We were off again first thing on Saturday morning to hike it to Ngong Ping, also known to many tourists as 'The Big Buddha'. It was my first time using the MTR (Mass Transit Railway) and it was incredible to see just how it worked and how many destinations it reaches just on one single railway network. This method of rapid transport is so efficient and easy to use, it makes our new light rail on the Gold Coast seem ten years outdated already.
After much trouble trying to find an entrance to the hike up the mountains to The Big Buddha we decided to catch the cable car instead and then hike the trail back. It was amazing to see the small villages that surround the lower skirting of the buddha. We stopped and lighted some incense to pay respect to the buddha. After much argument Jeremy, Sara, Felicia, Jack, John, Connor & myself finally decided to hike the trail back, our biggest concern was that we would be walking back along the trail at night time. A steep and strenuous hike it was involving many steep inclines and hundreds of even steeper steps. The exertion of the hike was somewhat reduced as we managed to entertain each other along the way. I do not think I have laughed so much in such a small amount of time and by the end of the hike I was more concerned about the aching of my stomach and ribs from laughing as opposed to my quads and knees that were shaking uncontrollably. The funniest part of the hike was when we stopped by a cable car tower to rest and Jack smashed his head on a metal spear as he went to sit down. Luckily there was minimal bleeding and he was okay but his reaction and us bandaging his head (whilst not necessary) made it incredibly humorous and we sat there for a while before we could pull ourselves together and continue.
When hiking back we had the opportunity of seeing some amazing views as we were so high up in the mountains. The thing that really stuck out was the incredibly poor lack of urban planning. Here you have this great space of land and greenery with tall apartment buildings and infrastructure placed randomly all over the place as if there had been no thought at all given to the future development of the city.
Jeremy and I were up bright and early to prepare for our Australia Day celebrations which we were to host at the girls' apartment on Sassoon Road, quite frankly ours just wasn't big enough. Our alternative option was having the party on the rooftop of our apartment building but at this time of the year it is just too cold for that, but I may just make use of that as the weather becomes warmer. I bounced out of bed to slip on my shorts and a t-shirt, the first day wearing such little clothing as luckily it was quite warm, around twenty degrees celsius. The first thing I did as I got dressed was grabbed my fully charged iPhone (as prepared the night before) and listen to the start of the Triple J Hottest 100 with my headphones, streaming live from Australia.
We managed to buy as much Australian food as we could for the day, unfortunately the Australian sausages were quite expensive so we only bought enough to cook the girls and ourselves sausage sizzles for breakfast before the rest of the crew arrived. For the remainder of the day we had a few quite drinks, snacks and played some games whilst listening to the countdown before the night slowly wound down and everyone departed later towards the night. Whilst it was a great day to celebrate the founding of our great country with the other exchange students in a completely foreign country it was still nothing like home. This was probably the first day I had really missed home as we typically celebrate Australia Day in style. The biggest thing I was missing was Dad's cooking; the slow roasted lamb racks on the BBQ, succulent garlic prawns and his famous deep fried camembert with cranberry sauce. If there is one thing my Dad can do it certainly is cooking good food.
My final classes finished up on Monday as holidays for Chinese New Year start on Thursday, meaning I now have almost three weeks worth of holidays until classes resume. Jeff took me to a local restaurant just across the street from Hong Kong University. We struggled trying to convey to the waiter exactly what we wanted to order from the menu. I ordered a lean stir-fried beef with rice noodles and vegetables as I have been craving vegetables for a good week now. Jeff ordered a serving of chicken and corn soup and a ham and egg sandwich but spent the next five minutes explaining to the waiter that he wanted to add cheese to the sandwich. Not knowing what the waiter thought we were asking for and half expecting to receive just a plate with a slice of cheese luckily for Jeff he got his ham, egg and cheese sandwich. Jeff is from Toronto, Canada and studies at the same college/university as Sandra & Sara. I think he is a nice guy that always takes the time to listen to what people have to say without pre-judging them before hand. I can definitely see that he is determined to get the best experience he can from his stay in Hong Kong and do as much as he can during his stay here. I am looking forward to getting to know him more as our time here progresses and certainly getting to see the sights of Hong Kong with Jeff and the rest of the exchange students during our stay here. I am definitely feeling the lack of good fresh food over here. I miss not having access to good