Thursday, January 31, 2008
January 25th: Day 9
January 25th: So here I found myself again sick and unable to go and do things in the city. Basically I sat in bed and chatted with friends online. In fact, most of the time I was literally sitting in bed doing stuff on my computer. the high point of my day was when I chatted with Richard for about 2 hours and I thought we had a really good chat. During the course of said chat we decided he is indeed going to fly out to China and take me around in May, so I'll probably meet him in Shanghi and hopefully hop over to Bejing as well. I'm excited about that. The rest of the day was being sick, except at the end I met another student from USC and it turns out we actually lived on the same floor of the same building our freshman year. Nothing very interesting though.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
January 24th: Day 8
January 24th, 4AM: I wake up, there isn't noise to wake me, it is cold however. In addition to it being cold, I also have a cold. This makes me very sad. I had a pretty bad cough, and woke up freezing. I put on my robe and then crawled back in bed after drinking a bunch of water. I slept in and woke up feeling rather sick. So, I really didn't do much. The only thing I managed to do was to travel downtown to apply for my visa for the China trip. Now, this sounds simple but I will assure you it was not. It is easy to get a China Visa if you're in the US, but for US passport holders in Hong Kong it is very difficult. Pretty much any other country can get it easily, but for USA passports? No. So, i had to call a bunch of places and most wouldn't even do it. I finally found that that would do it in 7 days (other countries only take 1-3 days) and went to their nearest branch. That's when they told me it would take 7 days and they would need to keep my passport the whole time, which is a problem because I was going to go to Macau on Saturday. So I came all the way back here and was going to simply go back in next week after I get back from Macau to make everything work. That's when I found out I had the wrong date for Macau. It turned out we were going the following weekend, so I had to go all the way back and talk to them again. It ended up costing $1080 HK (about 140 US) for a double entry visa so I can go twice. I also managed to get on the wrong bus one of the times and ended up far from where I expected to be, so it was a very long day and being sick made it much less fun. That was pretty much all I did. Not very fun.
January 23rd, Day 7
January 23rd, 5PM: Once again, I decided to take it easy in my room for most of the day, finally working up the courage to call Wai Zin and Chorng Shin to see what people were doing for dinner. This might not sound like anything special, but I hate calling people on the phone. But this is only true for the first time I call people. I suppose I'm terrified I'll call a wrong number or something like that, but I get extremely worried before I make that first call, and is also why I refuse to call places to ask questions and will always get one of my friends to call instead (Robert and Grady, you know what I'm talking about). So, I called CS and it rang and rang. Finally a Chinese woman answered the phone and started speaking in Chinese. I freaked out: my worst fears had been realized. So, I called Wai Zin who then called CS and told me that they were going to a Japanese Restaurant and invited me along. Now, on days 6, 7, and 8 most of the international students went on tours of HK that we signed up for. I had personally forgotten to sign up by the deadline but from what people told me, it wasn't worth the money. Anyways, it turns out when I called CS he was talking to his boss and so it went to voice mail, and that's why a Chinese woman answered. After learning that I felt like an idiot. So, we went to this Japanese restaurant buffet where you have two hours to order as much food as you can eat. Wai Zin was especially excited about the seafood and I tried various foods that CS ordered for me. It was actually pretty good and I enjoyed the meal. What I've left out until now is that at the start CS asked if he could order some Saké. I said that I didn't care so long as I didn't have to carry him back to UST (while in Hong Kong we drop the 'Hong Kong' from the name). So, we were eating our meal when the Saké arrived. So, CS poured each of us our very own glass. Glass isn't quite the right word, it was more like a small ceramic shot glass and he poured a small amount in each. Him and Wai Zin then grabbed their glasses and held them up for a toast. This is where it momentarily got awkward for me. As I'm sure you all know, I don't drink, nor had I ever had alcohol before that point. So I suddenly found myself in the awkward position where I did not particularly want the drink he had poured me, but they were sitting there waiting for me to grab my glass. I think I mumbled something about an excuse like "I'm fine" or excuse of equivalent patheticness. They didn't buy it and encouraged me to try it. Up until that point I knew that while I'm here in HK the drinking age is 18 and I had not yet decided if I wanted to try various alcoholic beverages while here or not. This moment forced me to make a decision and my thinking went something like this: "well this is awkward." After a very short yet intense burst of thinking I decided to try it. Call it peer pressure, call it acceptance of the inevitable, but I tried it. All I have to say is it was the single most intense experience of my life. Skydiving? Doesn't even come close. It burned my entire mouth and throat while making me almost convulse in my seat. All in all not the most pleasant experience of my life. For your viewing pleasure, on the next drink I asked CS to record it for posterity.
