Tour Guide

The past 5 days (easter break) Nate came to visit me from his study abroad program in Spain. I became a tour guide. I hadn't done too much pre-planning since I had some big projects due the week he arrived, so instead I sort of figured out where we could go and what we could do as each day came. This is probably why I got lost a lot and the reason why we wasted a good amt of sightseeing/eating/shopping time in transit. But it was all apart of an experience of HK i guess. Anyways, I enjoyed it and I think nate did as well :).

We used both our cameras to take pictures. Nate has much more than I do but here's some that I took.

FRIDAY
picked nate up from the airport. showed him my room. took him to the Anne Black YWCA where we'd be living for the next 4 nights. The Anne Black YWCA is a hotel where a lot of the PolyU exchange students are staying. Then we had some dinner and i showed him some hong kong night life in Wan Chai and Lan Kwai Fong. It was quiet in Wan Chai but ridiculously packed in Lan Kwai Fong. We didn't go into any of the clubs tho since we weren't dressed apporpriately and we didnt' really want to pay to get in :/. However, we did see a live band and got some drinks at "club" 7-11. Unfortunately, neither of us remembered to take any pictures the first day.

On the way to pick up Nate I saw this in the mall by the student halls. A cute little talent show. Well at least this girl anyways. She didn't actually do anything.. but that may have been better than the next girl that came on.

This was the next girl. I can't believe her mom dressed her up like this. I took a video of a small bit of the brittney spears-like dance she did. It was crazy.


SATURDAY
We shopped around the ladies market and went to Lan Tau Island only to find that the line for the cable cars was waay too long so we rode the MTR all the way to the other side of hong kong to hike Dragons back and see Big Wave Bay. We were going to go back out that night to Lan Kwai Fong dressed to impress.. but i was so exhausted from the hike (during which we took a very wrong turn that ended up adding an hour or 2 to our total hike time) that I couldnt bring myself to get up to go out, sorry nate :/. However, we were energized after a 2-3hr nap and decided to get some food. It was 2-3am when we went out to find some food and surpisingly.. a lot of people were out.. and a lot of food shops were still open! I took nate to eat some centry egg congee, you tiao, and ox tail rice sheets.
Here's some pictures in transit, the market, and on the hike.

Mong Kok station

one of the many street markets (tents on the left shops on the right)

nate and I deviated off the trail and explored another side of dragons back

feeling triumphant? :)

There was an amazing view

I tried to capture the steepness of the mountain/rocks we were exploring.
I was actually kind of scared.. it was really windy. I'm happy to say though that my converses kept me pretty well grounded despite their lack of features for hiking.


SUNDAY
Nate and I went to Mei Foo Park for a skate sesh. Rode the star ferry to HK Island then had some dinner in Times Square.

Mei Foo Park was huge..

Skater kids :)

We met some guys from NY or NJ..?

Nate doin some trix. I got some good footage of a trick or two as well on Nate's camera.

Nate on the ferry

Hong Kong Island from the Star Walk


Hot Pot Dinner - best handmade dumplings i've ever had not pictured.


MONDAY
shopping. we went to 3 malls. starting from the top and working our way down south; Festival Walk (a mall with an ice skating rink inside and hk's largest cinema), Langham Place Mall (a 15 floor mall with 5 story escalators), Harbour City (giant mall along the HK harbour with 700 shops). Inbetween we had tons of little snacks and foods (MOS burger, pig intestine on a stick, egg plant/tofu/pepper snack, bubble tea.. in an ambiguous green color... i forget what flavor.. nate just pointed to a picture b/c sometimes they don't always have english translations, and some more that I may have forgotten)

In Harbour city we came across a Barbie exhibition :).

Diors "New Look" + some others

Random art in the mall


TUESDAY
we weren't sure what to do so after eating some breakfast (we had bakery food for breakfast every morning.. nate has pictures) and lunch (some grilled chicken vermacelli) we decided to go back to Lan Tau Island to ride the cable cars. We figured the line wouldn't be long since the holidays were over and to our luck, there wasn't any line at all! nate has pictures of the ridiculous line from saterday. The cable cars were pretty amazing. It was a 20min ride up and 20min ride back down and we got to run up some stairs to see the big buddha inbetween. Nate has pictures of this as well.. i only got this one before my battery died.

