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.

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.

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.

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? ^_^