New Student Orientation

Tuesday started our New Student Orientation where we were seperated into groups with both local and nonlocal (only three of us in my group) students. On the first day, we took a tour of the library, which is really nice, and attended some other extremely boring talks! The local students in my group were super, super friendly, and a few spoke English very well. I think some locals aren't very confident with their English speaking skills, so many shy away from doing so. One of the big things at Lingnan is a cheering competition between all of the hostels. Each hostel has a few of their own unique cheers & everyone would scream them at all of the orientation activities. I tried to join in, but since I don't speak Cantonese, I basically just clapped along!

*Here is a video of the local students cheering! It was much louder in person!

One night during orientation, my group went to get dessert at some restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea what to get, so I just told one of the locals to order for me. I ended up sharing this fruit dish with white aloe chunks with some group mates. The aloe chunks look weird, but they actually taste very good with the fruit. The fruit here is much more fresh than the fruit in the US.

I'm very glad that orientation is over as the days were very long & we basically had no free time to ourselves! Thursday night, about 30 exchange students went to Lan Kwai Fong in Central Hong Kong for Ladies Night. It was a really fun time & nice that us ladies didn't have to pay for any drinks :) One of the bars we went to was a Russian ice bar - it was quite chilly, but they had big furry coats you could put on to ease the coldness.

Today, I went to Ocean Park with my friends Iris and Anna from the United States. The park is located right in the middle of a mountain & there's a few rollercoasters & animal exhibits. The animals weren't out in their exhibits, which was kind of depressing, but I got to see some huge stringrays, turtles, goldfish with HUGE eyes, and a red panda :) You could also take a cable car to get from one side of the park to the other, which provided us with a great view of the harbor & a nice sit from walking around everywhere.

I'm looking forward to starting classes on Wednesday as I'm interested in seeing how they work here. I assume that my classes will have the same structure as Butler, but I really don't know what to expect! Another thing I've noticed here is how sanitary people are. If they feel a little sick, they will wear a face mask to avoid passing along germs to others. During the exchange orientation, we were told that if you cough & are not wearing a face mask, people will look at you weird thinking about why you don't have a face mask on! I better remember to not cough in public!  

I think I'm adapting to the food a little bit better. There is a really cool sushi bar in the town center, Tuen Mun, and all of the sushi comes out on a revolving line & you just choose what you want! The other day I tried the root of lotus vegetable, which was actually quite good. It's a little tough being a vegetarian here because even if you think something won't have meat in it, it will. It's best to have a waitress/waitor that can speak English, which most do. I also can't believe that I've been here for a week and two days already - time has really flown by & I expect the days to go by even faster as time goes on!

Love you all & once again, if you don't have Facebook, I have added more photos then the ones on here at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075815&id=1490346167&l=f6f64036b8

First Few Days in HK

Firstly, I'm going to apologize for the lengthliness of this post - I've only been here for 3 days & there's already so much to say! I arrived at Lingnan University in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong Thursday night around 10 PM. Feeling very ancy, I unpacked everything right away & was not able to sleep the entire night!! It is very difficult to get used to a 13 hour time difference, but I think I'm slowly adapting to it now. They told us at orientation that most of the local students go to bed at 3 or 4 AM & then get up at 1 or 2 in the afternoon - I really hope my roommate is not like this, especially because I have class at 9 or 9:30 every day! The campus is gorgeous - very tranquil & serene, however, there are stray cats everywhere & they make me a little nervous! I was feeling quite homesick the first two days, but I'm starting to get better now. I think it will subside even more when my roommate arrives as well because it's lonely in my room by myself.

*My hostel room :)

Everyone is extremely nice - all of the locals and exchange students (most are from Mainland China)! The locals are always willing to help and are very interested in learning about the Western culture as some of them will be studying abroad in the US next semester. I've been quite busy these past 3 days with orientation and sightseeing. There is a market like 5 minutes away from campus called Fu Tai where one can buy pretty much anything - from grocceries to soap. I don't like it there very much as everyone stares and everything is in Cantonese, so it's difficult to get past the language barrier. Yesterday, I went to "The Peak", which shows the entire city of Hong Kong from up high - it's a gorgeous view & you can really see how packed the housing is here, which explains why the streets are always SO crowded & people tend to push & shove - annoying! Today, I went to Tuen Mun town center, which is the biggest mall I've ever seen in my life. There were only a few stores that I liked though. Since everyone knows I love fashion, I'll of course have to comment on the dress here. I feel as if their style here is kind of kidish & fru-fru (if that makes any sense). Everything has words, a face, or rips plastered on the front. Also, many ladies wear rompers & harem pants - definitely not my style! Yesterday, we passed by central Hong Kong in a bus, which has all the name brand stores - Louis, Gucci, Coach, Juicy... - they even had a Ferragamo & Prada in the train station!! I'm looking forward to actually going there because I hear central Hong Kong is very Westernized & most people speak English there & I'm sure the style there is quite different.

*View of Hong Kong from "The Peak"

Tonight, I went to the Ladies Market with Anna (an exchange student from West Virginia), her roommate, and her roommate's boyfriend & friends. Her roommmate speaks English, but the others had some trouble, but were very nice & tried quite hard to speak to us in English! The Ladies Market wasn't quite what I expected - there were lots of fake purses & Ed Hardy stuff, so I didn't end up buying anything. We also went down Golden Fish Street & every single store had hundreds of bags of little gold fish in them, like those bags at the carnivals. I should have taken a picture of how many there were!

*Ladies Market

I'm definitely not adapting to the food very well - I always get a stomachache after eating! We had dim sum the first day here, which is when everyone at the table shares a ton of small appetizers. I tried mostly everything that didn't have meat in it, but had a hard time eating because I'm not very good with chopsticks! You have to ask for a fork if you want one, but I was too embarrassed because everyone else was trying hard to use the chopsticks & I didn't want to give up! Today, I tried a fish ball & tea with milk and tapioca balls. They were both pretty disgusting - the tea would have been good without the tapioca balls, ikkkk! A lot of the food places have ducks, chicken, and meat hanging from the window & it's really disgusting, I'll definitely have to get used to that. It's also quite hot here & everyone is having a hard time getting used to it. It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so much humidity - thank goodness there's air in my room or I'd probably be a coming on back to the US, haha! The heat should start to cool down in the next few weeks though, thank goodness!

*Entrance to Lingnan University

I've pretty much learned my way around by using the bus and metro system. The metro stations are HUGE, so it would be rather difficult to figure the way if I had to transfer lines, which I havn't had to do yet. The metro is soooo long & spotless - in fact, everything is spotless here & they are very concerned with saving water & paper.

*On the metro

Tomorrow is the last day of the study abroad office's orientation & I also have to have an interview with my Mandarin teacher & meet with the US consulate. Then, Tuesday to Thursday starts Lingnan's orientation, so I will be mixed in with exchange students and local first year students. Classes start on September 1st, which I'm looking forward to actually! All in all, I've really enjoyed the sightseeing I've done so far & love the people (beisdes at Fu Tai), but the food, language, and getting used to being away from home will take some getting used to!

For all of you that don't have Facebook, you can look at the rest of my pictures I've taken so far using this link: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31533159&l=f773e1de7e&id=1490346167