February 21th: Waterfall hike + USC sweatshirt

Day 36, 12PM: Today in my Judgment and Decision Making class we learned about gradual change, sounds interesting, right? So, Professor Nasson tells us that people are bad at noticing change that happens gradually, such as the case when you slowly increase the temperature of water with your hand in it but you don’t notice your hand is getting burned. To demonstrate the point, he showed us a video and told us to watch for what’s changing. So it starts and there’s a nice picture of a sign on a path with trees and farmhouse in the background and some bushed in the foreground. And we’re sitting here waiting for something to change when the video abruptly ends. Just like that.

So there I sit thinking to myself ‘but nothing in the video changed…’ Confused, he asks us if anyone saw the change. Nothing. No one raises their hand. So we all look at him like he’s crazy or something and he says ‘Fine, fine, I’ll show you the video again.” He shows us the same video. Still nothing happens. He asks again if anyone noticed and one person raises their hand and in a meager voice suggests something. He just laughs and says no. Nasson then rolls his eyes and shows us the video a third time. This time about three people raise their hands to say they noticed a change. I still don’t see anything. So he shows us a fourth and a fifth time before about half the class is raising their hands to say they saw something. One of the students says that a rock disappeared when Nasson asks what they saw. A bunch of people start to laugh, after all, it’s not like our entire class wouldn’t see a rock disappear!

Nasson just smiles and shows us the video again, this time telling us to focus on a rock in the foreground. Sure enough, the rock disappears. I was shocked to say the least, I saw that video five times and I couldn’t even see a rock disappear before my own eyes! Nasson then showed us several more videos where things either gradually appeared, disappeared, or changed color and with each passing video everyone, including me, got much better at spotting the change. The trick to the whole thing was the fact that it was a slow fade and not an abrupt change, so it didn’t catch your attention. He explained to us that our brains focus on movement and sudden changes, so when the change happens gradually we are really bad at noticing it. Nasson then explained that a lot of companies have problems with this because they don’t notice gradual shifts in their market or problems the company is encountering. All in all, I found it to be a very interesting lecture and was shocked that I didn’t notice it the first time. And if you’re sitting there thinking to yourself that you would have seen it, just remember that our entire class of 70 people took three tries before anyone noticed it, and these are some of the top business students in the world.

Oh, there was another memorable event in this class today. So, when it was cold I wore my USC sweatshirt to class everyday to stay warm, and Nasson made fun of me once for it. So, for the first month of class I wore something that said USC on it to this particular class either by choice or by sheer coincidence. As such, I became known as ‘the USC kid.’ Professor Nasson did his graduate work at USC and so it became a running joke that he was always nice to me and favored me because I was from USC. So today I was getting dressed and decided not to wear anything USC and see what happened in class. To make sure of this I grabbed my new jacket instead of my USC sweatshirt to wear. So I about half way through class Nasson calls on me and after I make my comment he remarks that I’m not wearing anything USC today. Right before class though, I noticed that I had my USC marathon team shirt on underneath by accident (believe me, I honestly did know and was trying not to wear anything). So, I just smile at him and slowly unzip my jacket. Underneath my jacket is my USC tee-shirt in Cardinal. He starts to laugh and the kids below me turn around and start to laugh. Then I slowly turn to my right and my left to show the rest of the class what was so funny. By now the entire class is cracking up and continues to laugh for the next two minutes. Score one for me.

Today was very exciting, because in addition to my adventure in class, I also had an adventure outside. I wrote a few days ago in my blog about my hiking adventure along the beach where we saw a waterfall off in the distance. As such, you can probably guess that I went hiking today with Brian to go and find that waterfall. We started out by climbing down a steep embankment to a river we could see from the path. When we got to the water it was white and bubbly, the sort of water you’d see coming out of a washing machine. We then hiked along this river until we reached the top of the waterfall where I grabbed a somewhat questionable tree and stood near the edge to try and get a better view. It was a difficult journey to get there and there was trash everywhere, but a pleasant hike nevertheless.

You can see the horrible looking water.

The view from the top of the waterfall. It's a 300 foot drop from there.

A nice shot I took of Brian.

This was the waterfall from a distance

One of my artistic shots of the day.

After that we walked back down that path to try and find the base of the waterfall to take pictures, but couldn’t find a good path. The river ran through an ‘Organic Farmers’ thing that had no trespassing signs all over, so after great deliberation we wondered through the forest amid tons of leaves and brush to try and get to the river, only to be stopped by a very steep cliff we couldn’t get down and were forced to abandon our endeavor.

For more pictures of this little excursion, check out the photo album below.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2227818&l=3be9a&id=3423216

On the bright side of things, we managed to actually book tickets for Thailand after 3 hours of debate and hassle.

February 19th: Dinner at Outback

Day 34, 7PM: tonight I went to dinner with Ri Huang, Chang Sheng, and a girl named Sandy at Outback. I told them that they’ve been showing me all this Cantonese food and it’s only fair I take them to a restaurant that serves a good steak. While at dinner, Sandy said something very interesting to me. She said, “You’re not a stereotypical American.” At first I was happy because I know that Americans aren’t always perceived in a positive light in the rest of the world and one of my goals in coming to Asia was to not be a stupid American who is rude and ignorant of other cultures. Apparently I made an impression on her because she was shocked at practically everything about me. First, I didn’t want to order beer with dinner (she was even more shocked to find out that I don’t drink), then she was amazed at the fact that I don’t eat seafood or drink coffee, then I was skinny instead of fat, and then the fact that I was actually nice and knew a lot about other countries and cultures was the final blow. Upon later reflection of this it was slightly discomforting to think of how many negative stereotypes of Americans are out there, and I’m just glad to do my own little part to help correct the record.

Oh, and the food was really good. You know, this entry wasn't nearly as interesting as I thought it would be.