fresh fruit and vegetables. Even when you to order a meal with vegetables over here you really only get bok choy. I am going to try and source some fresh fruit and vegetables in the next few days but can not wait to get home and have a massive salad and hit of fruit! We have been having more troubles booking our return flights home from Taiwan as many of the sights are declining our booking confirmations. So at this stage we do not have a return flight home but I am confident that we will work something out in the next few coming days. I was quite excited to FaceTime with Barbara on Tuesday morning. Barbara is a lady back home on the Gold Coast that I do some consulting for (in terms of finances, accounts, managing personal affairs etc.). We managed to talk over the internet and I could do basically the same work as what I would be doing back home but from my laptop over here in my apartment. It truly is amazing how technology can be used to complete such tasks live from across two countries. Barbara was kind enough to pass on some of her wise advice on gambling, drinking and walking the streets over here. The generosity and kindness of this lady towards others is incredible and that is why I love working for her. After a week or so I finally got to meet up with my Hong Kong buddy Katherine whom I met via the Buddy Programme managed by the university. Katherine and her friend (Kayin) took me down to Causeway Bay where we had dinner at a Japanese hot pot restaurant. Basically, you sit at a table with an electric stove in the middle and the waitresses bring out a large pot filled with a flavoured soup of your choice and a selection of cold meats. You then help yourself to the buffet where you have unlimited access to a variety of other meets and vegetables that you bring back to the table and cook in the hot pot. Included is self serve Häagen-Dazs ice cream which is a very popular american gourmet ice cream. Compared to the other restaurants I have been eating at this was relatively more expensive (approx. $25 AUD) but for what you receive and the experience of cooking it yourself it was well worth it. For this in Australia you would expect to pay at least double this price. After dinner Kayin went home whilst Katherine took me to see the famous Flower Market. It is a temporary setup in Causeway Bay where a variety of market stalls are setup to sell flowers, gifts, balloons, nik naks and other novelty items. I guess you could say it is similar to a smaller version of what we have in Australia as the Royal Easter Show or The Ekka but without the amusement rides. Jam packed with hundreds of people, we managed to make our way through the markets and back around before Katherine was nice enough to walk me to the bus stop to ensure I got on the right bus home. Katherine seems to have a wealth of knowledge of the local culture and traditions (particularly around the Chinese new year period) and was explaining to me some of her families customs and celebrations for the week ahead. I think Katherine is a lovely girl and is very compassionate and kind-hearted. Although she seems shy and not overly confident with speaking english she certainly does not have to be as she speaks and writes both very well in english, probably even better than me.
Chinese New Year is soon approaching and only after two weeks of classes we already have a two week holiday. So we have begun planning on where to go for Chinese New Year (Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia or The Philippines) with Jeremy, Henry, Kim & Esther. After hours of planning we finally decided on Taipei, Taiwan. I have always wanted to visit Taiwan and learn more about its history, culture and ongoing battle to maintain its independence from Mainland China. Flights have been booked and we have hired an apartment for the four nights that we are staying there, which is much better than a hotel and we will actually have a kitchen to cook meals in!
My first Mandarin class on Tuesday morning was literally the size of my bedroom (if not smaller) with at least forty people jammed into one room on rolling chairs, basically linking arms with the person next to you. All it took was for one student to roll their chair either side and next minute the whole class was swaying on their chairs.
I got to meet and have dinner with Sinyan (a friend of a friend back home) in Mong Kok on Tuesday night. Sinyan was nice enough to show me around Mong Kok and to a famous street that is known for having the most pet shops and clothing stores for your pets. I have finally been approved for all of my courses and have decided to drop Mandarin as I have done it previously in my first year of university and like many other students found it extremely difficult to learn whilst studying four other english subjects. I have decided to wait until I have completed my degree and start learning Mandarin again when I can commit 100% of my studying to just the one course. This has now left me with the following four courses to study in Hong Kong; 'International 'Financial Management', 'Advanced Business Communication Skills', 'Negotiation & Conflict Resolution' and 'Leadership'. The business communications and negotiation & conflict courses are taught by the same professor (Grace Xie) who is quite lovely, knows what she is talking about and can easily convey concepts and theories to us students.
