The beginning of a crazy trip!

So, I know that I have def been slacking on the blog! I feel like there is always so much going on and not a lot of down time. It is great to be going and doing so many fun things and I want to take full advantage of every second… BUT now I am so behind. I am going to do my best to remember every little detail!

Last Thursday, the 10^th, was our first class day! I had to stay up really late on the Wednesday night finishing my homework and was so sleepy from jetlag. I ended up finishing my hw after working for a while with one of my roommates, Julie! We did a good job though and both got full credit! Our other roommate is our TA for the class, Elizabeth. I am not sure if I have mentioned her yet, but she is awesome and we have become really great friends! Anyway, back to Thursday... class was very interesting. Our first class of the day was from 9-1. We had a Chinese professor who lectured about Supply management in Asia. While it was a really great experience and interesting to learn about various perspectives and cultural differences, four hours is a really long time for class…. So needless to say I got a little sleepy. We had a lunch break from 1-2 and had an amazing “welcome” lunch provided by the school at a very swanky staff restaurant. The food was great and there was a great salad bar. It was our professor’s birthday and we all sang “Happy Birthday” to him with all the Chinese people watching. It was really fun and the cake was awesome! After that, we had to go back to class from 2-6 with our Professor Hasler from UT. It was soooo long and the material is flying at us so fast, but at least I find it very interesting. Our classroom is similar to the size of a HS class and the desks feel like they are for 8 year olds, but they keep it very cool and we have frequent breaks where I often buy a Coca-Cola from the machine outside with my Octopus card (card for the metro system).

After class, most of the students (or at least the ones that I have gotten fairly close to) decided to head to the Sha Tin area on the metro and go to dinner together. We arrived at the Sha Tin area and exited the metro area. We were immediately thrown into a bustling area with people everywhere and little vendors lined up along the exits of the metro. One of our friends, Kyle, bought a funny light up marker board that he loved for $5 USD (he was robbed!). It was so funny and we all kept calling it his Ipad and were fighting to get to play with it. We ventured onto the streets and came across what looked like some sort of soccer game! There were school-aged boys running around on a painted concrete soccer field. Naturally Chris was very intrigued! Somehow we decided to head back up near the metro after the soccer experience and we came across the largest mall I have ever seen. It is truly one of the most amazing malls and places I have ever been. They have everything you could ever imagine and tons of shops that span over 7 floors and many annex like areas. It is truly like a maze. I feel overwhelmed just looking at the escalators that span multiple floors and skip random levels (I have since been back about four times!). Anyway, after navigating through the mall, the group decides to eat at a fairly nice Japanese restaurant. After sitting there for a few minutes, almost the entire rest of our class comes in… including Prof Hasler and his daughter. The poor restaurant people were so overwhelmed. We all ordered at different times and it was just pandemonium. So, that is when Chris, Elizabeth and Josh (Chris’ wingman) decided to order Saki and Japanese beer to do sake bombs. It took about thirty minutes and I had already devoured my prawn tempura when the sake finally came. We enjoyed taking shots of sake and Kirin Ichiban and Asahi (Japanese beer). It was really fun and the whole group was just having a blast together and drinking and getting to know each other really well. Things were so disorganized bc of all the people and the wait staff did not speak English that well. We kept trying to order more “hot sake” and they kept bringing us beer. Prof Hasler’s daughter finally made the connection that they thought we were saying “Asahi!” It was really hilarious! At one point this young Japanese boy brought out a very odd looking dish and put it randomly on the table. We really had no idea whose it was or even what it was. Suddenly, certain parts of patty looking dish started to move. Everyone started freaking out and laughing and yelling. Once everyone settled down… my favorite little Asian girl on the trip asked in her sweet and somewhat squeaky concerned voice “Did someone order moving food?” It was by far one of the best moments of the trip so far. It may be the kind of thing that you had to be there for but everyone was rolling. It got even better when the food was finally determined to be the dish that this quiet and standoffish Japanese boy had ordered. He was trying to ask the waiter if it was alive… the waiter kept saying “no live, no live!” It was great! Def a wonderful evening and after the party kept going when Elizabeth and I went with Chris and Josh to find a liquor store. We ended up in another extension of the crazy huge mall and could not find a liquor store but we did manage to explain what a tequila shot was to some bar staff at another restaurant where they actually gave us salt and lime! It was great but we decided it was prob a good time to call it a night! We caught a cab back to the I-House where we kept trying to tell the cab driver “thank you” in Chinese… I am still not exactly sure how to say it! it was all in all a fabulous night minus the fact that Josh forgot a world cup jersey at the Chinese tequila bar which he had purchased earlier… he managed to get it back the next day though when we get back to the mall… they had actually saved it for him!

