So I lied

I know, I said I was going to blog like crazy, but it's ok, because I don't think you guys were reading like crazy anyways. Since I don't feel like sending more mundane emails, I'm going to just update here. Check out my articles on www.cafeabroad.com, as well as my new blog!!! I'm going to be a feature blogger on cafeabroad.com, as well as in conjuncture with UC Davis!! My first article on dimsum has been posted, so please read it!!!!

Anyhoo, I'm here in the library because I can't focus in my room or use my laptop. I've recently discovered I'm addicted to minesweeper. It's dangerous. Last night, after playing the game 1100 times, I finally won one. I know, right? I'm pathetic. Oh well, it's not like it's not curable, or dangerous like cigerettes or something.

But yeah, I'm writing an "imaginary travel paper." 10 pages about a place I've never been.... It's been fun. Not. I'm going to Take Out Comedy Club tonight with some friends and then celebrating a birthday afterwards, so I've done my procrastination for this hour, I'm not letting myself eat until I finish, so, gah yao (add oil, an idiomatic expression in Chinese to mean encouragement)!!

Please Remind Me To Breathe

It's been three weeks already, and as I'm writing it, you all should be fast asleep. Every (week)night, when I crawl into bed around midnight or 1, my roommates look at me like I'm crazy. Though I'm the same crazy person who comes home at very odd hours on the weekend, so I guess it's the same.

I have 2 roommates here, Shirley and Hao Hao. Shirley is a 1st year business major and Hao Hao is a 3rd year information engineer (comp sci engineer). Shirley's very active with her business club, and since she's from Hong Kong, goes home every weekend for a tutoring gig. Hao Hao is from mainland, and always always busy with some programming homework or such. Last time I asked her what her assignment was, all I got out of it was that she was trying to do a remote login to something or other. That's insane. Even more props to her, because I don't know any computer science engineers at home. Both are very nice and very friendly and helpful, though always busy.

My bed in my room is 3inch thick piece of foam. Or something like it. It's like sleeping on a board. Though since I'm usually exhausted from the day that I tend to pass out. Despite not having central heating here, I don't feel it, since IT ISN'T WINTER! It was a lovely 75 degrees the other day and I attempted to do some of my reading outside. It didn't work because all I wanted to do was nap, and read up on Thailand.

I am backpacking across Thailand in a mere week and a half. I will be in Thailand from the 1st to the 17th. The exact details are unknown, and that kinda freaks me out. I'm sure that I will be fine, as I am a competent, politically correct adult, I don't think I'll be tossed in jail for being offensive to the royal family. But it's still scary, as I don't speak a word of Thai. When I backpacked across Europe, that was with Kara, and we planned everything down to almost the last detail. We had reservations, hotel addresses, plane/train tickets, itineraries and in case of emergency contact information. And EVERYONE SPOKE ENGLISH!! This time around, I got my plane tickets just yesterday, and I haven't even booked my hostels yet....

Also, I'm traveling with 2 fellow exchange students, both from the States. One of the students I've known less than a day, the other I've hung out with fairly regularly since I've been here. But again, NOT KARA. This isn't an ode to Kara, just reiterating the fact that I'm going with strangers to a strange land... I'm just trying to remind myself to breathe, and to think rationally. Sometimes it helps to have the correct amount of oxygen to the brain, I believe it promotes rational thinking. And besides, it helped A LOT to have the person you're traveling with know you since the 4th grade. It makes for a slightly easier time.

Maybe it's a sign that I've grown up since I last backpacked. Which I have, especially since the tender age of 18, and we were just fresh out of high school. If I were to do Europe again, which I will sometime in the near future, I'd do it completely differently. I hope this will be a great exercise in relaxation, spontaneity, and an overall embracing of the short time we have here. Besides, who can stress when there are tigers and beaches?

Someone please remind me to breathe.

I'm Changing My Nationality

Everyone here is a freakin' American. What is UP with that?? While I only look like an American in Davis (because with huge Asian population, and since I'm in American, it's only right that I'm assumed to be American), it's weird that I'm not an American until I open my mouth. Up till that point, unless I'm with my rather tall, pale-haired Caucasian friend, I'm just another short Asian girl and I better be able to fight my way through the crowds.

