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.