No, I never left Hong Kong

Today I went to Wetland Park, one of the optional tours the OMIP offered the exchange students. Option 2 was a trip to Mong Kok, but I wanted something relaxing for my last day of summer vacation.



Let's see...this morning I wandered about Fu Tai for a bit, looking at the unfamiliar foods in the supermarket. Entire frozen chickens, aloe vera juice, red bean and coconut popsicles ("red bean and coconut" is all one flavor). Actually, this afternoon I sipped someone's red bean milk tea...not bad.

Then I wandered about campus a bit and ran into friend (also wandering) so we wandered together, trying to fill time before Wetland Park. We were unable to fill enough time, however, so we returned to our hostels. I joined my rommate in watching a Japanese television show with Chinese subtitles, which she translated into English. What an odd show. There's a ten-year-old high school teacher with magic powers and I think all the students had special powers too. And one of them looked like an elfin android, but we didn't learn anything about her in this episode.

Anyway, I headed for the canteen for lunch, learned it's closed on Sundays, and ate dim sum at the Chinese restaurant on campus. Curried squid = delicious. Same for the jasmine tea. The shrimp dumplings never arrived, but we had to leave for Wetland Park so I'll try those another time. Thinking I'd only be grabbing food to go at the canteen, I'd left my camera and water bottle in my room, so I literally ran to fetch them, powered by fear of missing the bus.

I didn't :)

But what should inappropriately visitors do after reading this sign in the middle of park? And I'm still struggling to figure out how not climbing over fences relates to taking care of children.


All museums should fill their main entrance with elaborate origami displays.



Taro!


Watch a mud skipper in action!

"It is traditionally thought bad for the health to drink ice-cold drinks..."

Well, the guidebook was right. I'd already noticed that restaurants always bring warm water or watered-down tea before meals--fortunately I'd been prepared. Possibly related: the cold version of any beverage costs a few extra HK dollars (that's right! you have to specify whether you want a warm or cold soda!) Today I learned the same customs may apply to the drinking fountains. Maybe if I'd let the water run for a bit longer? Doubtful. The drinking water from the sink is also above lukewarm in temperature. The tap water isn't safe, but the sink in the pantry has two faucets, one of which is hooked up to a filtration system.

Three cheers for the refrigerator!

Today I went with some hallmates to apply for a student Octopus. It costs a little extra (less than $3 US) than the adult Octopus, which costs nothing (you pay a deposit, but it's returned when you return the card). And the cheaper rates I'll enjoy on several of the MTR lines makes it worth it.

First we went to Fu Tai so I could get ID photos taken (student Octopuses are personalized) but the store didn't open until 11:30. So we went to the grocery store instead, which I was told sold cheap soy milk. It did, so I bought some, but I realize now I'll need to buy a glass before I can actually drink some. I also bought the MOST DELICIOUS pears. Round and pale yellow--Asian pears? That would make sense; the store gave them a different name though. Anyway, pears have now climbed several steps on my list of favorite fruits.

Since we had so much extra time we decided to return to campus and return to Fu Tai at 11:30. Then we ate lunch while waiting for the photos. I had sweet and sour pork that tasted very similar to/exactly the same as American Chinese food. Probably the translated portion of their menu consists of the foods most familiar to Westerners. Oh well. Next time I'll just randomly point at something. Actually, we chose the same restaurant where I ate the fabulous dinner I loved, so probably anything is good. Except the tea I drank with lunch. Very bitter.

And again people were amazed that I could use chopsticks. I'm really not particularly skilled.

Oh, and I learned about cumpolsory military training in China, which I didn't know existed before. The topic came up because one of the hall camp teams entered the restaurant. For the past few days a huge orientation-type event involving running, screaming, and competitions has been going on for the freshman. They've been stampeding around campus in colorful T-shirts and shouting cheers about their hostel. No one understands how they can find the energy in this heat. Anyway, so I was told that in Mainland China they have to attend military camp for three weeks before entering university. It's like orientation in that everyone gets to know each other. It's unlike orientation in its absence of fun. Instead of water balloon fights, they stand out in the sun until the sweat goes "drip drip drip" from their foreheads.

The guidebook also mentioned that it's considered rude to finish all your food, because it shows you weren't fully satisfied, and it's true I haven't seen an empty plate yet.

After picking up the photos we walked to the Siu Hong station to turn in the applications. The cards will be ready in two weeks, so I'll turn in my old Octopus then. Ah! These cards are so amazing. Really. I just can't get over them.