They may just be polite, but the locals that I've met don't think my Canto is that bad. I've been told that I've got the heaviest ABC accent ever, and that I sound like I'm about to cry. I'm sitting in Mandarin class and everyone there is an American. We're everywhere. It's not fun anymore. I can't even say I'm special and say that I'm from California, because every other person is from Cali, and every other Cali person is from the Bay, cept they all go to better schools than me. Fun times.

I'm annoyed at the foreigners already. Not to generalize, or to point specifically to anyone, especially if they so manage to read this blog, it's just that some people are so stereotypical that it's not cool at all. Like the loudass guys from the Big Ten states, who are not even really bothering to immerse into the culture, who'd be up there with the partiers from Europe, cept all the Europeans hate the Americans. I don't really know.

I think homesickness may be setting in. I'm missing my weird abnormal awkward little niche that I fit so perfectly into, especially when I had access to a working oven and all my kitchenware. I miss actual beds (damn IKEA), 2 for 4 deals on Reeses and Peanut M & M's, AVOCADOS, Mexicans, hip hop, nice haircuts, my jankidy car, and most of all, unconditional love. I have to make new friends all over again. I thought I was done with that stuff.

I'm not letting that stop me from having fun, don't you guys worry about that, I'm just annoyed that I have to start all over again, and I already have marks against me. And I know I repeatedly said I'd be fine here, and I am. I get by just fine, I'm just missing home.

First Mass Email: Mountain Climbing and Other Things To Do at 1 in the Morning

Hi All,

Well, I'm here. It's around 10 on Sunday morning and all I wanted to do was catch up on sleep, but that didn't happen. I hiked down my mountain to the next one, and of course the library is closed, but luckily, the computer lab is open. Before I got my cell phone set up, I felt like if I got lost, that would be it. And to have not checked my facebook and email for the past 5, 6 days... that was too much. So, I guess I'll start from the beginning. It's long. Deal.

Flying on my 21st birthday, fun. The huge American rite of passage means nothing to the rest of the world, just another thing to peg us as American. I had a 14 hr plane ride from SFO to Hong Kong. Luckily, own tv. Had at best 4 hrs sleep, 1/2 hr at a time. My seat mates were SF State grads, who had parents working in Hong Kong, so they were going to be here for a month or so, before possibly joining the family business. It was nice, they told me little tidbits about hong Kong and answered my questions, and allowed me to tag along until we got our baggage.

So, my dear friend Cassandra was supposed to pick me up from the airport. She didn't. She told me to use the courtesy phones once I got out of the airport to call her. It went something like this: "Hello?" "Cassandra!!! I'm here!!!!" "Um... who is this?" "Kathy, smart one." "O shit, aren't you supposed to come tomorrow?" "No......"

She got on a bus to the airport not to long after that... Headed over to customs, and despite hightailing off the airplane, we forgot about the line at customs. So I've been looking for lonely college age kids, hoping they'd be fellow students. I found one in front of me in line. His name is Alex, from Kentucky, and the guy in front of him was another, Brandon from Penn State. And when our spots in line met, I recognized the EAP papers in the hands of Carl, from UCSB.

Picked up luggage, and said my byes to Helen and Allen, who I think were sort of scared for me... I had told them that I had no cash on me, and they heard my exchange with Cassandra, and then they saw all my luggage... (a giant suitcase, a giant duffel with my backpacking pack, a carry on suitcase, and my huge purse bag with my laptop in it...) I assured them I'd be fine, would facebook them later for a potential meet up and they'd show me around. I walked over to the spot where CUHK was set to meet people. I borrowed someone's phone and called Cassandra to meet me there. A sight for sore eyes to see her after all these months (she transferred out of Davis to go to American University in Paris). We were able to catch a ride with the people from CUHK and Cassandra was able to tag along with us. Jess Davis, from Whitmore (I think), but really from LA, happened to be 4 doors down from me in Adam Schall Residence.

So, I'm starving, and it's like 9 at night and our driver got lost in the mountains getting to our dorms and the buses stopped and the canteens were closed, and we wouldn't be able to get back into the dorms if we left because we didn't have our student ids yet. So, we unpacked and crashed. I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't get back to sleep afterwards. Bad idea. I'm living in a triple with 2 other girls, one of which has the same last name as me, cept she spells hers Feng. Neither roommate is back yet so I haven't met them yet. The furniture, all from IKEA. My bed? A piece of 3 inch think foam "mattress."