So, there you go. My first drink. Trust me when I say my first one was much more interesting to watch because my mouth was still partially numb from the first one. It was after my third drink when they were remarking how much I reacted to it that they realized that they had forgotten to tell me that you're supposed to sip it slowly, not drink it in one gulp, which explains my strong reaction to it. Also, I got red very quickly, which means my liver processes alcohol very fast. In total I only had about 1-2 cm^3, so it's not like I was drunk, but just had a taste of it. After that i can say I doubt I will ever be a drinker, because it tasted pretty bad...
So after that experience the three of us went to the arcade. I've never actually been to an arcade so it was quite fun. Many of the games are music games based on rythm and hitting drums or playing a guitar, similar to guitar Hero or Rock Band.
This is me playing a drum game, which CS and Wai Zin were quite surprised that I was good at. The arcade was fun, and I realized that I'm not that great at Time Crisis. On our way back to UST I made plans to go with them and a few others to China and Macau, with China being on Chinese New Year and Macau February 2nd, so I'm excited about both of those trips.
When we got back, we made plans to have tea later that evening and I went over to CS's place around midnight and myself, CS, and Wai Zin all had tea. Now, I am not a big tea person. This meant that the tea, being quite strong, was much too strong for my liking. We ended up sitting around talking until about 2AM and drinking tea. This was quite enjoyable and overall it was an interesting day.
So, there you go. My first drink. Trust me when I say my first one was much more interesting to watch because my mouth was still partially numb from the first one. It was after my third drink when they were remarking how much I reacted to it that they realized that they had forgotten to tell me that you're supposed to sip it slowly, not drink it in one gulp, which explains my strong reaction to it. Also, I got red very quickly, which means my liver processes alcohol very fast. In total I only had about 1-2 cm^3, so it's not like I was drunk, but just had a taste of it. After that i can say I doubt I will ever be a drinker, because it tasted pretty bad...
So after that experience the three of us went to the arcade. I've never actually been to an arcade so it was quite fun. Many of the games are music games based on rythm and hitting drums or playing a guitar, similar to guitar Hero or Rock Band.
This is me playing a drum game, which CS and Wai Zin were quite surprised that I was good at. The arcade was fun, and I realized that I'm not that great at Time Crisis. On our way back to UST I made plans to go with them and a few others to China and Macau, with China being on Chinese New Year and Macau February 2nd, so I'm excited about both of those trips.
When we got back, we made plans to have tea later that evening and I went over to CS's place around midnight and myself, CS, and Wai Zin all had tea. Now, I am not a big tea person. This meant that the tea, being quite strong, was much too strong for my liking. We ended up sitting around talking until about 2AM and drinking tea. This was quite enjoyable and overall it was an interesting day.
January 22nd: Day 6
January 22nd, 6PM: Having wasted much of the day watching Star Trek, blogging, and doing random stuff in my room, I was invited to a soccer game between a bunch of international students. There ended up being 11 of us, making it 5v5 with one person subbing out every three minutes. We arranged it to be North America vs Europe, and if I were a betting man I would bet my money on Europe for soccer any day. Good thing I'm not a betting man. We had a couple Canadians on our team who were good. I stayed on defense the entire game, finding I was decent at running around really fast and pressuring them into passing the ball and not making shots at our goal. I'm not that good at soccer, I haven't played it since I was in elementary school, but I thought I was decent. My roommate was our goalie and he was good at that as well (although we kept the ball near their goal most of the time). When we took a break it was 8-1 with North American dominating. The Europeans eventually came back to make it 9-6 our win, and it was fun. After that we all had dinner together. That was about it, nothing special about day 6. Day 7 though, would be much more interesting...