Inside the station there's also a bakery with pumpkin-shaped pumpkin bread. I'll be back.

Back on campus we went to the library and I figured out how to use the Octopus to print out my class schedule. There are a lot of different classrooms to memorize, because nearly all of my courses are divided into a lecture and a tutorial section taking place on different days in different rooms. Nearly all my classes are on the same floor of the same building. Good, because there'll be a high probability of my being in the right general location. Bad, because if I'm not paying close attention I'll think it's time for the classroom next door or across the hall.

Oh, and also while in the library I saw a keyboard with maybe two or three Chinese characters per key, in addition to all the usual letters and numbers. I'm not quite sure how it works because clearly a few thousand are missing.

The bank and I become acquainted

After some brief orientation activities with Student Services and making plans to meet at half after twelve for a trip to Town Centre I decided to (finally) visit the bank. Good thing I left plenty of time, because from 11:15 until 12:30, that's where I was. Waiting. Luckily a cheery and repetitious tune played in the background.

I couldn't deposit my traveler's checks at that time because the teller wanted to see the receipts as well and I'd left those in my room. I wouldn't have had time to sign them all anyway.

I'd been waiting in line with some Korean friends, so they joined us on our Town Centre trip. We all wanted to get cell phones. I hadn't wanted to get one, but I'd fast realized I'll need one to meet up with people after orientation days and so I can worry less about getting lost on grand excursions. Plus our guides yesterday said: "You need a cell phone." It wasn't too expensive though; I chose a prepaid plan that only covers Hong Kong and an un-snazzy phone (but at least it's magenta).

But first I found a bank that could cash some of my traveler's checks.

We found a bakery for lunch. I bought...I don't remember. A bun with pork and something baked into it. And a smaller piece of almond and something bread. Then for breakfast tomorrow I bought some kind of walnut pastry. And for dessert someday I have a cranberry flavored squishy puffy thing. I wasn't in the mood for water, so I tried cantaloupe juice. It tasted fine with the baked goods, but I wouldn't drink it by itself. I think I would have liked it better if I liked cantaloupes more.

Then more wandering.

We took a minibus back to campus. We'd taken a bus (and sat on the second level!) to the Centre, but the minibus is much faster. Only thing is, we have to remember to press the little red button on the side or he'll drive right past the stop. We'd forgotten that, and the driver had to quickly change through a few lanes and execute some minor swerving. We felt pretty awful.


And then: the bank again. This time to deposit most of the money I'd gotten from the traveler's checks and to pay the air conditioning fee.

I wandered about Fu Tai afterwards; I'm hoping sometime soon I'll manage to walk confidently in the correct direction after exiting. I bought some guava juice to make my dinner of leftover rice more lively. It's delicious, but VERY sweet, so I'll know to dilute it a bit next time.

And when I unlocked my door: I met my roomate! She's actually from Mainland China, although she's a full-time student at Lingnan. Her major is translation, so she's excited about the opportunity to improve on her English. She offered me some food from her native town, but without any English names. I tried these small, greeny crunchy fruits and a slightly larger reddish fruit that tasted like a sweet apple, only not--that much I did learn. I also ate a prepackaged crispy twisted bread type thing with nuts that tasted a bit fishy. But the only English on the label says, "Famous Chinese Snack Food" and "Hard Nut." I tried going to the website, http://www.gfx.com.cn but it didn't help. Any ideas? It tasted a bit fishy (just in the literal sense), but that might be my imagination.

Anyway, so then I talked with my roommate for awhile and learned about China. We're waiting for her boxes to arrive, but they might not get here until 11. And now I'm watching "Heroes" with Chinese subtitles. Hiro Nakamura just arrived in New York City after some scene with Mohinder and Eden that I missed because I was typing the previous sentences.

A visit to Mong Kok

Today I went to Mong Kok. Wow... I headed towards the canteen this morning with no particular plans other than to set up a bank account (that never happened) when I ran into some friends who were heading towards Fu Tai for breakfast. When we returned we ran into more friends who were going to Mong Kok with two exchange students who have been at Lingnan for a few semesters, from Canada and Australia.

We took the subway, I can't say how long it took because I forgot to look at my watch. I love the subways because:

• It's all one long compartment that's a kilometer long. I should have taken a picture, but basically imagine something like when you place two mirrors facing each other and see infinity.
• Super-duper clean and bright.
• The route for the line is displayed on the walls: the current stop lights up and so does an arrow showing which direction we're moving along the line.
  