In the cable car.. we got one all to ourselves!


Afterwords we shopped around the ladies market and temple street looking for a fake Louis Vuitton bag for Nate's Madre. We couldn't find one.. but bumped into a friend of mine who told us to go to Stanley Market, which was really far from where we were, so we had to give up. We continued to shop around our area for a while before heading back to collect nate's things to go to the airport... :(.

We had a small bit of trouble at the airport checking in his bag+skateboard but I just talked to Nate and it seems everything arrived in Spain including himself.. safely and undamaged.

random happenings

High Table Dinner -- March 31.
the high table dinner was like a prom for our hall, each hall in the residence halls has their own high table dinner. It's a nice 4 course meal + some entertainment and a dance afterwords. The theme of our hall's high table dinner was "Wonderland."




Since our hall is all girls we were paired up with a male hall from a different university. We got assigned seats (boy, girl, boy, girl..) but our seats were occupied so my german friend and i sat next to eachother.


Food -- April... something?
One of those tastes i crave... toasted You Tiao in hot soy bean milk


Horse Race -- April 8
I went to see and bet on a horse race at the Happy Valley Race course. Being a really lucky girl.. the horse i bet 10HKD on finished last. hahha. I bet on horse #5 -- Shaxy baby :)


Night Out -- April 9
I went out with 2 korean girls and my roommate who went home early. We mostly went in and out of Prive, a pretty nice members only club. it was ladies night so we got in for free and w/out a membership ;). The last thing we did was eat delicious fishball noodles at a 24 hr restuarant at 4/5 am.

2 sweet korean girls (Jessica from NC State and Junginn from Australia) in the restaurant

omg.. cockroach.

Long story short..
I saw a cockroach under my desk and bought some cockroach traps.

apparently the cockroaches enter the trap.. come out feeling really happy.. and then go to cockroach heaven..

night out + some others

I decided to go out this week so I went with some exchange kids to Wan Chai and Lan Kwai Fong Thursday night. At Wan Chai we watched a small live cover band at Spindlers who played some really rock great classics. Like stuff by "led zeppelin," "Metalica," "nirvana," "the killers," "the proclaimers" and so on. Then we migrated our 30+ group of exchangers to Lan Kwai Fong and met up with more exchangers. Hung out at "club" 7-11 for an hour or 2 socializing and then headed to Volar. Volar was awesome. It was a members only club underground with little white merry-go-round horses inside and an amzing trance/techno DJ. Throughout the night, people came and went, but these were the last people left before the club finally kicked us out.. around 4 ish.

Can you find me?

Yesterday I went around Causeway Bay with a kid from my Knitwear class. He showed me around the area, took me to eat delicious local foods and we both searched for inspiration for our design projects. The following is a compilation of where i went and what i saw.

Game room.

In this game you exchange $ for tokens and toss them onto the table. If your coin lands on a certain color, u get a certain prize. It was actually quite difficult b/c you had to land only on that color and if your coin was touching the line that separated the colors it didn't count. with 20HKD (~3 USD) we won 3 pens.

Some of the cutest baby sesame street toys in one of those claw machines.

Break dancing in Times Square

GOD STORE

:) fish with a mustache in the GOD store. I also learned what "Delay No More," which is written on a lot of their products, really means. (it's a swear phrase in cantonese)
Great shirt I found in GOD store.

Satay Hut: 144-148 Houston Center

Amazing Satay place with the most tender chicken I've ever had. I was told the rice was cooked in the chicken broth so it had this extra yummy taste/texture to it.

earth hour

video is somewhat cheesy. anyways, Earth Hour 2009 is coming up...

switch off your lights for an hour at "8:30PM local time, wherever you live on planet earth. Saturday 28 March 2009"

This year will be the 3rd annual Earth hour. I believe it started in Sydney, Australia and became a global event. Somehow I missed it last year. Kids on campus and in the residence halls are handing out flyers and posters are tacked up all over the place here.

participate!

