- 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!
Showing posts with label student life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label student life. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Noticing Things
Just a few notes about Hong Kong, CUHK and Morningside in general
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
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.
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.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Night View
View from my dorm on a winter's night in HK. I could get used to this...
I'm used to it... but not really >_<.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
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.
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.
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.
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