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. :-)
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