My first meal in Hong Kong: pumpkin porridge. It was interesting to say the least. Checked in, took a placement test (apparently my Chinese is better than I thought, which means my schedule gets all messed up again), wandered to the train station. Met a Dutch student, Merel, and hung out with her for a bit. We had a 4 hour orientation/opening remarks dealy thing, and I was getting cranky because of of the jetlag and being up since 5:30. The funniest thing was the presentation from the gym teacher. He was showing a slideshow of past students who participated in the athletic program. There were a lot of pictures of him in it, and whenever there was a non Asian student, he liked to circle their face. He has a typical Hong Kong English accent, and the whole thing was rather difficult to digest; it was just so un PC that you had to laugh. The next guy who went up was an American, who also had a slideshow about his program, and he said "i'll let you guys circle the foreigners on your own in these pictures."

A mere 2 MTR stops away from the school is one of the biggest malls in Hong Kong. Oh, the possibilities for me... Most of the students were heading there for dinner. A few others I've met decided we wanted to go shopping for cell phones. We ended up with a group of 11, 3 Dutch kids, and a whole bunch of Americans. How we identified who wanted to go, since we didn't know everyone's name? We circled the foreigners. Our goal was to get cheap secondhand phones outside of the mall. There was kinda nothing outside the mall. The old lady we asked suggested we go to Mong Kok, which was a shopping area that had a lot of electronics.It was late, we were hungry, but up for adventure. Ann, one of the girls we were with, isn't quite an American, she just went to school there, by way of Singapore and Scotland. But she spoke Cantonese and was actually born in Hong Kong and goes there quite often, so she kinda knows her way around.

After dinner, we split up, with some going back, the rest of us wandering, looking for Lady Street. Lady Street is a street full of vendors and stalls that sell things pertaining to women, but with some random guy stalls in the mix. Temple St. is the guy shopping, but we weren't there. On our way to Lady St, I found a little complex full of cell phone stalls and shady looking guys. I asked around to see who would unlock an American cell phone. Damn AT&T and their stupid locks. The first guy said $150 HKD, with the people after him offering higher prices, so he won. One of the shadiest guys, with 2 black eyes and a fat bruise on his cheeks said $200...

It was 10pm when I left the phone with him, and he said it'd take an hour. The place closes at 11, which becomes important in a bit. After a bit more wandering, we find Lady St. There are 8 of us left, 3 girls, 5 guys. It just so happens that the 3 girls, me, Ann, and Carmen, all speak Cantonese, though I'm the only one who has never been to Hong Kong before. The 5 guys... 4 Americans and 1 Dutch guy and not a lick of Chinese lang. knowledge between the. The greenest of them all was Kentucky, the guy I met at customs. He had the whole deer in headlights look the entire time. This is his first big city, first time out of the country. And of course, we bring him to Mong Kok as his first Hong Kong experience. We were worried we'd lose him.

So, the famous bargaining that happens in Hong Kong really does happen. I didn't think I had it in me to do it, since my mom always did it here. My self control has gotten better, with those prices, I'm sure that if I wasn't so tired, I would have spent over $1000 hkd in the first 10 min (that's not much, around $125 USD). So I'm wandering, and there's a stall that sells the Chinese long dresses. I've never had one, no real desire or place to wear one, but I figure before I leave HK I'll get one. I'm looking at this green one, and the lady starts talking to me in Canto. She says its 150, and when I'm politely nodding do to disinterest and just wanting to browse in peace, she tells me to name my own price since she's closing soon. I go down half and say 70, she looks at me like I'm crazy, I walk out and leave. She calls out 100 as I leave. I keep walking. She calls out 90, and I'm trying to walk faster, but I think she's going to chase me down. She says 80, and just as I think I'm safely away, she says 70, and I'm sure she'd drag me in. I didn't know what the custom is, but it looks like if they match your price, you're obligated almost to buy. I go back in, trying to think of ways as to how to get out of it, like I want another color, or I'm a fat American, and then finally I just say I'll get it another time and walk quickly out of the stall. She's pissed off, and starts yelling at me, "why did you bargin if you didn't want it???" I ducked into another stall in case she wanted to throw something at me or if there was some hired thugs who dealt with people like me...

We wander for some more. I bought yarn, couldn't get much of a deal, but compared to US prices, I got a deal. It's like 10:45 and I'm exhusted. I've hiked around a mountain all day and through a huge mall, and all throughout Mong Kok and I just want to head home. The guys had mentioned wanting to hit up a bar or 2, but we all really just wanted to sleep. I was going to go home, and anyone who wanted to can come too, I just had to go pick up my phone. And that's when it hit us. If I left my phone at 10, and it takes an hr to fix, then it should be ready at 11. If the store closes at 11, then we were screwed. I started to speed walk ahead of the others, and then we realized another thing: we didn'nt know where we were.

