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!

Classes - Week 1 Review

OK, week one classes: COMPLETE!

Once my classes can be finalised (not until next week when the Add/Drop period opens unfortunately) I will post about enrollment drama and HOW TO GET THROUGH ENROLLMENT AT CUHK WITHOUT PERMANENT SCARRING, but for now, I'll just give a run-down of the classes I'll most likely be enrolled in for the duration of the semester.

Linguistics

Language Disorders - Taught by Patrick Wong, this class looks like it will entail a lot of reading and a lot of learning (our textbook "Foundations of Communication: Sciences and Disorders" is nearly 900 pages), but therefore I think it will be extremely rewarding. Patrick has practiced as a neurologist and researcher in the field of Langauge Disorders, with both child and adult patients. From aphasia to cleft-palate to every-part-of-the-throat/tongue-being-cut-out-due-to-cancer-from-smoking, he has seen it all and, in the US, has taught it all. Now he is back in HK, continuing his research into why children with cochlear implants (which these days are near-perfect replacements of the human ear) do not develop normal language functions at the same rate as their hearing peers.

Acquisition of English as an L2 - Taught by Helen Zhao. We spent the first lecture talking about L1 acquisition and establishing some foundations about how a child learns their first language (and historical theories of this process i.e. Skinner and his rats, Chomsky etc). This course is actually offered by the English department, but future students DON'T BE FOOLED! There is a lot of linguistic theory to be learnt, and the course will also focus on research methods as to how L2 is acquired, and to what degree it is acquired in different people (due to motivation, aptitude, anxiety) etc. It will also focus on effective methods of teaching L2, English being the target language of L2, so in the class there are also many students whose major is English Teaching.

Semantics - Taught by Candice Cheung. Semantics will be tough, I can tell. Our first task that lesson was to unpack the semantics of the meaning of the word 'mean(s)'. Like "I know what you mean" as opposed to "smoke means fire" as opposed to "I mean to go to every lesson". Pretty intensive stuff.

Languages

Japanese - New Practical Japanese II. Well, it seems that the grammar is fine, but I have SO much kanji study to do...

Korean II - Oh dear. Oh dear. Some new words. Some new grammar. Now I actually have to start spelling things correctly! >_< But the teacher is brilliant, and he is very patient with our small class of 8 students.

Don't ask about Cantonese or Putonghua. I'll learn from my roommate and my new friends. Sorry brain, no holiday for you until June!

Tennis

Why didn't I think to bring my tennis racquet?!?! CUHK has no less than 12 beautiful tennis courts. Below are the courts I can see from my dormroom window (no zooming! They are really that close!)

Maybe I will go buy a racquet and some tennis shoes while I'm here...

Rowan, what do you think? ^_^

Octopus Card

The good, the bad and the ugly about the Octopus Card.

The Octopus Card is the preferred method of payment for just about EVERYTHING on campus at CUHK.

Really.

Trains, buses, coffee shops, canteens, supermarkets, the university bookstore, plus lots and lots of other places outside the Uni prefer Octopus Card. Basically the OC acts as a debit card. You insert your OC in to a special machine (present at most train stations, inc. the University Station), insert HK $50 or $100 bills ONLY (the machines don't take $500 bills, but you can ask for change at the service desk of the station) and presto! Money to burn. There are also separate machines where you can check the balance of your OC. Also when you swipe your OC to enter/exit a station, some of the newer turnstiles will show you the cost of your trip and your balance on the screen).

The Good
#1: Accepted almost everywhere to pay for anything.
#2: A standard transaction time of 1 second in shops and 0.3 seconds for public transport. This is much quicker than when paying by credit card because the Pay-and-Go/PayWave function is not widespread and normally you have to either enter your PIN or sign for the transaction.
#3: Uni students pay only half the price of an adult fare on the MTR. Pretty sweet.

The Bad
#1: Unlike a credit card, it has very little security. There is no PIN, and you don't have to sign for purchases (acts like PayWave in this respect). What about if you put some money on your OC to pay for your textbooks and some groceries, but you loose your card on the way? Too bad. YOU are liable for any transactions someone else may have made for the first 3 hours after you have reported your card missing.
#2: For those of us who have a Travel Money card or NAB Travel Card where we don't get charged any fees at POS, but sometimes get charged fees when taking money out at ATMs, the process of re-loading one's OC is pretty annoying.
#3: It is not as easy to keep track of your spending. You can only view the last 10 transactions on the machines at the station, and there is no way of going online (like with online banking) to track the amount and location of your purchases.

The Ugly
It takes a month to get the Student OC.
On the day I arrived I filled in the paperwork required for CUHK to endorse my application for a Student Octopus Card. Two days later it was endorsed, so I took said paperwork to University Station. Apparently it takes a minimum of one month for my 'personalised' OC to be ready for collection, but in the mean time, would I like to PURCHASE a temporary OC for $170HKD? Um, well yes. I need it.

