A-les-a & Buddha

Well, I've officially completed my first week of classes here at Lingnan University - quite exciting! The reason for my title is because that's how everyone here pronounces my name, I say Alexa, and they repeat it back as A-les-a - must be hard to pronounce x's? Or others think it's a shortened form of Alexander, but I always tell them that's a boy name, haha, but I don't mind :) I'm taking five classes here - Operations Management, Organizational Behavior, Intermediate Macroeconomics, Level 3 Mandarin, and History through Film. All of my professors are Asian besides the history teacher, who is from England. They all seem nice, except sometimes it's difficult for me to understand them, so I have to listen very closely. I'm excited about the history through film class because we get to watch some really good movies!! I think it's going to be a challenging semester with lots of presentations and projects already, but I'm not complaining :)

This past weekend was definitely my favorite part of being in Hong Kong so far. I went to see the giant Buddha statue in Ngong Ping, AMAZING (well, besides the 250 step hike to get to the top)!! We took a cable car to get to the Ngong Ping village & the ride lasted about 25 minutes - longest cable car ride ever! I startted to get a little nervous when the wind would blow because the car would start creaking, yikesss!! There is also a monastery (Po Lin) across from the Buddha, which was equally impressive. It smelled very strongly of incense (which I love) & there was chanting music coming from the inside. The Ngong Ping village was also great - there were lots of tourist (expensive though!) shops & good places to eat - where I probably had my favorite meal yet - Margherita pizza & hummus :)

*Po Lin Monastery

I've been doing quite a bit of sightseeing so far - Stanley Market, Avenue of the Stars (similar to Hollywood Blvd. in LA, but much nicer because it's right on the water), the Peninsula Hotel (the most famous hotel here & it's beautiful!!), and I got to experience my first light show in downtown Hong Kong!! Many tourists have high-tea at the Peninsula Hotel & that's definitely on my to-do list. There are still so many things left to see here & I can't wait to experience it all :)

*Light show, so pretty!!

I also have to describe a funny story the other day while two of us (Kat & Anna) were on the bus. There were these two boys sitting next to us & all of the sudden one of them pulls out a gun & the three of us looked at eachother like "what is going on"?! It looked like a legit gun, but we soon realized that it shot out some sort of white powder. If we were in the US, people would have screamed, but I just don't think we knew how to react at first & the two boys acted like it was no big deal! I hope I don't run into any more guns in the future! I don't want that to freak anyone out, because I feel very, very safe here. There are security guards in every hostel & you have to be stopped at a security gate before you can even enter the campus at all.

*Me at the Peninsula Hotel

Well, I think that's about all for now. Next weekend, I'm venturing off to the Hong Kong Disneyland, so be on the look out for more pictures and a new post after that! I also wanted to take the time to thank everyone for following me on my blog, looking at my pictures, and questioning how I'm doing. I really appreciate everyone's support as I'm on this four month adventure & am truly blessed to have an extraordinary family and a great group of friends. I miss you all, but am loving every minute here! Love you!

*Picture link again: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075815&id=1490346167&l=f6f64036b8