January 21st: Day 5
January 21st, 8AM: It began early in the morning, the sort of time when you wake up and think to yourself, 'it's a crime against humanity to be awake this early.' Why was I awake you might ask? Well, my hall is loud. I do not mean your usual loud as in there are loud noises occasionally, but rather the sort of loud as though there was a preschool filled with loud, screaming children running up and down my hall at all hours of the night. In fact, it starts at about 9PM and goes until about 5AM. It then begins again at 5:30 AM and continues until afternoon. So I found myself waking up several times wishing desperately that the walls here were more soundproof. But that's not what I wanted to say. The point of all this is simple: my hall is loud and it makes sleeping problematic if you want to sleep for a period longer than about 10 minutes of occasional quiet. So I slept in a bit and managed to find earplugs at 5:30 in the morning and get them in my ears, which allowed me to sleep in until the late hour of 9AM. Sadly, I was still slightly jetlagged and found myself waking up early in the morning feeling somewhat awake. Come to think of it, there was really no point in any of that.
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.
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.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Day 4
January 20th, 9AM: Finally, the day you have all been waiting for because the excitement finally begins. So, the previous night I had gone to bed early due to my feeling unwell the night before. So, I woke up and emailed Ghoribet to ask what she wanted to do. She told me that she was going to lunch with a bunch of people from Singapore and they said it was fine if I came along. So, we ended up going downtown for Dim Sum. For those of you who are unaware of my culinary history and experience, Dim Sum does not bode well. I do not pretend to have a large culinary pallet or be adventurous in trying new foods. In fact, the last time I had Dim Sum I think I tried about 3 dishes in total and didn't like any of them. So me going to eat authentic Dim Sum with people who actually like it was quite brave (if I do say so myself). If I had been in the US and my friends had said they were going for Dim Sum I would have passed, but here I was in a new country and I figured I should try something new and meet these people from Singapore I had heard about.
So we went to lunch. I made an effort try all the dishes and ended up trying about 15 out of 20. The rest were seafood dishes and a single dish of chicken feet because I just couldn't bring myself to pick up a foot and start nibbling. So, everyone else was happily eating away at all the food and I will fully admit that I was more nibbling. I think that after eating Western food for my entire life it's hard for me to change my culinary habits and tastes. So, I unfortunately do not have pictures of the dishes but when i get them from my friend I will include them in a future post. So back to the food. the food was different. And sadly that's the best way for me to put it: different. I wouldn't say I particularly liked it and would go back on my own to have it again, but I did find several dishes that were at least acceptable, that is to say, I would eat them again if I find myself at another Dim Sum restaurant. the thing I found to be most interesting was the different textures. Many of the foods were smooth, which is something I'm not sure I've have before. In addition to the unique textures, they all tasted much different than anything I've ever tried before. I suppose that's why I'm finding it difficult to describe them - I do not have any frame of reference. In the end, I'm glad I tried something so new and different and proved to myself that I will not starve here and there is more to eat than McDonald's.
Now for the people. Like I said, I went with my friend Ghoribet and a bunch of people from Singapore she met on her floor. probably my favorite part of the entire trip (which is saying a lot) is the fact that I get to meet so many new people from all over the world. I already get a very broad view at USC because it is such an international school and growing up in the Bay Area also gave me a very international outlook on life, but this is a whole new level. I enjoy learning about new cultures and I particularly like to observe the differences between cultures because I want to learn all I can so i can try and see things from different perspectives. I could write essays on why I enjoy meeting new people, but right now I shall return to the topic of the people I met. So, the other three international students I met from Canada, France, and Sweeden were nice and interesting, but I found that they were similar to lots of the people from America. In other words, interesting, but not all that special because the Western world is so much alike. But, after meeting the Singapore people and getting to know them, I can tell you without a doubt that they are my favorite people I've met here. They are simply amazing people to know.
