A Chopstick Affair: Life in Hong Kong

Well, I am right at the half way mark of my study abroad and have been doing a lot of thinking about how I like the city, whether I would move here again someday etc etc etc... To sum up all of these thoughts, I definitely think that I would move back to HK if given the option - not permanently, but for another extended period of time. Hong Kong is so unique, very westernized with it's own culture. I love the fact that you can take the subway everywhere (even though it is annoying at times), that on my walk to school I can look across the bridge and see the skyline of Hong Kong Island, and the culture of locals mixed with expats. It really is a phenomenal place to be, I am so blessed to have had this opportunity but very sad that it's almost over.

These last few weeks have been bogged down with homework, midterms, essays, exams, and lectures. The coursework here is very challenging and much more difficult than I had anticipated. Many of the questions on the exams are seemingly straightforward and comparable to exams in the U.S. I actually really value having essay exams, even though about half way through my hand cramps and I must force myself to keep writing. In the States all exams are multiple choice. While these exams really can be challenging, I don't think it actually forces you to learn the material. However, while the questions here in HK are comparable, the grading is very different. The expectations are much different and it is seems that each teacher is looking for different qualities in the students, making it hard to benchmark my work against the rest of the students. I think there really is a learning curve to the style of teaching - hopefully I will be able to succeed in all of my classes, but it is questionable at times. Thankfully, I am not the only one who feels this way... we'll see how it goes!

In the midst of all of the studying, we celebrated Halloween last week. Many of the local people here don't actually celebrate Halloween, but our generation has taken up this tradition. In our hall, the students made haunted houses on each floor. Amanda and I decided to go make some friends on our hall and join in the fun... we were pleasantly, uhhh scared. They had made the HH in our common room by hanging black tarp and making a pitch black maze. As you walk through, people would grab your leg or jump out in a horrifying mask. I know it sounds juvenile, but it was really scary!!!! The Saturday night of Halloween, all of the exchange students went to Lan Kwai Fong - the Mill Avenue of Hong Kong. We were told that you wouldn't be able to get into the street if you showed up after 7pm, so we headed to HK Island to get our night started early. We decided to take public transportation... who doesn't want to walk around HK in a Halloween costume, right? Even though we usually get some stares for being the minority, we were really getting stares that night. People were taking pictures from across the metro and stopping to have their kids pose with us. We really were a walking show the whole entire commute.
We arrived at LKF hoping to meet many more people dressed in ridiculous costumes. But, there weren't only people dressed in costumes... there were swarms of locals with their huge cameras taking pictures of ALL of the foreigners in their costumes. And no, they weren't dressed up themselves, just headed to the expat party place to snap some good shots of everyone in their costumes. It took us about a half hour to get through the entrance, stopping for about 60 photos on the way. I really wonder what they do with these pictures - they probably have an underground website called www.crazyHKexpatphotos.com. Who knows, it was fun acting like a movie star nonetheless!

This week, Amanda's boyfriend is visiting HK from his study abroad in Manchester. They have been doing the typical site seeing and headed off to Guilin, China for the weekend. While they were sightseeing, I went to Oktoberfest with all of my German friends here. It was so much fun and great to hear how they compare the HK version to the Munich Oktoberfest. I hope to visit them during Oktobefrest in Munich!

This weekend my friend, Mackenzie, came to visit from Seoul, South Korea. She teaches English there and decided to get away from the cold and take a quick trip. I was so glad she came and we enjoyed seeing all of the tourist spots. Most were places that I had been before, except we did check out a few other places....

On Saturday we took a trip to Aberdeen. This is a famous spot on the south shore of Hong Kong Island. It is a little fishing town where many people live on their small boats; some even live on huge, million dollar yachts. We were able to take a boat ride around and ended up at Jumbo Floating Restaurant. This multi-story boat is featured in all HK books and was really a sight to see. We decided not to eat there but to find a hole in the wall restaurant instead. After taking another boat back to shore, we walked around for a while before finding a food court of types. It was a local market with hardly any English - we knew it would be good. We found a nice Thai restaurant and enjoyed a fun meal.

Mackenzie and I went our separate ways and headed to the Western Market. Don't let the name fool you, it is not Western at all! This market caters mostly to tourists and sold many souvenirs. However, they also had a whole floor of fabric imported from around the world. We did some shopping then headed over to SoHo.

SoHo is perhaps my favorite place in HK. Filled with restaurants, art galleries, boutiques, and bars, this place is one of the most unique places to HK Island. It is situated in Central near Lan Kwai Fong, however its quite the hike to get there. You almost have to hike (not quite hike, but take many, many stairs) about 8 blocks from some areas to get there - but it's totally worth the adventure. This place, like LKF, is home to many expats from all around the world. Many of the people that move here are typical finance types sent here by their job to work long hours and capitalize on the Asian market, but I suppose they get a few moments off to head to SoHo and LKF to enjoy a Western meal and nice cocktail. SoHo is definitely a must-see if you come to HK.

After experiencing SoHo, Mackenzie and I headed to Kowloon for some typical Chinese dim sum. Mmmm, the food here is fantastic though it does take some getting used to. After enjoying our meal of dumplings and noodles, we took a short nap before heading back to Central and LKF for some Hong Kong night life action. Perhaps the best part of the night (and most nights back from LKF) involved Cantonese lessons from our taxi driver. It's not rare to get a taxi driver that speaks English and is willing to teach you some Cantonese. I can't say I remember the exact pronunciation of what I was taught, but it was very entertaining nonetheless.

Phew - it's been quite a long weekend and it is 4AM on Monday, better get some sleep! Here are some pictures, Blogspot makes adding pictures into the blog extremely difficult so it's easiest to add them at once at the bottom of the blog....