My temporary card

Awkward Situation...

When trying to purchase $500 worth of textbooks from the bookshop today, the girl tried my credit card, then said "the machine is not working. Can you pay with Octopus?" I said "uh, no". Its kind of scary when they don't seem to mind that their credit card reader isn't working. I ended up only paying for one book with the cash I had on me. With the average train ride being about $5 to $10, would I want to keep $500+ on my card?

Who knows? Maybe I'll get used to the OC and when I get back to Australia I'll really notice that <1 second time lag at the check-out when paying by debit card. Maybe.

Winter

Hong Kong winter: 21 degrees and sunny.

This is the view from Level 7 of the Mong Man Wai building where I have my Language Disorders class.

You know you're doing something right when you actually look forward to going to class!...

Hearing Voices

On the MTR - the train network for Hong Kong - the announcements are in Putonghua (Mandarin), Cantonese, and English. One thing I like about MTR is hearing the voice of an English (as opposed to an American) woman announcing things like "The next stop is: Sha-Tin". It's very refreshing.
One thing I don't like is that the train tracks are open-platform style, i.e. you can jump on to the tracks. Kowloon Bay station is the only one I've seen so far with shoulder-high barriers that only open when lined up with the doors of the train.

In Seoul, most platforms have a shell-like appearance; there is no way of getting on to the tracks because the floor-to-ceiling doors only open when they line up with the train doors. It is only the older lines where the platforms are still open-style.
And Seoul Metro has announcements in four languages - Korean, English, Putonghua and Japanese.

Moot Point: The same thing for both systems, and I'm guessing for metro systems in most large Asian cities, is the 'manners'. First-come first-serve to sit down (normally regardless of age or frailty), and people piling on to the train as soon as the doors open and not letting you get off.

Winner Round One: Seoul Metro.

Care to argue?

Stanley Plaza

For that tailored, luxury experience, Adelaide dog-owners have Burnside. And here, Hong Kong dog-owners have Stanley.

Stanley Plaza and the Stanley Markets are located on the south side of Hong Kong Island, and apart from being a very pretty, very clean, semi-outdoor shopping mall, it is unique in its special attention to its canine shoppers.

Exhibit 1: The sign above the entrance to the mall

Exhibit 2: Doggie ice-cream with a conscience

Exhibit 3: Dog Parking (possibly not-so-eloquently translated, but considerate nevertheless)

Exhibit 4: Human and Canine cafe

Note that it is a really REALLY big shopping mall, with a separate plaza area and market area (the latter I didn't even have time to explore), and that only a fraction of the shops are dog-related. But its a bit like when you see a chunky powder-blue Toyota Camry driving down Rundle St, and then you really notice chunky powder-blue cars everywhere...

Orientation & Monks

Some important things to note:

#1 - Orientation
Orientation was on Thursday morning, so all 342 of us new IASP students (there are about 500 IASP students total) packed in to Lee Shau Kee Building, BUT, it was really really really BORING. A nice lady from the Health Centre (we have a doctor's surgery on campus - just behind my college in fact) spent about 20 minutes telling us about washing our hands regularly and to be aware of the new strain of flu each year. We also had a man from Campus Security telling us to always lock our dormroom door, and not to leave one's laptop unattended. He then went on to show us pictures of different coloured pills of ecstacy, some crystal meth, and other assorted drugs, reminding us that we should not buy them.
Thank you Captain Obvious.
BUT, if you are a new IASP student, you must go, otherwise you could miss some important information - and they do give you a lot of information. Things like signing up for the University Sports Centre gym, various login systems for the computers around the campus (you have a different password for the campus wifi, Library computers, and for the lab/college computers >_<) how to get a China entry visa, etc etc.

#2 - Something for Nothing? Hahahahahahaha!
Nothing in HK is free. On Thursday night Chloe, her fellow countryman Dylan, and I went out to Lan Kwai Fook - the party area near both Central & Hong Kong Stations on HK Island. Not exactly cultural, as 90% of the people in the clubs and bars were foreigners, but we had a good time dancing at Dragon-I and Zinc, regardless. At one point when we were walking between clubs, I saw a monk just looking at a nice view of the city from a little side-street. He then noticed me, and raced up, put a bracelet on me and kissed my hand. It was so lovely. He did the same thing to Chloe and Dylan. THEN... he brought out a little cup with a few notes in it, started shaking it. He expected money, and when I gave him a note (a rather large one, thinking I was 'paying' for all of us) he grabbed on to Chloe and Dylan and expected them to cough up the same!
There's really no such thing a free lunch.

Bathroom Notes

This is my floor

There are 11 levels in the Tower Block, and I know levels 8, 9 and 10 are for girls, and level 3 is for boys. Perhaps the higher levels are for girls and the lower levels are for boys?... Apparently it is ok for girls to visit boys rooms and vice versa from 8am to midnight (with the permission of the roommate), however this means that I don't feel comfortable walking from my room to my floor's shared bathroom in my pajamas because a guy could be lurking in the hallway >_<.

