to each other).
And then you trip down two stairs and get scared and the person at the bottom of the stairs on their phone laughs at you.

This is the map I have to work with.

Night View

View from my dorm on a winter's night in HK. I could get used to this...

Except for the fact that my bed comes standard with a 9.5cm thick mattress.

I'm used to it... but not really >_<.

ATMs

Let's start with the basics. There are apparently 4 ATMs on campus, but I have only been to two. Hang Seng bank has got a branch actually IN campus at the John Fulton Centre (pretty much in Central Campus) and an ATM outside the entrance to the branch, but there are ALWAYS lines. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid! I find this kind of silly because...

The ATM at University Station NEVER has a line.

This ATM is run by Standard Chartered JETCO, and if you have a NAB card, the ATM won't charge you an ATM fee. This is because the JETCO branded ATMs in HK are aligned with Citibank, and Citibank is aligned with NAB. Logically, it follows that Citibank ATMs you won't get charged a withdrawal fee, but I have been charged for using Citibank ATMs in Korea, so who knows really?

For more info see the JETCO link above, and for info on the other ATMs on campus see here.

And remember what I said earlier: cash and Octopus will get you everywhere. Paying by credit card could get you a loud sniff and a look of disgust from the person behind the counter.

And as a foreigner, you already stick out like a sore thumb. Just go with the flow - use cash or OC.

UPDATE

There are two additional ATMs inside the branch of Hang Seng Bank (which is actually located on the 1st floor of the John Fulton Centre, not the ground floor) and a cheque deposit machine... but when I went to the bank to pay my dorm fees today there were long lines at both these ATMs. Just thought I should let it be known that such ATMs exist, in case of emergency or some such incident.

Veggie Dinners - Veggie SF

At our Welcoming Dinner on Friday of last week I met quite a few other 'vegetarians' seated at the "Vegetarian Table". People included Jewish Tal from North Carolina, lactose-intolerant seafood-allergic Swede Vero, lacto-ovo vegetarian Swede Emilia, plus a few other people (I distinctly remember two Marys...). Last night Emilia, Vero, myself, Maria (another Swede I met for the first time that night) and John (who never likes to miss out on a dinner invitation!) went to Veggie SF, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Central.

L-R Vero, John, Emilia

The decor was 50's America. The owners subscribed to the 'more is more' philosophy regarding antiques and decorative ornaments.

The SF in the name stands for San Francisco. On their website Veggie SF write

"Having worked in this (Hong Kong) bustling city, we understand the work environment can be very stressful. With this in mind, we provide our customers with a good selection of inspirational readings where one can refresh and rejuvenate the mind"

For example:

Here's a picture of Millie getting excited about the chocolate cake (it was pretty good!)

We also had Pomelo ice-cream, which was a very small serving - read: one scoop - but quite tasty. I spent about 10 minutes on my phone trying to find out what a 'pomelo' was after receiving conflicting answers of 'its a pomegranate', 'its a big citrus fruit', 'its a type of melon'. Answer: Pomelo is the largest citrus fruit. A pomegranate is something entirely different. It is not a melon.

And as we were leaving the restaurant, this lovely vintage portrait of the San Francisco trams caught my eye, and John kindly took a photo for me.

May there be many more exciting vegetarian adventures to come!