Taiwan It Is!

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.