So this is how it works: there is this guy named Chorng Shin (who everyone calls CS, but he hates it because he doesn't want to be called Counter Strike) who is from Singapore, but is getting his Master's degree here at HKUST. So, he's a really nice guy and each semester he meets up with all the Singapore exchange students and shows them around the city and helps them get settled in. I've had a chance by now to do lots of stuff with this guy and he's always so nice, cheerful, and willing to take his time to help you. Knowing there are people like him out there makes me feel better about the world. I also met a girl named Wai Zin who i will talk about in a later post, as well as two guys named Ri Huang and Chang Sheng (not CS, their names are different). First off, let me say that their names were not easy for me to learn. This is for two reasons: Chorng Shin and Chang Sheng sound very, very similar when someone is speaking to you and I kept getting confused about who was who and if they were one person or two people, and secondly I'm not used to two part names. In the US you have one first name like Fred or Sally, but most of the Singaporeans I've met have a two part name, so I often find myself being able to remember the first part of their name and then completely blanking on the second part. Another thing is the accent. If any of these people I've listed above are reading this (as I know some of them are) please do not be offended by what I say, I'm merely listing my observations and intend no insult. It seems as though everyone from different parts of the world truly have different ways of speaking English and I sometimes can't understand a single word even though i know it's English. I've found that French accents are pretty bad for me to understand, but nowhere near as hard as the Singaporean accent. I'm not sure exactly what it is about it, but they tend to speak very fast and I think they do not space their words out like we do in the US, and also they speak softer much of the time. Because of this, I honestly didn't understand half the things they said over lunch. I'm writing this on day 13 and it's taken me until now to be able to hear and comprehend almost everything they say. And I feel really bad about this. I think it's more embarrassing for me than it is for them when I have to ask them to repeat something because I couldn't understand it the first time. there were a few occasions on day 4 when I had to ask then to repeat it twice, and then just gave up because I certainly was not going to ask them to say it a fourth time. Often times I just sort of laughed and smiled while nodding my head when I couldn't understand it. After 9 days, however, I think I've finally mastered the accent and am to the point where I feel comfortable speaking to them (which I do a lot).
So to recap the last paragraph, 1) Singaporeans = awesome, 2) they have very different accents than what I'm used to and it was hard to understand. Seriously though, they're really cool people and given a choice, I'll hang out with them any day. In fact, I'm really going to miss my Singapore friends when I go back to the US, so CS, Ri Huang, Chang Shen, Wai Zin, and Deborah, you have earned my respect and admiration. Also, I am aware that several of them will be reading this and my comments earlier about Dim Sum still stand, it's not my favorite, but I'll tolerate it to hang out with with them. once again, pictures from lunch will be uploaded when I get my hands on them. Oh, and the place was called Maxim's Palace for anyone who knows it. It's supposed to be among the best Dim Sum in Hong Kong. One more thing, I also realized that when i'm with the Singaporeans, I'm the only white guy in the group and i feel somewhat like I blend into the crowd better. It's just sort of a feeling I get. Oh, and another thing! Little kids always stare at me. I'm serious, children stare at me where ever I go. It's especially true on the MTR where little kids with their parents will be standing there and just look at me, which is sort of creepy but I understand that they're kids and so they're curious.
After our late lunch we made our way over to a supermarket and Ikea again. In the supermarket, Ri Huang and I were laughing at Ghoribet and Wai Zin when they were looking at sponges and smelling them, and touching them, and comparing colors and such things. We just shook our heads and talked about how silly it was. And this was after Ghoribet spent several minutes looking at shampoo and smelling many different bottles. For my female readership, forgive my ignorance of such things and for my male readership, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyways, back to Ikea we went where I got to act as a pillow salesman for Wai Zin (she was looking for a pillow and I had already seen the entire pillow selection so many times it seemed like a natural fit). After spending well over an hour in Ikea where I bought myself a pillow as well (because you don't sink into the mattress and therefore need two pillows) we took the MTR over to TST (it's something like Tsim Shua Tsui) where we went to Victoria Harbor to see the city at night. Again, I don't not have these pictures in my possession but will post them as soon as I do. here are the pictures from a later night so you can see what I mean.