One of my final courses was not actually approved until 7:00pm on Wednesday night. A group of exchange students were going to the Happy Valley races that night at 7:30pm, which I declined to go due to my enrolment dilemma. When the email came through at approximately 7:00pm that I had finally been accepted into my last course I quickly cracked open a beer, jumped in the shower, suited up and was on the next bus with the gang to Happy Valley Racecourse. For only $10 HKD (approximately $1.50 AUD) we were covered for entry into the racecourse and then proceeded to have a few beers, took a few photos with the girls and placed a few small bets. It was a good night, very tame but we definitely saw the potential to make it a great night with everyone out which we are looking at doing in the near future. It was just incredible, here you have this huge urban city surrounded by skyscrapers with a horse racing course in the middle of all these buildings. The view is immaculate, if only I took my SLR camera with me. A group of us decided to take another visit to Lan Kwai Fong (LKF) after some great pre-drinking games where I learnt a lot of new games plus taught the crew a few famous Australian ones. The 'Goggles' game took to be the most popular and definitely proved the most deadly in terms of alcohol intake. The funniest part of the night was meeting a four and a half foot homeless asian man, with no more than eight or so rotten yellow teeth in his mouth and about twenty strands of wire-like hair on his head, wearing track pants and a stinky sweater, dancing out the front of the nightclubs. We were in stitches laughing as he came up and started dancing with us and getting photos with us giving the thumbs up. We decided to name him 'Asian Gollum' (those Hobbit/Lord of the Rings fans will understand the reference). Unfortunately, Sara discovered my weakness of tequila shots and decided it would be a good idea to buy us both one and then head to an actual shot bar where we continued the night away.
I got in touch with 'Hong Kong Pete', one of my Uncle Michael's business associates in Hong Kong. I met Pete in Wan Chai where he took me to the Queen Victoria bar where I met a family friend (Reg) from back home who was over on a business trip. After having three pints of beer in half an hour, the drinks kept on coming and I had a great night with Pete, Reg and the other business people I had met during the night. I awoke in the morning to my roommate (Jeremy) telling me that we were to leave to do a 4.6 mile hike across four mountains to Ngong Ping, also known as The Big Buddha. I responded with "am I actually in bed" as I was in a club one minute and waking up fully clothed in my pyjamas in my bed the next. But all in all a great night.
So for the past week now I have been trying to determine which side of the footpath you are supposed to move towards as another oncoming pedestrian approaches you. They drive on the same side of the road here as we do in Australia so naturally I assumed this would be the case when walking the footpath but apparently not. Everyone just seems to walk in any and every direction they want. And when (not if) you barge someone or are barged by another you do not apologise, you just keeping walking. The same rule applies to holding doors open for others, no thank you is given, it is merely an expectation. However, I have been moving more and more to the right hand side on the footpath and that seems to be the general direction to move so I think I will stick with that, just like the escalators here where you are not allowed to stand on the left hand side unless walking up or down them.
On Saturday myself, Jeremy (roommate), Felicia, Jack & Esther hiked up to 'The Peak'; Hong Kong's famous tourist attraction that gives an incredible bird's eye view of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the harbour. It was ridiculous to see so many buildings crammed into such a small space of land. The other incredible thing I noticed was the air quality up at The Peak was so much cleaner than what we was exposed to in the city. You can actually feel the difference in the air when you breathe in. Apparently the research has been conducted that shows a correlation between the increase in air pollution in Asia and a decreasing average life expectancy of fifteen years.
As we had hiked up to the top of the mountain from the back end we made our way back down through the front end (heading towards Causeway Bay/central). We met an Australian pilot on the way down who was nice enough to take some photos of us and give us some tips on life in Hong Kong. Coincidentally, we managed to end up in the middle of the city at the 'Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens' where we explored for a while before heading down to the city for dinner.
After going out to the clubs that night I soon learnt that it is not a great idea to have twenty to thirty people following my leadership to get on buses and walk through nightclubs. So we broke off into smaller groups and visited a view different night clubs before heading back to 'Club 7-Eleven' and then back to some friends apartment for a few drinks after. No doubt we were all a little rusty the next morning, I think Albert was still hungover at 10:00pm the next night after sleeping in until 2:00pm. He is a gentle soul with good intentions and is a pretty good roommate. Not that I really have much to compare to as this is really my first time living in an apartment with two other people.
Monday was the first day of classes. After a quiet night on Sunday we spent most of the day between classes and trying to organise our timetables and enrol in the subjects we wanted to take. The process over here is so inefficient compared to the automated system that Griffith University uses back home. After my International Financial Management class I realised I will have to do some revision on my finance formulas from my first year as its been three years since I last did a finance subject and I was definitely lacking some pre-required knowledge.
Funny story..Owen told me on Monday that he spent all night trying to login to his HKU portal until 2:00am. When he finally was ready for bed his roommate was (I quote) "snoring like a hippo". So Owen used earplugs to block the sound of his roommate snoring and as a result he slept through his alarm and missed his first two classes of uni, yet he could still here his roommate snoring through the earplugs haha.