And then we stepped out into Mong Kok.

(also: observe the crossing light in the photo above. it's the same as all of the ones around here, and i love them! maybe you can't tell, but the person is adorable! and has feet!)



Please observe a photo of my favorite sign. I also liked one I saw in the MTR station with a person tripping over a rock or something.



We took the elevator up the thirteenth floor of a shopping center. Amazing!

And then we took the escalators down.





Above is a double-decker bus. You can't see the people clearly, but I bet they're all smiling because who wouldn't be on a double-decker bus!






Unfortunately, it appears I've forgotten to take photos of the best part--wandering through the market. Four blocks long! Bags and watches (mostly boring and always fake), shirts, dresses, belts, sunglasses, toys, glass posing as jade, fans, kimonos, cell phone charms, chopsticks, toothbrush holders... And lots and lots of the most adorable things! I've never wanted to buy so much stuff in my life! And it's all so cheap!

But I contained myself. I only bought the sweetest little salt and pepper shakers (random, right? but at some point in my life I would have needed salt and pepper shakers anyway, so...). I had to haggle, and I ended up getting them for half the price she originally said, which was okay. We'd been warned that they always begin with a higher price for Westerners, so a local probably could have gotten them cheaper. But I think I did good for my first time. Probably helped that I didn't squeal with delight when I saw something I loved. And that I kept walking away.

P.S. I haven't mentioned food yet. Nothing exciting that I ate, but when we were in the FuTai shopping center this morning I saw: dried squid, dried cuttlefish, pigs' heads hung up by their snouts (I also saw these later at the school canteen, but less raw) and octopus balls (like the fish balls Ikea sells, so maybe I'll try them).

Orientation: Day 2 (a.k.a. the tastiest day yet!)

Today was a long day--several breaks were scheduled (4, in fact) but not one actually happened. In the morning the OMIP (Office of Mainland and International Programmes, the people who've been conducting orientation) collected our passports to make copies of them. I also learned that to simplify matters, we will be charged a flat fee of 150 HK dollars (about $19 US) for air conditioning. Very excellent news. Next we changed locations to an auditorium also filling with freshmen. They were all singing and chanting in Cantonese; the exchange students just sat. Anyway, then we were introduced to several professors and listened to the president of the college and the president for student affairs? or something like that.

Also: we watched a video about the University and learned a dance that caused everyone to almost smack his or her neighbor in the face.

Then we went for "Exercises and Photo-taking for All Lingnanians attended by the Presidential Group." I'm not sure what the exercises were or who the Presidential Group was. All I know is that we stood out in the hot sun for a LONG time. It's amazing I didn't burn or melt. I might have to get an umbrella for the sun (well, I guess the word for that is parasol, but then I think of some frilly, poofed-out contraption) like I've seen numerous people carrying around.

After some people from a balcony snapped some photos and we performed our dance again, the exchange students and some of the freshmen went to an air-conditioned room with long white tables and waiters in suits and bow ties. The time table said High Table lunch, and indeed, in the back of the room facing us stood a high table with a fancy table cloth and seats for our guests. We sat down and waited for a bit, wondering what the silverware and dinner rolls and little plates with butter and a butter knife could be for. I had fun watching the Mainland students around me eating their rolls with a knife and fork.

Finally the guests of honor arrived and we had to rise as they entered to the opening lines of "Pomp and Circumstance" (before the graduation march part). Next the waiters delivered soup; some people were given a saltier sort of broth and others a creamier one almost like chowder. I tasted both because the girl to my left (who actually lives on my floor, I met her in the lift this morning) let me try some of hers. Unfortunately, I couldn't learn what type of soups they were because even the Mainland students were as clueless as I was.

The waiters also brought two types of main dishes, served randomly to different people. I got the tastier one, bamboo skewers with bits of seafood and vegetables, with rice, broccoli and cherry tomatoes on the side. Oh, and speaking of bamboo, I learned the spongy stuff I ate yesterday was bamboo. I could recognize all the seafood though: scallops, shrimp, mussels, and teeny-weeny octopi. I felt kind of like the walrus and the carpenter in "Alice in Wonderland" when I ate the octopi because they were so cute. They also disappointed me a bit, nothing exotic, just general seafood flavor. Yummy, though.

For dessert we ate the same mango custard gelatine concoction as yesterday and since we hadn't been stuffed with as much food I could enjoy more of it. We rose as our guests left, then sat. Then rose for a toast, then sat. Then rose to leave, then left.

