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!

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.

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.

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?