We hung out there for about an hour or so and just admired the city lights. Hong Kong is amazing during the day, but at night it is breathtaking. I'll show you even better pictures in a future entry about the light show. After admiring the view we took a ferry across the harbor to Central (one of the MTR stations) where we walked around LKF and I got to see what that was like. As I said before, it's where all the foreigners go to party and consists mostly of bars and clubs. Also, white people make up a majority in this area and I freely admit that it was a little nice to be surrounded by white people again, if only for a few minutes. One of the many things I've learned about myself during my trip is that I can finally understand my friends from other countries better now that I know what it's like to be the minority. We literally just walked around there and then made our way back to campus.
When we got back I went strait to bed because I was completely exhausted. If you've never walked around that much during one day and then suddenly go and walk everywhere for 4 days strait you'd be exhausted to. Anyways, I have to wake up early tomorrow morning for an orientation, but I'm dedicating my day to catching up blogs when I get back. Hope you had fun reading this and I promise even better stories are yet to come.
So we went to lunch. I made an effort try all the dishes and ended up trying about 15 out of 20. The rest were seafood dishes and a single dish of chicken feet because I just couldn't bring myself to pick up a foot and start nibbling. So, everyone else was happily eating away at all the food and I will fully admit that I was more nibbling. I think that after eating Western food for my entire life it's hard for me to change my culinary habits and tastes. So, I unfortunately do not have pictures of the dishes but when i get them from my friend I will include them in a future post. So back to the food. the food was different. And sadly that's the best way for me to put it: different. I wouldn't say I particularly liked it and would go back on my own to have it again, but I did find several dishes that were at least acceptable, that is to say, I would eat them again if I find myself at another Dim Sum restaurant. the thing I found to be most interesting was the different textures. Many of the foods were smooth, which is something I'm not sure I've have before. In addition to the unique textures, they all tasted much different than anything I've ever tried before. I suppose that's why I'm finding it difficult to describe them - I do not have any frame of reference. In the end, I'm glad I tried something so new and different and proved to myself that I will not starve here and there is more to eat than McDonald's.
Now for the people. Like I said, I went with my friend Ghoribet and a bunch of people from Singapore she met on her floor. probably my favorite part of the entire trip (which is saying a lot) is the fact that I get to meet so many new people from all over the world. I already get a very broad view at USC because it is such an international school and growing up in the Bay Area also gave me a very international outlook on life, but this is a whole new level. I enjoy learning about new cultures and I particularly like to observe the differences between cultures because I want to learn all I can so i can try and see things from different perspectives. I could write essays on why I enjoy meeting new people, but right now I shall return to the topic of the people I met. So, the other three international students I met from Canada, France, and Sweeden were nice and interesting, but I found that they were similar to lots of the people from America. In other words, interesting, but not all that special because the Western world is so much alike. But, after meeting the Singapore people and getting to know them, I can tell you without a doubt that they are my favorite people I've met here. They are simply amazing people to know.
So this is how it works: there is this guy named Chorng Shin (who everyone calls CS, but he hates it because he doesn't want to be called Counter Strike) who is from Singapore, but is getting his Master's degree here at HKUST. So, he's a really nice guy and each semester he meets up with all the Singapore exchange students and shows them around the city and helps them get settled in. I've had a chance by now to do lots of stuff with this guy and he's always so nice, cheerful, and willing to take his time to help you. Knowing there are people like him out there makes me feel better about the world. I also met a girl named Wai Zin who i will talk about in a later post, as well as two guys named Ri Huang and Chang Sheng (not CS, their names are different). First off, let me say that their names were not easy for me to learn. This is for two reasons: Chorng Shin and Chang Sheng sound very, very similar when someone is speaking to you and I kept getting confused about who was who and if they were one person or two people, and secondly I'm not used to two part names. In the US you have one first name like Fred or Sally, but most of the Singaporeans I've met have a two part name, so I often find myself being able to remember the first part of their name and then completely blanking on the second part. Another thing is the accent. If any of these people I've listed above are reading this (as I know some of them are) please do not be offended by what I say, I'm merely listing my observations and intend no insult. It seems as though everyone from different parts of the world truly have different ways of speaking English and I sometimes can't understand a single word even though i know it's English. I've found that French accents are pretty bad for me to understand, but nowhere near as hard as the Singaporean accent. I'm not sure exactly what it is about it, but they tend to speak very fast and I think they do not space their words out like we do in the US, and also they speak softer much of the time. Because of this, I honestly didn't understand half the things they said over lunch. I'm writing this on day 13 and it's taken me until now to be able to hear and comprehend almost everything they say. And I feel really bad about this. I think it's more embarrassing for me than it is for them when I have to ask them to repeat something because I couldn't understand it the first time. there were a few occasions on day 4 when I had to ask then to repeat it twice, and then just gave up because I certainly was not going to ask them to say it a fourth time. Often times I just sort of laughed and smiled while nodding my head when I couldn't understand it. After 9 days, however, I think I've finally mastered the accent and am to the point where I feel comfortable speaking to them (which I do a lot).
