I pretty much just did random stuff in the morning, including some blogging and watching of star trek. The most interesting thing to happen to me involved plugs. Because Hong Kong was a British colony for so long, they naturally used the British style plugs and voltage. Sadly, this means that all of my North American plugs need adapters to plug into the wall. With this being said there are two types of adaptors, ones that simply allow your plug to work with the socket, and voltage converters which actually take the local voltage and convert it into a different one (ie from 220V to 120V). So, before I arrived my family had gotten me two different adapters, one was a universal one which will allow you to use any type of plug with any other type of plug and was around $50 (US), and the other was a $15 (US) little kit that had all sorts of different plugs in it. So, Ghoribet didn't have an adapter with her, so I had been using the really fancy, expensive adapter for my laptop and let her borrow the other, cheaper adapter. So I decided it was time to trim my beard (if you can even call it that) and I plugged in the electric shaver thing to do it. I heard a whine from the giant adapter for the shaver, but my laptop power converter makes a similar whine so I ignored it. For about the next three seconds I starred at it as it grew louder until suddenly POP. Yes, it popped. And after the POP, it proceeded to smoke from both ends and give off a pleasant odor of burnt plastic and electronics. For those of you who have had the pleasure of this smell yourselves you know what it's like, for those lucky few of you who have never blown an electrical device, just imagine burning rubber and it's pretty similar. Anyways, I'm just starring at this and run over, unplug it, it's hot, so I run to the window, open it, and throw the adapter out the window. Yes, I threw it out the window, but it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. the adapter is connected to the shaver, so it basically just hung outside my window and continued to smoke for almost half an hour. The room smelled for a while afterwards, but I eventually managed to air the smell out. What's the moral of this you might ask? First, triple check the voltages converters and accept, and second, just because something is expensive does not make it better. Remember that other cheap adapter? Yeah, that one actually converts voltages.
On the positive side, Ghoribet called me and invited me to dinner with the Singapore people downtown at The Spaghetti House. This place has nice Western style pastas and good Italian food, so you can imagine my delight at eating food I'm used to. We met at the restaurant and met several other people who had just arrived and some other people from Singapore who go to a different university in HK. We all had dinner and I ordered the lasagna. Before the food came though, the girl sitting across from me heard that I didn't like seafood. Not eating seafood then led to other types of foods I don't like, which is a considerable list. She was from Michigan and her name is Tiffany, and she is ethnically Chinese.
What this meant is that she enjoyed torturing me. I can't even tell you how much fun she had explaining all the exotic foods she wants to try in Asia and all the foods she's already tried. Examples include Sheep's head and Cow tongue. Now, I do not pretend to have a large culinary palate, and she kept telling me to stop pretending to be so grossed out over it, but I was not pretending. I seriously felt sick and at one point almost ran to the bathroom because I was worried I would actually throw up. Then the food arrived and all I could do when I looked at my lasagna was picture a nice, juicy cow tongue sitting in the middle of it. Eventually I worked up the courage to eat it and it was quite tasty, probably a 7 out of 10.After this adventure and with thoughts of exotic food finally out of my head I went with Chang Sheng and Ri Huang to look at suits. we went around the mall and found one store in particular which was having a big sale (I believe the name was Q2000). I found one that I almost bought, but decided to wait. After that we got back to campus and went our separate ways. A few minutes after I got back to my dorm room Ri Huang called me and asked if I wanted to go running with him and Chang Sheng, so we did. First of all, it was cold outside, and secondly, my hall is next to the track, so my assumption was that we would go running for a few laps on the track. I was wrong. Their idea was that we would run up the hill. Now, I have not described the campus here in detail so let me explain this: our campus in built on the side of a very steep hill and the academic building is around 30 stories higher than my dorm. So, when they said we were running up the road you can imagine my surprise. It was only mildly tiring because we ran slow enough and they explained to me about how they ran in the Singapore military because every man in Singapore must do two mandatory years of service at the age of 18. The most interesting thing was that according to superstition you are not supposed to answer when someone behind you calls to you and you are not supposed to turn your head and look behind you. This is due to the belief that (I'm probably butchering this so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about these details) you have three fires and that two of them are on your shoulders so if you turn your head you blow one of them out. We ended up running all the way to the academic building and then past it and further up the road to the post graduate apartments and then beyond that.
My building is the one in the very bottom of the picture and we ran to the ones in the upper left. So, it was a long run, but very enjoyable and I was pleasantly surprised that although I have not exercised very much since the marathon last Spring, I am still in decent shape. It was also very nice to see the campus from the different areas at night and I sadly did not have my camera. The next time we go I will bring it along. That run was actually one of the most enjoyable things I've done while I've been here so far. Anyways, we got back and went our separate ways.
I had only been in my room for about two minutes when I got another call from Ri Huang asking if I wanted to go to the Mini-bar, which is the on-campus bar. I figured, hey, why not, and said sure. I met up with them, and another guy named Walid from Morocco came along as well. Inside, it was quite nice and looked very modern. I think one guy had a beer, another two had cocktails of some sort, and I had something called a Banana Speed, which is a mock tail (aka non-alcoholic beverage). I am aware that the drinking age here is only 18, but I still didn't feel comfortable ordering something alcoholic. It was very nice and enjoyable, the conversation turned eventually to American politics and UFOs and we finally left before it closed at 1AM. I do not believe I mentioned this in my Day 4 post, but my fourth day here marked the first time I was asked about what my opinions of our favorite President Bush were. I had been waiting for that and was somewhat surprised it took four days to be asked about it. It seems unfair to me that people from other countries know so much about America and conversations often turn to American politics, because I feel as though other countries should be included as well. I have since come to the realization that the US is simply important in the world and that's why so many people are interested in American politics, but I still feel somewhat bad about it. Anyways, I got back exhausted again and promptly fell asleep.
This is back from victoria Harbor on Day 4. from left to right: Chorng Shin, Ghoribet, Wai Zin, Deborah, Ri Huang, Chang Sheng, Me.
This is back from Day 4 as well, at Maxim's Palace.
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