Oh, actually I lied earlier, we did have a break after lunch. I hung around outside and talked for a bit before a few hours of boredom listening to the Office of Service Learning, Information Technology Services Centre and the Hong Kong police (don't do drugs, don't join the Triad Society) and waiting while everyone's passports were returned. Then all students from the U.S. went to speak with a member from the consulate. He told us how to get an absentee ballot and to not kick the doors of taxis.

Because returning passports and speaking with the U.S. consulate representative took extra time, all the American students arrived late to our Cantonese classes, which had been waiting for us. They taught us restaurant words today, but I think I'll have to stick to pointing or bringing along Cantonese-speaking friends. Especially since someone used the wrong tone with the word for chicken and our tutor laughed and said no, no, no that is a very bad word. She also told us that it is very insulting to call a girl the word for pork chop, but lamb chop is a compliment.

Afterwards, we had a tour of the Fu Tai shopping center (after a brief tour of the library. you can pay for printing with octopus cards!) with our group from yesterday and took the dirt path shortcut.

For dinner I ate the tastiest Chinese food of my life.

I'm sorry if all my descriptions of food become boring. But I love food, so I'm going to keep doing it anyway. So. We ate at a restaurant in the shopping center that I wouldn't have gone to otherwise because of the non-English menu. At first our guides tried going through the menu and describing everything, then we decided to just share dishes for the table and let them choose the ones.

The dishes were:
Scrambled eggs with shrimp and noodles (or were they sprouts?)
The tastiest, melt-in-your-mouth tofu of my life with assorted veggies and bits of beef (this one was kind of saucy and had to be spooned onto the rice)
Eggplant with other vegetables (also needed to be spooned out)
Spicy fried pork with onions and green peppers. Definitely spicy. Definitely tasty.
And my favorite of favorites--chicken wings with bits of melon. It was kind of sweet, but not in a dessert-ish type way.

I was complimented on my chopstick skills :)

Oh, and the tea! Red tea with honey, and absolutely the best!

And all of this deliciousness was mine for $4 US and some excellent guides.

........................................................................................................................................



Structural difference to note: Have I mentioned the short height of the steps? It won't be long before I trip up the stairs.

Orientation: Day 1

9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Registration and Admission. (Light refreshment will be served). 200 exchange students crowded outside of the auditorium and munched on dumplings filled with meat and nuts, some sort of folded up fried thing, mini sausages with pineapples, and bite-sized cookies with a raisin on top.

9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Orientation by Office of Mainland & International Programmes (OMIP) Sat in auditorium. Went over orientation schedule and general stuff along those lines. Retained the following facts: a) Hong Kong people go to sleep very late, midnight at the earliest. Actually, I'd learned this last night. b) In the apartments across from us, a family of four will live in an apartment the size of my room. c) Avoid the red minibuses. They have no assigned route and people must call out their stop in Cantonese.

Break No break because previous presentation went over time.

11:10 a.m. - 12:50 p.m. Briefing by Registry Person from registry talked about registration.

Break Collected the T-shirt I must wear for High Table lunch tomorrow, returned to hostel.

1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Welcome Lunch. Venue: Student Canteen While waiting outside the canteen for someone in a green shirt to come along and direct us I met girls from California and Canada who frequently visit family in Hong Kong. They've been speaking Cantonese since birth. We sat at a table with students from two different universities in Beijing. I noticed one of them wearing a t-shirt with a fencer-type figure in one corner. And yes! She's been fencing for a year! She asked which weapon I fence, but since fencing vocabulary isn't taught in English lessons, "foil" meant nothing. I tried describing the target area. Maybe it worked.

Then we ate food. It just kept coming, but the only items I recognized with absolute certainty were broccoli and strawberries. The strawberries were on top of this one dish of ribs with what I learned was mayonnaise (but it tasted much sweeter) and nuts. I either liked or had neutral feelings towards everything: with the exception of a relatively large, clearish-white blob with the texture of something for scrubbing dishes with. But even that I had to sort of like simply because it was so bizarre. And of course, we drank tea.

Break I wandered around campus with the Canadian and I showed her my hostel. She hasn't moved in yet because her belongings are scattered with relatives around Hong Kong. We met a boy from, oh, I forget where he's studying, but he lives in Poland. He told us his last name means "donut." I tell him my last name is Slovak (although he knows someone in Poland with the same name) and he replied that even though he has met a good number of the exchange students he has not run into anyone from Slovakia; he has begun questioning their existence. I privately decide to enter into a quest for the Slovaks.