Me and Chang Sheng


Ri Huang and Sandy


I honestly don't remember what I was shocked at


the four of us at our table


Our group picture outside.

February 18th: Are you sure you are really Ansel, because we don’t believe you.

Day 33, 8PM: So my amusing story for the day is as follows: How hard is it to buy a plane ticket with your credit card? Then consider the fact that called my credit card company and told them I’d be in Hong Kong until the end of May, meaning that they are expecting me to be using my credit card in other countries. So you would think the answer would be: not hard. As usual, you’d be wrong.

So I decided my next trip to another country would be to go to Thailand and as such needed to order tickets. This shouldn’t be hard so I went online, and tried to book my tickets. So my friend Brian and I find really cheap airline tickets on Sri Lanka Air and I try to book them with my visa card. After going through all the booking stuff it tells me my card was declined. OK, I must have typed something in wrong. I enter all the stuff in again. Still declined. Next thing I know my parents message me on Skype and tell me my credit card company just called our home phone and asked if I was really trying to book tickets to Thailand. My mother told them yes, I was actually trying to buy tickets. So after this I enter the information yet a third time now that they know I’m trying to legitimately book tickets. Declined again. Just great.

I do what anyone would do next, I call my credit card to tell them to let me book these tickets. They start out and ask for my name, my credit card number, my address, and the last four digits of my social security number. So, after all that info you’d think they would be happy considering the fact that my mom also told them I was trying to do this when they called my house. Nope. So then they ask me for my phone number. I give them my cell number out of habit and the guy sort of says “uh…” and I correct myself and give him my home phone number because apparently that’s the number listed on the account. Next, he asks me “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” I didn’t even know that they knew that! Apparently my phone volume was on the loud side because Brian just starts to laugh at this point. So I tell them her name and he asks me “What elementary school did you go to?” At this point the entire conversation so far is just absurd and ridiculous. Next they ask me for my checking account number (I have no clue why) and several other piece of information about me while my friend Brian is cracking up.

Eventually, I manage to convince them that I am indeed Ansel Misfeldt and they let me buy the plane tickets. At least one thing is done now. Or not…

So, about an hour after we finally book these tickets Brian comes over to my room and says we have a problem. Oh great. So, his mother is in charge of Global Security for Deloitte and won’t let him fly on anything that Deloitte won’t put one of the employees on. Apparently, Sri Lanka Air is not on their ‘approved’ list. So after all that hassle we have to cancel our travel plans, which is hard to do when you had a typo on your email address where they sent you your ticket number… but that’s a whole different story.

February 16th: Climbing random rocks!!!

Day 31, 3PM: So, today I decided to be adventurous. My friend Brian who I met at the Uni Bar the other night at the student gathering and I both mentioned that we had wanted to go and explore the beach around HKUST, so we decided to go after class. We began by going down to what I call “Three Meter Beach” because it only looks like it’s three meters long (it’s really closer to 10) and then proceeded to climb on rocks and see how far we could get. After about half an hour of fun we reached an impassable chasm and had to run around. To be honest, it was slightly disappointing.

However, a little thing like an impassible chasm is not enough to stop us from having our fun so we decided to go the other direction along the beach. From campus you can see a decently long beach about half a mile from campus and we decided to make our new goal to reach that beach. Much to our dismay, we got stuck on the first rock we came to. Yup, the first rock. The rock is huge and juts out into the water, so the only way to get past it is to climb over it using a very sketchy rope that’s tied to something on top or to wait for low tide and climb around it. We decided that the rope was not to be trusted (nor did we know if there was another rope on the other side) and that we had to abandon our little trip.

Right as we were about to end our expedition, we decided to go and take a look at a trail Brian noticed near the Mini Bus stop so we went up there to see what was in store for us. What we found was a path that went either up or down, so we decided the down option was better. So we start walking down, and down, and down, and down some more. Then we walked down a bit further just for fun. At this point we’ve been going down steps for several minutes and have no clue where we are or where we’re going – I was excited! At one point we could see a giant waterfall off in the distance and decided our second adventure would be to try and find the top/base of it, but that’s another story. So it turns out, this path took us all the way down the mountain HKUST is built on the side of (probably around 40 stories down from the where we started) and emptied us right onto the beach we were trying to get to. So, we wondered around there and climbed on more random rocks until we decided it was getting late and we should head back.

To see the adventure, follow this link and it will take you to a photo album of our expedition, because the fun wasn’t over yet.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2227564&l=7b05c&id=3423216

After our little adventure, we met up with the group for lunch (Emily, Tyler, William, Stephen, Alex, Brian, and Me) and then went to a really cool Olympic thing in downtown. Basically it was an exhibit on the history of the Olympics and all about the ones in Beijing this summer. The funniest thing that happened was that at the end there was a stage and people singing and not only were they all wearing US ARMY sweatshirts, they were singing this song “We are ready” over and over again, because that was the only line in English.... and if you hear it it gets stuck in your head, not to mention it was just plain funny.

A model of The Bird's Nest

I think this one is called the Water Cube

Everyone's favorite Olympic mascots

The Olympic torch

Various historic artifacts, at this point my camera started to run low on batteries

These are the singers singing "We are ready" in the ARMY sweatshirts

A picture of downtown on our way back to the MTR

Your favorite blogger with the Olympic sign

So after the Olympic thing, we went to LKF to see a comedy club one of their friends was performing at. Apparently this was the only comedy club in all of Hong Kong because it isn’t a popular form of entertainment here. They have two shows, one in Cantonese and one in English, and so we went to the English one (after getting some halfway decent Mexican food, and I REALLY, REALLY miss my Chipotle…). The show itself was decent, and we all went for drinks afterwards where I got my usual coke. All in all, a good Saturday.