Did i forget to mention my dearly missed friends sent me a huge package from the states?!? I took pictures.. but I can't seem to find any of them except for this one. This is where you guys hang on my wall btw. :) I love you and miss you all.
This is dim sum from lunch two weeks ago with Jenny and our parents' friends.

While I wait for better pictures from Singapore.. here's some that I took at the famous Singapore Orchid Gardens

Gift shop goodies

While looking for a place to eat in Singapore.. we came across this sign outside a retail store.. it says "Gents Clothes: Big Sizes Available: Your Fashion Solution to XXXXL Size Clothing"
We also went to a midnight safari, which I would recommend to anyone traveling to Singapore. It was a bit pricey. .but worth it. I mean.. i got to stand in a cage full of bats! Unfortunately one of them peed on me.
Two nights ago I had Dai Pai Dong.. the next day I had an upset stomach, but overall good cultural experience and good food. The student affairs office (SAO) for exchange planned us a Dai Pai Dong night and gave the following description
"Dai Pai Dong is special culture in HK and it usually serves inexpensive dishes with foldable chairs and tables. The environment is normally not comfortable. As a place to socialize, the people are free to talk loudly in the dai pai dongs. People go to Dai Pai Dong do not ask for good customer service. "
I wasn't able to go b/c it was during the time I was in Singapore. However, some local girls in my Global Fashion Marketing group just happened to invite me out to eat Dai Pai Dong this past Monday. They're so sweet and I'm happy I met them!

From left to right, top to bottom *fish balls *kong xing tsai (I don't know what its called in English) *broccoli + cheese + noodles *beef + noodles *pork + pineapple in sweet mayo *chicken

where to begin?

A few weeks ago we had culture night where all the exchange students set up booths for their perspective countries and shared about their culture through food, pictures, pamphlets, music, and performances.

I took part in the USA booth.. unfortunately our booth was placed next to the German booth who had sponsorship from a wine company... (I know.. who gets sponsored by a wine company at a social residence hall function??!). So the German booth was ridiculously decked out and they all had these fancy, matching white outfits, along with sausages, pretzels, and lots of wine.

Our booth on the other hand.. was a bit more down to earth and arts and craft-e. We hand drew pictures of things that represented America and served chips, raisins, mac n cheese, and bacon. we also had a beer pong table set up in front of our booth.

Our booth is on the left... German booth is on the right.......


Although we didn't place in the "best booth" contest.. or the "best performance" contest, I'm proud to say we held our own when it came to the "best fashion runway" contest.
Here's three proud American boys from Boston... I think it was their strong walk and confident poses that won the judges over..



I also got to participate in the opening ceremony of cultural night, which involved representing America and popping a balloon.



The weekend of March 14-15 I spent with a family friend (Alice) back from NC and her cousin who came to HK for a 4 day vacation. We did a ridiculous amount of shopping and had delicious korean barbecue and noodles.


That same weekend I had one of the best nights I've had in Hong Kong. I went on a night hike with a couple other exchange kids to Lion Rock at 1am. Technically I think the trail was closed.. but we did it anyways. We actually bumped into some other hikers on our way up, only they all had helments with flashlights on them.. and we had.. nothing. We also bumped into 2 people sleeping at the top of the mountain in sleeping bags.. it was pretty awkward. Anyways, the view was amazing! the night was perfect, slightly chilly, but perfect.

can you see the shape of the lion head?

Amazing view.
Sadly we could only spot out 3 stars through the smog + light pollution

This past weekend I went to Singapore with Jenny to visit Aparna (my brother's girlfriend). Singapore was hot + humid + litter free + bit pricier but still cheap + diverse in culture, food, people, language + gorgeous.

I couldn't find my camera for the first half of the trip so I will be posting pictures when I get some from jenny :).