Kim and I had the same three hour break between classes so we decided to bail and watch a movie at home instead. We contemplated skipping the next class at 5:30pm as the freezing weather outside was convincing us to stay in. After finding the motivation to go to class we rushed to get there, got lost and ended up being late. As we walked into the room everyone was laughing at us and we had no idea why until we sat down and realised that the professor had just cancelled the class and everyone was just about to stand up and leave..should have followed our instincts and stayed in.
As the class was cancelled Jeremy, Mihir, Jeff, Sarah, Jack, Kim, Martin and myself took a bus to Central and had dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant called 'Taco Loco'. I came home to find Albert was starving and in quite a bit of pain from a toothache that he had for the past few days. I walked down with him to McDonalds to get something soft for him to eat. Albert is an interesting character and never seizes to amaze me. He has a wealth of knowledge on general life experiences, history, geography and especially life in Hong Kong as he has been here for sometime now. I am always interested in what he has to say and take in any advice he gives. I find I am beginning to respect having more deep conversations like this with people that I am meeting, it makes you wonder how we often miss out on conversations like this with the people that surround us every day.
A sad start on Monday morning after having to say goodbye to my little brother (Dan) who I'm going to miss incredibly. As excited as I was I still could not shake the feeling that I had left something behind. Normally that sort of feeling comes about. when you go away for merely a few weeks, but how do you possibly explain the same feeling for six months? Turns out I had in fact left something behind which I will go into later.
Coincidentally, the girl sitting next to me on the plane is a teacher of a primary school in Hong Kong, teaching grade two. After we got talking for a I learnt that her apartment is actually situated just down the street from where my hall is. She was nice enough to give me some tips about the area and where to and where not to eat.
I managed to get a decent amount of sleep on the plane as I had stayed up the entire night packing and had not gone to sleep at all. That evening I had a few friends and the little brother over for pizza, beers and swimming in the pool as a last catchup before I left, which was good fun. However, the best thing that happened was that I was lucky enough to catchup with a good friend whom I had lost touch and become quite distant with. It was not until we got to spend the night simply just talking like old times that I realised how much I had missed this person and relationship in general, it made not sleeping that night well worth it just to be able to rekindle our long lost friendship. I hope when I return we can continue to be good friends again, it would mean the world to me. Its unfortunate that sometimes it takes something as big as leaving the country for six months for you both to act on doing the right thing, almost as if we may never see that person again. I guess it makes you wonder deeper as to why we do not always live and act like this as if we may not be here tomorrow and if that truly was the case what would we do in such a moment or say to the people we most care about? It sort of mildly changes your perspective on the relationships in your life. (By the way, this is not supposed to be a deep or reflective blog of my feelings but I guess this was relatively important to me).
Moving on..So I arrived in Hong Kong airport only to discover that I had left my iPad at Brisbane airport, as well as my cheap pair of Ray-Bay Wayfarer copies..me being the genius that I am. Suddenly not getting any sleep the night before no longer seemed like such a bright idea. Luckily (with the help of my little brother Dan and the 'Find My iPhone/iPad' app) I was able to track down my iPad and discover that it had been handed in to the 'Lost & Found'.
I was pretty excited walking out of that airport, not knowing what lied ahead or what scenes I was to be exposed to. I caught a taxi to my hall and was greeted by a small room that smelt like cigarettes but soon adjusted to the small space that I was to share with two other roommates and basic kitchen bathroom/amenities. At the end of the day as long as there is a warm bed and hot shower I am all set, especially for this freezing cold weather. My roommate's name is Albert and he is from Armenia. Albert is studying chemistry at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) as a postgraduate student. He's a good guy with a pretty good sense of humour and surprisingly knows the local nightlife and people quite well.
My other roommate arrived a few days later. Jeremy is twenty studying business as well from Perth at The University of Western Australia. Albert found it quite funny that he has two young Australian undergraduates as his roommates and I quote from the other night out at the clubs, we are the "best roommates he has ever had".
I had a great dinner experience with Thomas (fellow student from Griffith University) and his French roommate, Tom when we went to a Korean BBQ buffet in Kennedy Town. After a few days I also managed to finally find a good deal for getting a mobile number in Hong Kong, now its just a matter of remembering and being able to regurgitate that eight digit number when people ask for it, lets be honest..Facebook these days is much easier. At least with Facebook if you forget the persons name you can remember it by looking at their profile picture. This has been happening so much since I arrived as I have been meeting so many other exchange students from the United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway..the list goes on. We have all been bonding together really well and it is quite overwhelming but great as you get to meet and go out with so many different and interesting students. Its evident that the Canadians dominate the exchange students here, there are so many and a lot of them are actually asian decent which is surprising as I have been mistaking many of them for locals of Hong Kong (at least until you here the that strong Canadian accent). Such nice people though!