The reciept of courrse didn't have a number on it, just an address, and we didn't know where the hell we were. I at this point kind of know where it was and I took off, assuming Ann and Carmen would watch over the guys. No one but Ann had a working cell phone number. Since I ran, I got to the store, paid the guy, made sure it worked and said if it doesn't work when I get my own card, I'm coming back. I walked back outside, and they weren't there. Not to worry. I spoke the language, I can read maps, and I understood the MTR system. Plus, worse comes to worse, I'd take a cab back, it would be at most $20 US, and for that price and peace of mind, not a big deal at all. I assumed they made it to the block and knew that the cell phone complex was there, but also knew that they didn't walk by. I walked around the corner to the other entrance, and there, in the midst of dark hair, I was able to circle the foreigner. Kentucky (his name is Alex, but Kentucky is so much more fitting) was standing in front of 7-11 (yes, HK is filled with 7-11's, Circle K's, Starbucks, and Micky D's), and he's kinda got that 'ok, don't panic look on his face,' that I don't notice until he sees me and noticibly relaxes. I asked where the others were and he said he didn't know...

We went back to the other side, then the other, and I was like, worse come to worse Alex, at least you got stuck with someone who can speak. Then we meet up with everyone else and all is good again. So I've needed to use the bathroom since after dinner. But Mong Kok is not a nice place. They would definitely not have western toilets. If you guys didn't realize, it's all squats. I'm thinking that the train station might be ok. I walked in and walked right back out. It was my first full night in HK and I've walked all around, and I didn't need that shock yet.

We thought that the last bus ran at midnight. It didn't. Last campus bus from the train station is at 11:25. We got back at around 11:45. CUHK is a goregous campus situated on a mountain. As Cassandra put it, I'm at the Davis of Hong Kong; middle of nowhere. But goregous views of the water and greenery.

So, we hiked up the mountain. There's one main road goes through campus in a nice winding way. If you follow the road, its quite a walk. We did the next best things. The stairs. Cuts the time in half. But they are stairs. Up a mountain. 3 sets of stairs to be exact. I will have buns of steel by the time I'm done here. At midnight, we sang happy birthday to Kentucky. The view from the top was kind of worth it. I'll post pictures when I get my own computer to work, and an adapter so I have battery life.

That was my first day in HK. I'll update about Alex's birthday and yesterday when I get the chance. I'm starving now and missed dim sum. I might go to the mall again today, and then try to figure out my class schedule and then school starts tomorrow. It hasn't quite hit me that I'm halfway across the world yet. Watching the sun set in Stanley was beautiful, but it didn't quite feel any different. Going to the Shatin Mall was no different from going to the mall down in Santa Ana or the Pacific East Mall in Albany. The food is the same as in Chinatown, the only main difference is there's a lot more than I can't read. Anyhoo, love to all. More when I get the chance. Enjoy the silence now that I'm not there. :-)

Goodbye Party

So I'm not quite in China yet, but whatever. Today was the last days of finals. Woohoo. So, in typical stress relief fashion (as well as procrastination), I held a little get-together to celebrate my last days in the States, as it'll be very near impossible to see people during finals week. And in typical Kathy fashion, it was a food party. I tried making my signature brownies, but this oven hates me! Must have been a 3rd attempt this quarter for me, and nope, no amazing fudge rocky road brownies for me... And I went new cookie route, Becks' Chocolate Heaven Cookies (email me for recipe), with a little bit of extra excitment in them. I didn't know what to make of them, as you all know how I feel about chocolate: dark, or death. Interesting, I'll leave it at that.

Acacia, the tameles... MMMMMMMMMHHHHHH. They won't have masa there. They can have everything else but they won't have masa there. Awww... guacamole and Gordo's.. whatever shall I do... 6 months without Mexican... that's a little too much I must say...

It was sweet to see some people, to feel that loved, and to know that no matter the number of years, graduations, and whatevers, some people will remain the same and always so loving. As for the ones who didn't quite make it, well, that's life, n'est pas?

Will keep everyone in touch obviously.

PS. My mother is due here in less than 6 hours. I need to be presentable in that time. After a party no less... this should be fun...