Cafe Idea with some awesome Hong Kongers!

                                               My small dorm room on the 10th floor

                                                  Welcome to Polytechnic University!

                     There's not much grass in the city, so they need brought in some artificial grass

                                                       This skyline is right by my dorm!

                                               Banana chocolate pizza, all new foods so far!

                                                         My student ID for PolyU

                                                       The view at night from the harbor

                                       Clock tower, the last remains from the old fishing area

                                                   Cafe Idea had cats walking around!

                                           Democracy protesters with the yellow umbrellas

                                                      Grave on top of the mountain?

                                                     Climbed to the top of a mountain!

                    Wandering around random Hong Kong towns leads to lots of unexpected fun!

                    Local beach filled with locals that I stumbled upon without a tourist in sight

                                                       Just kite fighting, no big deal :)

My bags finally came 4 days after I arrived, which is a huge relief!  I finally have my SD card reader, so I can upload pictures. Although my bags have arrived, my roommate has not yet, but I really want to meet him!

Last night was awesome.  I finally took the MTR, which was super easy, and I went to Café Idea, which was a café on the fourth floor of a skyscraper that had cats walking around the building.  I went with a Hong Kong resident and 10 of his friends, who were celebrating the departure of their friend, who happened to be going to Eau Claire to be my replacement for the semester! What are the odds? We were there for 4 hours, and although they spoke mostly Cantonese the whole time, I had an absolute blast and we actually communicated pretty well.  They were super nice, and even picked up my bill at the end.  They were so willing to help us with translation of the menu and their conversations, and were eager to learn more about America.  It was great.

            When we left Café Idea, we saw the democracy protesters (which I'm sure you have all seen in the news), who were just walking peacefully in a line, all holding yellow umbrellas as their symbol.  There were about 6 police officers at every corner, just in case it got out of hand.

            Today was a crazy day.  I started by going as far northeast on the MTR as I could to Wu Kai Sha, and then I found a hidden trail that went to the top of a mountain.  I was able to see the trail for a little bit, but then I had to pull out the old Hansel and Gretel and I put paper on the trees to remember how to get back.  It was a very difficult climb, but it was worth the effort.  When I got to the top, I was way above all of the skyscrapers and I could see the surrounding islands in the South China Sea.  On the top, there was actually what appeared to be a Chinese person’s grave, which kind of creeped me out, but it didn’t take away from the spectacular view. 

              Once I got down, I almost took the MTR back to Hung Hom, but then I decided to walk around aimlessly, and I am so glad that I did.  I ended up in a small town on the northern most point of the east coast called Cheung Muk Tau, and I found a beach that I could see the sea and islands everywhere.  I found a little shack on the beach and ate lunch, and happened to find a local that spoke English, who told me about the area.  I sat on the balcony of the shack, and my view from my table beats almost any view there is in America.  After lunch, I was walking down the beach and I saw 15 or so old Chinese people flying kites, and it turned out that they were doing some ancient kite fighting.  It was so cool to watch, and two of the old guys asked if I wanted to try, and I spent about 2 hours learning kite fighting from locals from this small town.  It was so much fun, and it was hard at first, but I started to get the hang of it after a while.  I lost my kite fighting matches, but I’m not too upset because they told me that the guys that beat me are masters and that they have been doing this their entire lives.  It was fun to not only fun to kite fight (which I know sounds dumb, but it is really intense), but it was fun to mingle with some locals I found that spoke English. I could hardly tell that I was in Hong Kong, because although there were still skyscrapers, there were hardly any people, the people wore jeans instead of designer clothes, and I was surrounded by mountains.

           Tonight at 2am is the Packer game, so I found a bar that is playing the game and I'll have to take a taxi there to watch it, which stinks because school starts tomorrow and I will be up until 5am!  Go Pack go!!!

        Today was even better than yesterday, which started with orientation that was mostly filled with useless information, but I was able to meet more people from France, Australia, U.S.A., Nigeria, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and many more countries.  It is absolutely amazing to hear all these different accents, hear about other people’s cultures and hometowns, hear their experiences of traveling in the United States, and hear other places that they have traveled.  I have learned so much from just talking to these people for only a few hours. 
          I also learned a few interesting things today about Hong Kong.  I have seen over the last few days that some people wear masks over their faces, which puzzled me, but it turns out that they wear them because they are sick and do not want to spread their sickness. This is something I definitely wish some people in the Wisconsin would do.  Also, the elevators here are a little different.  For starters, my dorm has 3 elevators, but one goes only to the odd numbered floors, one goes to the even numbered floors, and one goes to all floors, so I can only take two of the three.  It seems like an efficient way to do things, especially with having 21 floors in the building.  Also, their 1^st floor isn’t exactly the first floor.  There are many different kinds of floors below the first floor, such as G, LG, UG, and Podium.  Why they can't just start with the 1st floor, I have no idea, but they do it.  