The University itself is quite big and very disjointed. Being on a hill it is split-levelled and can be very confusing to get around. I have been Skyping quite a few friends back home and using FaceTime with the little brother and Dad to chat. There a lot of people I definitely miss but just being able to chat with them has kept me grounded.
One of the funniest people I have had the pleasure of meeting has been Owen. Owen is from England and is studying economics (like me), also not enjoying it terribly (like me). We have got along quite well from the start and I can tell that he is no doubt going to be a good friend in the months ahead. The two of us got stuck in a lift today in the new building at uni. The lift would not go up and down but the door decided to keep opening on the floor we were currently on which looked like a library for postgraduate students as it was dead silent. In the silence the lift we were in decided to beep and speak quite loudly which floor we were on continuously. However, we could not get out as there was a metre perimeter glass gate around the lift doors, secured by student card access (which we have not received yet). So we ended up having everyone starring at us making all this commotion until finally the receptionist came over and let us proceed down the stairs, only to have the lift still opening and closing and making its floor announcements as it did so.
Last night about 20-30 of us exchange students all had pre-drinks at Sara and Sandra's hall (Canadian girls), before heading out to Lan Kwai Fong (Hong Kong's famous strip of nightclubs and bars). We had a great night going from club to club and amazingly being able to purchase drinks from 7-Eleven (now termed 'Club 7-Eleven') and drink them right outside the nightclub we were about to head into. Doing this in Australia would result in a hefty fine. The night got even better when our roommate Albert came out and took us to at least four or five different nightclubs, somehow getting us through without being a single entry fee or having to stand in line. I'm not sure what was funnier, finding out that Jack (another exchange student) had tripped and rolled down the concrete hilled road or getting to orientation this morning to find all of us exchange students either just hitting the hungover stage or still drunk from the night/morning before.
I am pretty excited for tomorrow as I am going on a hike in the morning to The Peak, which is the mountain overlooking Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. I will be taking my SLR camera with me and hope that there is minimal smog so I can get some nice shots from what I truly imagine will be a bird's eye view of this amazing city.
After much trouble trying to find an entrance to the hike up the mountains to The Big Buddha we decided to catch the cable car instead and then hike the trail back. It was amazing to see the small villages that surround the lower skirting of the buddha. We stopped and lighted some incense to pay respect to the buddha. After much argument Jeremy, Sara, Felicia, Jack, John, Connor & myself finally decided to hike the trail back, our biggest concern was that we would be walking back along the trail at night time. A steep and strenuous hike it was involving many steep inclines and hundreds of even steeper steps. The exertion of the hike was somewhat reduced as we managed to entertain each other along the way.
We managed to buy as much Australian food as we could for the day, unfortunately the Australian sausages were quite expensive so we only bought enough to cook the girls and ourselves sausage sizzles for breakfast before the rest of the crew arrived. For the remainder of the day we had a few quite drinks, snacks and played some games whilst listening to the countdown before the night slowly wound down and everyone departed later towards the night.
Jeff is from Toronto, Canada and studies at the same college/university as Sandra & Sara. I think he is a nice guy that always takes the time to listen to what people have to say without pre-judging them before hand. I can definitely see that he is determined to get the best experience he can from his stay in Hong Kong and do as much as he can during his stay here. I am looking forward to getting to know him more as our time here progresses and certainly getting to see the sights of Hong Kong with Jeff and the rest of the exchange students during our stay here.
After a week or so I finally got to meet up with my Hong Kong buddy Katherine whom I met via the Buddy Programme managed by the university. Katherine and her friend (Kayin) took me down to Causeway Bay where we had dinner at a Japanese hot pot restaurant. Basically, you sit at a table with an electric stove in the middle and the waitresses bring out a large pot filled with a flavoured soup of your choice and a selection of cold meats. You then help yourself to the buffet where you have unlimited access to a variety of other meets and vegetables that you bring back to the table and cook in the hot pot. Included is self serve Häagen-Dazs ice cream which is a very popular american gourmet ice cream. Compared to the other restaurants I have been eating at this was relatively more expensive (approx. $25 AUD) but for what you receive and the experience of cooking it 