The Canadian and I wander around some more. We become sweaty and gross. Hong Kong is HUMID.

4:00-5:30 p.m. Group B: HK Culture & Survival Cantonese Class I (English Speaker) Nay ho, nor hai Ling nam daai hock ge gau woon saang.

5:30 p.m. - Visit the Tuen Mun Town Centre & Dinner Actually, at this point the timetable (might as well get used to the English word for "schedule". and elevators are now lifts) deviates from reality. We didn't leave for the town center until 6:30, before then we signed up for the optional tours this weekend. I decided to go with Wetland Park, a nature hike, because it seemed like the one with the most opportunities for actually meeting new people. The other options were a tour through Central, Ocean Park and Disneyland (no way I was going to the smallest of the Disneylands after Christmas in Disney World).

At 6:30 I left with group E for the Fu Tai shopping center (where I went yesterday) and from there we take an autobus--a green one--to the Town Centre. I meet two Korean girls on the bus, and inside I hang out mostly with them as we wait for nearly everyone else to buy a cell phone. I'm told I slouch too much. We also chat with our group leaders (group D and E merged so there are now two leaders).

We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant on the third floor, with a view down to the first floor where some sort of Disney Olympic playground is set up for the kids with a racetrack and a lady with a stop watch. I go with what the group leaders recommend, the noodle soup (well, all the options were noodle soup) with raw beef. Obviously I waited for the hot broth to cook the beef before eating it. Yum! Bonus: I learned how not to make a slurping mess of myself while eating it. 1) Pick up some noodles or beef with chopsticks and place in spoon. 2) Raise spoon closer to mouth while moving mouth closer to spoon. 3) Use chopsticks to put food in mouth. I realized I have not seen a fork since the airplane.

I sat with the people I'd been talking with earlier, and also a girl who turned out to be from Carroll County. Amazing. She's already set up a bank account on campus and she told me it was super easy, the bank took care of everything except signing her name.

Cultural differences while dining: In Hong Kong, people bring along their own napkins (a tad thicker than tissue paper) for wiping their hands and mouths since the restaurants don't provide them. People also frequently use toothpicks after eating.

We returned to a campus bustling with orientation activities for the freshmen. Rachel said she would be there, and by some miraculous miracle (sorry, I'm tired and can't think of a better adjective) I found her! Yay!!! She helped me find the way to the table the fencing club had set up, and I join, naturally. I see the name of one other non-Mainland exchange student (the only other person without a Chinese name or a telephone number) but I don't recognize the name. But yay! Fencing! Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30-10:30 p.m. in the Jackie Chan Gym (oh, and I listened to gossip about Jackie Chan at dinner) with the first meeting September 10.

Then I returned to my room and wrote this long post.

Stuff I learned yesterday

• Up escalators are on the left side.
• The Chinese characters for two, six, seven, day and month. And I can recognize the ones for Hong Kong. (I studied a nutrition label, some money, and a brochure to figure them out)

• The awesomeness of octopus cards. Buses need exact fare, but if you just wave your octopus over the scanner--bingo. Also for subways, and convenience stores, vending machines...
  
• Not to order the fried egg, luncheon meat and rice meal ever again. Although it was an interesting experience--I think I know how American Chinese food must taste to the native Chinese. Or the food at the canteen could just be untasty in general.
  
• How to eat a slice of ham with chopsticks. Fold it into fourths and then pick it up.
  
• The location of the main building, where I need to be later today.
  
• Plastic ten-dollar bills.

• How to get to the Tuen Mun shopping center.
• I can buy more water, cheaper and in niftier containers. The below bottle of water would have cost me about 32 cents in U.S. dollars if a friend had not bought it for me.

• For the exchange students from the Mainland, Tuen Mun does not feel crowded or busy.
• How to say the following in Mandarin (although I have forgotten some since then): hello, no, yes, get off my back, did you enjoy yourself?, United States, China, England, conceited
• My door does not automatically lock behind me like I'm used to. Thus, I can't lock myself out by forgetting my key inside like I did several times this summer
• Telephone numbers have eight digits

Some photos of my room

And some views from the window at the end of the hall

Greetings from the future

I know you’re all desperately wondering what happened after I passed through security at BWI. Well, I walked to the gate. I sat down. Then I alternated between electronic Yahtzee and staring blankly into space until boarding time.

I didn’t have to wait long, relatively speaking, and the airplane was the cutest thing ever (next to baby animals). And we had to walk outside to board! This flight was very short (40 minutes?); I read through the Continental Airlines magazine and then we were in Newark.