The floor has 9 rooms, with two girls to a room. However, for these 18 girls there are only two showers, two toilets, and a disabled toilet in the bathroom. However, the bathroom itself (space in front of the showers) is HUGE, like 5m by 5m, with lots of mirror space and 4 sinks. Question: Why couldn't they put more toilets or showers in? The showers are very small - about 1 to 1.5m wide by about 2.5 long. There is a shower curtain to divide the shower from the small area that I assume is the place to be kept dry and to get changed in. But this is what makes me laugh. In our Orientation Booklet they make explicit reference to privacy. Quote:

"Many local students, especially females, are extremely modest and prefer to undress only in complete privacy. They will expect equal consideration from you. It is a good idea, therefore, to discuss about this early with your roomate and arrive at an agreeable arrangement."

There is NOWHERE to be private, except for the tiny shower cubicle.

Regardless, the bathroom is very nice and new and shiny, and we are allowed to use the bathrooms on the other girls floors also if ours if too busy.

Cats!

I've noticed a few cats frolicking about the campus. I'm not sure if they are strays (they look very clean, but quite small in  size) or if they belong to the lecturers who live here. Us students aren't allowed to keep pets of any kind in our room (although I doubt they'd object to someone owning a few sea monkeys), but perhaps staff are?

Here's a photo of one in the garden outside Chung Chi College.

First Impressions

Hello Hong Kong! I like you already.

We were told via the IASP e-newsletter a few weeks ago that we should travel from HK Airport to CUHK by taxi (it would be quite inconvenient to other passengers to travel on the MTX if we had lots of luggage, which is understandable), and that it would be about $300HKD. My taxi driver spoke almost no English, but had a cute figurine in his car.

The green taxis on the right as you exit HK Airport go to the New Territories. Happy point #1: The fare to my actual hostel - like to the door - was less than $220!
Drawback... I arrived right at the start of the lunch hour break for the Morningside College Office >_< (They are closed between 1 and 2pm) so I just had lunch at the cafe in the Tower Block. Pasta, and a not-too-big-not-too-small can of Coke Zero.

Morningside College consists of two buildings: the Student Hostel/Tower Block/High Block (same building, different names), and the Maurice R. Greenberg building (they are only about 10m apart). Downstairs in the Tower Block there is the cafe, which has a lunch special every day (Wednesday is Mediterranean Pasta, which turned out to be carbonara, so I picked out all the bacon) and the lady working in the cafe is really nice. (She actually had  noticed I had picked out the bacon and said I should tell her next time and she would prepare something else. How nice!). The Maurice Building has the Office, Laundry, Dining Hall, and residential apartments.

Actually, that's one thing about HK - people are really nice and helpful (just a little pushy getting on and off the MTR, but that's a mirror of the manners on public transport in lost busy cities in north Asia I think!).

So, we were told to check in to our Hostel first, which I did - at 2pm when they opened again - and I received a key and some info about College rules.

This is my room!

The window is opposite the door, and my bed and desk are on the left when you enter the room.

As you can see, there is one wardrobe for two girls. Hmmmm. 

But the room is really new and clean and we have a beautiful view of the lake (river?), so when study gets too much, I can just look over the University grounds and the water. (The front haze in the photo is the flyscreen)

We had also been told in the e-newsletter that AFTER checking in to the hostel, to go to the I-Centre in Yasumoto International Academic Park. There is a free CUHK app for Android and iPhone which has a really useful map, so I used that to find my way from one place to the other. You have to be pretty on-the-ball to keep up with where to check-in and where to be, because there is no-one to hold your hand, but the whole registration process wasn't difficult - just follow what they tell you in the email. At the I-Centre I registered for my student Octopus card (transport card) and filled in some other paperwork, and bought a bedding set for $200. I then lugged it back to my dorm (uphill), where I met my roommate. She's lovely! Her name is Chloe, she is from Vancouver and she is studying Finance... and she only needs to do three subjects! (I'm very jealous).

Although we had been told in several previous emails that we would have a "local roommate who had expressed interest in sharing with an international student", this is not true as a rule. Some people have local roommates, and some don't. Chloe's family is from China (near Shanghai) so she speaks fluent Mandarin and some Cantonese. Very convenient!

Last night I went out to dinner in Mong Kok with John and two of his friends from highschool (who are staying here in HK with family until the end of January; they study at Flinders University) and two of their friends. Hong Kong by night is amazing. Much older than Seoul, and lots more neon lights. We went down Nathan Road and Soy Street, and we had sushi at Hokkaido Katsu Sushi for dinner (order as much sushi as you like then pay by plate-number/plate-colour at the end) and a kind of iced-gelati for dessert. 

Afterwards John and I caught the train back to the University just before midnight. The train only takes about 20 minutes from the Uni to Mongkok! Excellent!

So, it was a brilliant first day! May there be many more like it ^_^