The Peak

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.