On Friday morning I woke up for class feeling just fine… despite what you may have concluded after my explanation of my previous night! We headed to class around 8:30 because it is about a thirty minute walk uphill and upstairs. It is def a good workout and wakes you up in the morning. Especially if it is raining… which is a frequent occurrence this time of year here. Class was just fine... our Prof is great and was giving us all a hard time about the sake from the night before… I will forever remain silent about whether or not he participated in the festivities! WE got out of class around 1 and had the rest of the afternoon free. We got cleaned up and then headed back to Sha Tin for dinner (again) and some shopping. I do not even want to admit that we ate at Ruby Tuesday’s but…. we did! It was a pretty funny experience bc even the “western” restaurants here have a very Asian flair. It was happy hour, so naturally we ordered some drinks. Like the sake from the night before… they took about 45 minutes for the bartender to make! It is hilarious. You will be practically done with your food before you can even think about getting your drink! After our fun dinner experience, Elizabeth and I headed to look for something in the mall. We planned to meet the group at a specific time at the MTR station but somehow we barely missed them and got left. I was a little peeved at Chris to say the least! But we ended up making it our mission to beat the rest of the “impatient” group to our destination. And we did! We both felt very accomplished! It was awesome and then we met up with the rest of the class and our trip liaisons to go see the famous Symphony of Lights. If you are on the Kowloon side, it is a lightshow that takes place across the Harbor on Hong Kong Island on all the high-rises. When we got there before the show started, it looked like a massive time square with huge neon signs and lights projecting across the water. The group got together and took a professional picture with HK Island behind us. We all paid $20 HKD (about $2.50 USD) for a cool printed picture. Soon after that, the light show started and a huge crowd formed all along the water. It was a little foggy unfortunately but still really cool and something that is a must if you go to HK bc it is very famous! After that cultural experience, we headed as a group to the Star Ferry which is also a must do here. It is a ferry ride that takes about 8 minutes to connect people from HK Island to Kowloon and vice versa. We rode the ferry together and enjoyed the amazing view of the skylines on both sides. Then we all ended up in the central area of HK Island where we made our way to the longest escalator in the world. It is really a big string of escalators that weaves its way up the middle of HK Island and is in the midst of everything. We eventually found ourselves, including Hasler and his daughter and our liaisons, right in the middle of a huge party scene with a ton of partying World Cup watchers. It was pretty funny. At some point we had lost Chris and Josh… or rather they had lost themselves… and then found out that they had made it to the main area that we were trying to find. The area is referred to as the 6^th street of HK to anyone that is familiar with Austin. Basically it is a HUGE party area with tons of clubs and bars and people winding their way through the streets. Eventually the students, sans our professor and liaisons, made it to the Lan Kwai Fong and managed to find out missing links (which seems to happen every time we get split up… we magically all find each other again, even in extreme circumstances!). I bought some Carlsberg beer, shoved it into my shoulder bag, and walked around the streets taking in all the sights and craziness, Elizabeth on my side drinking straight out of a Yellow Tail wine bottle. Eventually, we made our way to a Russian Ice bar where you walked in and had to put on big faux fur coats in order to stay warm in the “ice bar.” It was so cool and we got many great pictures in the coats and with the fake ice looking walls… it was freezing though so some people split off from the group and decided to explore the streets some more. Finally we are reconvened again and decided to head back to the Kowloon side in order to make sure that we did not miss the metro bc it closes fairly early. We all had an exciting and adventurous trip back for many reasons… including yelling at our rivals, the MPA students that are also here and are kinda rude and walking all the way from the University metro stop to the top of the mountain where our dorm is located. It took about 45 minutes to get to the top and we had a group of about 18 all following each other like little ants! It was great and hilarious! Such a memorable night and I cannot wait for my next Lan Kwai Fong experience… which I imagine will be this Thursday! Don’t judge me from the crazy beginning of my weekend… there is more to come soon with my stories from Macau… the Vegas of Asia. I am going to let you all catch up on your reading and I am going to catch up on sleep! I will write about Macau in the morning!