So to recap the last paragraph, 1) Singaporeans = awesome, 2) they have very different accents than what I'm used to and it was hard to understand. Seriously though, they're really cool people and given a choice, I'll hang out with them any day. In fact, I'm really going to miss my Singapore friends when I go back to the US, so CS, Ri Huang, Chang Shen, Wai Zin, and Deborah, you have earned my respect and admiration. Also, I am aware that several of them will be reading this and my comments earlier about Dim Sum still stand, it's not my favorite, but I'll tolerate it to hang out with with them. once again, pictures from lunch will be uploaded when I get my hands on them. Oh, and the place was called Maxim's Palace for anyone who knows it. It's supposed to be among the best Dim Sum in Hong Kong. One more thing, I also realized that when i'm with the Singaporeans, I'm the only white guy in the group and i feel somewhat like I blend into the crowd better. It's just sort of a feeling I get. Oh, and another thing! Little kids always stare at me. I'm serious, children stare at me where ever I go. It's especially true on the MTR where little kids with their parents will be standing there and just look at me, which is sort of creepy but I understand that they're kids and so they're curious.
After our late lunch we made our way over to a supermarket and Ikea again. In the supermarket, Ri Huang and I were laughing at Ghoribet and Wai Zin when they were looking at sponges and smelling them, and touching them, and comparing colors and such things. We just shook our heads and talked about how silly it was. And this was after Ghoribet spent several minutes looking at shampoo and smelling many different bottles. For my female readership, forgive my ignorance of such things and for my male readership, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyways, back to Ikea we went where I got to act as a pillow salesman for Wai Zin (she was looking for a pillow and I had already seen the entire pillow selection so many times it seemed like a natural fit). After spending well over an hour in Ikea where I bought myself a pillow as well (because you don't sink into the mattress and therefore need two pillows) we took the MTR over to TST (it's something like Tsim Shua Tsui) where we went to Victoria Harbor to see the city at night. Again, I don't not have these pictures in my possession but will post them as soon as I do. here are the pictures from a later night so you can see what I mean.
We hung out there for about an hour or so and just admired the city lights. Hong Kong is amazing during the day, but at night it is breathtaking. I'll show you even better pictures in a future entry about the light show. After admiring the view we took a ferry across the harbor to Central (one of the MTR stations) where we walked around LKF and I got to see what that was like. As I said before, it's where all the foreigners go to party and consists mostly of bars and clubs. Also, white people make up a majority in this area and I freely admit that it was a little nice to be surrounded by white people again, if only for a few minutes. One of the many things I've learned about myself during my trip is that I can finally understand my friends from other countries better now that I know what it's like to be the minority. We literally just walked around there and then made our way back to campus.
When we got back I went strait to bed because I was completely exhausted. If you've never walked around that much during one day and then suddenly go and walk everywhere for 4 days strait you'd be exhausted to. Anyways, I have to wake up early tomorrow morning for an orientation, but I'm dedicating my day to catching up blogs when I get back. Hope you had fun reading this and I promise even better stories are yet to come.
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