            After orientation was awesome.  I was finally able to experience the true Hong Kong by going into the city tonight and the streets were absolutely packed.  Traffic jams everywhere, the sidewalks filled with people, and so much activity. After orientation, me and some people walked through Kowloon, which was lit up like it was daytime due to all of the stores having their lights on. They all have neon lights extending out from the building, and there are 700 stores on one of the nearby roads, so you can imagine how bright it is. Also, some of the skyscrapers had designs on the side, such as one building that had christmas lights in the shape of a 500 foot tall Santa Claus.  Another skyscraper had a board on top of it with the current weather, the forecast.  Another building had windows that were actually video screens, and a 80 story building had birds flying on in with a moon and clouds.  I was stunned.

           After walking through town, we went to the Avenue of Stars to see the Symphony of Lights on Victoria Harbor.  It was absolutely phenomenal.  Almost every building for a mile stretch lights up in synch with music and shoots lots of green light beams into the sky for 15 minutes.  What made it even better is that the buildings were on the Hong Kong Island and we were in Kowloon, so we got to look across the water at the skyline in order to see the light show.  Even the sides of the skyscrapers had lights on them and had designs that went along with the music. It is nothing like anything else in the world, and hopefully one day I can post a video to show how cool it is!

          After that, we took the Star Ferry over from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, which only cost about 40 U.S. cents each way for about a 5 minute ride, which is really cheap.  There it was just as spectacular.  In Central, which is a town on the Island, there are stores, bars and restaurants everywhere, and the bars are all open until 6 in the morning!  We only got to explore a little part of the island, but it apparently was the part we were in was where all of the Hong Kong celebrities and rich people go, which I have no idea who they are.  But I know that was the fancy area, because I saw Lamborghinis and BMW’s everywhere. Also, from one spot that I was standing, I could see two Armani stores, a Gucci store, a Luis Vuitton store, and many more super expensive brands.  We ate at a local restaurant on the island and I had a meal that was served with hot water, which is a common drink here because they have to boil their water to drink it, so they don’t bother cooling down the water to drink it.  

         We then walked back to the dorms taking a different route, and we saw some market shops in the alleys between the skyscrapers which sell really cheap knock off brands, such as fake Rolexes for 5 bucks!  I have so much planned for the upcoming days and weeks, its going to get so much better, if that is even possible!

            

Finally landed in Hong Kong and easily found my dorm thanks to my "buddy" (which is an assigned student that helps introduce the city to me) named Wing Yee.  I had to buy what is called an "Octopus Card," which is like a super debit card that every Hong Kong citizen has in order to buy food, use the subway, etc.  The airline left two of my bags in Dallas, but those should get to me tonight, and I can't upload pictures until that gets to me.  The city is really cool though, as every single building that I've seen so far has been a skyscraper, which is unbelievable.  There are also about 1,000,000 stores in the city (I wouldn't be surprised if there actually are that many), so if you can't find something here, it probably doesn't exist.

I haven't met my roommate yet, but his stuff is in our room (he seems kind of messy) and I'm assuming he's from China due to the fact that he has a Chinese flag and a communist flag hanging on his desk.  But the view is really cool from my 10th floor room, which is really small, because Hong Kong is very compact.

Besides a few dirty areas, Hong Kong is a really scenic city, especially with the skyline along the water.  When they decided to make Hong Kong a scenic city, they decided to leave grass out of the picture, as the only grass you will see is either a rare patch that is protected from pedestrians, or one of the tables that has grass on it.  I kid you not, there are tables in certain areas that has a patch of grass and a tree growing out of it and people lay on them to relax.  There are a lot of trees and plants around the city, however, so it is not only buildings, and there are lots of mountains and trails outside of the city that I have not seen yet.  So far since I've been here I've only seen Kowloon and Tsim Sha Tsui (two towns in Hong Kong), which were very interesting.  People LOVE their brands here, as almost every person is wearing designer clothes, watches, purses, etc.  There are Luis Vuitton stores, Rolex stores, Armani stores, etc. everywhere, so I feel a little out of the loop with my American Eagle pants (which by the way there is an American Eagle store in one of the tourist areas here).

I have tried, and liked, a lot of new things here already on the first day.  I had the dumpling filled with pork that was good, I had Chinese tea (which they drink almost every day), dragon fruit (which costs less than $2 for four of them the size of my hand), and a chocolate banana pizza (they have really fancy pizzas here, nothing like I’ve seen in America).  They have what is called “Tea time” here in Hong Kong, which is from 2-6pm every day.  This is kind of like their break time/siesta and restaurants have really cheap food during this time.  Also during this time, they serve free soda, juice, coffee and tea with your meal, something I could definitely get used to!  Speaking of food, there is a convenience store next door called ParknStop, which has food that is cheaper than in America, which makes me happy.

Tomorrow I have orientation for my university, so hopefully I will meet some people from other countries and learn more about my university.  So far I have met guys from Israel, Netherlands, Australia, Florida and California, and everybody has been very nice here so far.  I am very happy being here, so all is well and I look forward to continuing my exploration of this interesting city!  I start classes on Monday January 12th, so I have until then to see the city before I have to study.  Also, I have to figure out a way to watch the Packer game this weekend, which actually is on at 2 am Hong Kong time on Monday, which is very unfortunate!

I will try to upload pictures as soon as I get my bags back, and I will continue to post updates occasionally.  I hope all is going well in Wisconsin and I wish you all the best!