The bags were checked all the way through, so for four hours I never left Terminal C. I didn’t want to sit down, even when my carry-on bags started digging into my shoulders because I figured I’d soon have 16 hours to sit all I wanted, and then some. Instead I:

• Wandered through two different Borders bookstores
• Ate a banana crunch muffin
• Exchanged green bills with old guys’ faces on them for colorful bills with lions
• Bought a plug adaptor
• Knocked down calendars in the Metropolitan Museum of Art store
• Rode the people-movers (but only a couple of times because walking took longer and I did not want to save time)
• Used free samples in Bath and Body Works
• Smelled the coffee in Starbucks, while pretending to be fascinated by their meager selection of mugs
• And basically wandered through every other store in the terminal, except the ones with fancy jewelry, clothes, and luggage.

Then…the moment I’d been dreading. Time to board the airplane for 16 hours of misery. Only, surprisingly, it wasn’t all that bad. I hardly listened to the audio books I spent so much time downloading. Thank goodness I didn’t fill up my backpack with actual books. So what did I do?

• Napped. I took probably 3 thirty-minute naps and then around 11pm Newark time slept for four hours. It seemed to work well, because yesterday I was able to fall asleep at around 11:30 pm Hong Kong time, even though it should have felt like lunch time.

• Watched “What Happens in Las Vegas.” I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you’re stuck on a plane. I also saw “L for Love, L for Lies.” Mostly it confused me, because I missed the first fifteen minutes, the English subtitles were teeny tiny and I couldn’t always tell when the flashbacks were happening. But it involved a conman and interlapping love triangles.

• Worried informally about Deep Vein Thrombosis

• Played Solitaire, Blackjack, Memory, some Pac-Man like thing only with cavemen and mammoths and assorted other games whose most challenging aspect was figuring out the controls.

• Enjoyed the hot hand towels occasionally dropped in my lap

• Ate the following: Twix candy bar, pretzels, shrimp salad (read: some lettuce leaves with a shrimp on top) salmon and rice, a genuine airplane roll, a brownie, a fortune cookie, a chicken sandwich, melting Hagen Daaz ice cream, dried fruit, dim sum and a fruit salad. I saved my almond cookie for later.

• Watched the channel that showed our plane moving across a map. Apparently, we went up past Canada then went across and down through Russia and China.

• Watched an episode of the Cosby Show with a teenage Adam Sandler

• Used the airplane toilet. It’s true, and it didn’t even suck me down.

• And I don’t remember what else I did, but somehow I found myself leaving the plane.

And suddenly I was in the Hong Kong airport. And blonde.

Everything continued running smoothly. A long line through Immigration, then to baggage claim, then out to the arrival level to wait by the 7-Eleven for Lingnan representatives.

The 7-Eleven cashiers wore the best uniforms ever.

We had about an hour to spend, so we played Spoons. The exchange student from Scotland (I forget absolutely everyone’s name) suggested it and I think it’s pretty amazing we all knew the rules. Although I thoroughly approve of such an awesome game achieving international recognition.

Then the Lingnan people came! A few more exchange students were with them, from West Virginia and the Mainland. There were lots of introductions, mingling, etc. because we still had to wait a few minutes for the bus to arrive.

The ride to the University was 40 minutes long, but it went by quickly. By the way, cars are driven English-style, which of course makes perfect sense, but I’d never thought about that before. Anyway, the skyscrapers at night were AMAZING. So I mostly stared out the window, although I also talked a bit with the girls in front of me (again, I forgot all names). But one of them knows Rachel! We tried calling her, but she didn’t pick up.

At Lingnan I was shown to the room in my hostel (on the fourth floor, but there are elevators) and given the key and a bag with bedding. There’s also a code we have to type to enter the building, and another one for using the “Female Lavatory” in the hall. The room seems a bit smaller than the ones at St. Mary’s, but I love it SO much better. The furniture is all made into the wall, so you can’t rearrange anything, but this also means the space is being used more efficiently, because long shelves can be put above the desk and also beneath the window. A HUGE window by the way, with a view of some of the Tuen Mun apartments. Whee! I’m in a city!

As a side note, the mattresses are less than two inches thick and extraordinarily firm. And by extraordinarily firm I mean there’s probably not much difference between it and a floor. I felt apprehensive at first, but when it came time for sleep I discovered I actually enjoyed it. At least as much as the mattresses I’m used to (maybe more?) I just have to remember not to plop down on them.