Back to School

We arrived back home in Hong Kong only to find out whilst we were away a Second World War-era bomb was discovered at a construction site in the Happy Valley area, the same district that we have been going to the horse races on the odd Thursday night. Apparently over 2,000 people were evacuated within a 500 metre radius of the site. After nine or so hours the bomb was diffused and dismantled. Experts say that it was most likely a misfire during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during the war. Apparently if is was not for the soft soil surrounding the bomb and way in which it had landed it would have gone off, tearing down multiple buildings and killing hundreds of people.

I had a great conversation with Albert the other night. He was telling me how much he is going to miss me when I go and how he is not looking forward to getting new roommates once Jeremy and I leave at the end of the semester. We talked for little bit longer about how we are similar in terms of our values and he said that I am a "pure person" and have been raised well, which meant a lot coming from him. When we were in Taiwan Albert borrowed a bottle of my red wine when he had some friends over and told me immediately when we got back that he did so and that he is sorry and will replace it. I assured him that I did not mind and that he can help himself to whatever he likes. He confessed tonight that he would never have done that with his previous roommates but he said that he knew I would not mind and am the sort of guy that is understanding of that. I told Albert that I consider him to be a brother and that is how much I respect him. He would fit in well in Australia and he is convinced that all Australians are such lovely down to earth people. Lets hope the next roommates he gets are also Australian.



Monday night was the first night at the gym. After making friends with the lady at the 'Redwood' nutrition store in Kennedy Town, I was soon on the VIP program and walking on my way with a bottle (more like a container large enough to feed a small Ethiopian village) of protein powder. 8:00pm onwards must be the time from which half of the university students from HKU decide to go to the gym and to my own fortune that is exactly the time that I decided to go. It was packed! After a relatively short workout I jogged home in the freezing cold, suddenly the weather had snapped frozen again today like the first day I arrived four weeks ago. The hunger had kicked in and I managed to craft myself some french toast with our very useful, new frying pan that we had bought from Australia day, for which we now call "the toaster".

Tuesday night was supposed to be a night in with the books to stay on top of the uni work, however it was so freezing cold that Albert managed to convince me that if I drink enough red wine I will warm up. Uni work was out of the question after a few tumbler glasses of red. Yes, my lack of possession of a wine glass has resulted in me using a single glass for almost every liquid I consume.
We were off in the seven degree weather to a local restaurant that Albert favours for a good meal and is apparently famous for its desserts, too cold for dessert that night though. We returned for a chilled night in (pun definitely intended) over a few more glasses of wine with some good music and even better deep and meaningful conversations.

 The push-up routine of a morning and before bed has commenced again. I have no excuse not to do it anymore now that I have more spare time over here. Albert has agreed to do them with me each morning and night. I also taught him an ab workout, which we will incorporate into our twice a day routine. As each day progresses we will also add an extra 5 push-ups each time. I challenged him to see how many we could each do in one set. In return he challenged me to an arm wrestle later on. I'll leave it to your own imagination to decide who the winner of the arm wrestle was.

The Limestone Arms - A great small bar that a group of ten or fifteen of us went to in Kennedy Town after I had finished up a session at the gym with Jeff and Mihir. It was a cosy and intimate bar, enough for a small group of people which suited us perfect. That night I had the opportunity to meet, yet again, another group of exchange students studying at HKU.

Mihir was determined to have a few drinks and ended up buying me a shot at the bar. He pulled me aside whilst everyone else continued to mingle and asked me my advice on the future direction of his career and the dilemma of choosing between two companies to work for. We had quite a deep conversation about his upcoming job which he has just accepted in California and continued to talk about work-life balance, income, money and what really was the important factor when it came to choosing a job. I find Mihir is one of those people you can just instantly "click" with and immediately form a solid friendship. I think in many ways we are both like-minded and share similar beliefs and aspirations. I came to Hong Kong with the wholehearted intention of making friends for life and I truly feel that I am beginning to form strong bonds with some incredible people such as Mihir.

Saturday night marked the end of the Chinese New Year with the first new moon of the lunar new year lighting up the sky. We caught the MTR over to Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) for the 'Lantern Festival' that fell on the same day as Valentine's Day after having a quick bite to eat at our newly favourite restaurant in Kennedy Town. Similarly to the Chinese New Year Parade, the festival was a little bit of a let down as we had all anticipated a festival of lantern lighting into the sky. Rather, there were a few dance performances and displays with a Valentine theme.








Jeff and a few of the Canadian students wanted to watch the Canada vs Austria Olympic hockey game. After finding the bar however, the prices were relatively expensive and we still had quite a few hours before the game started. Not to mention the bar attendant tried to force me to buy a drink which I found quite rude. Myself and a few other guys decided to head back to Hong Kong Island and wander over to LKF. The group further split up and it ended up just being Gary, Mihir and myself in LKF.


The streets were flowing with people; couples walking arm-in-arm, girls holding roses, guys attempting to give girls roses, locals selling flowers, teddies and chocolates on the street and not to mention the countless red and pink balloons that overflowed the bars. Gary and I decided it would be a wise idea to pretend to be British and speak with a British accent to new people we were meeting. One of the highlights of the night was being reunited with Mihir after losing him in the crowd for a few hours. The ecstatic excitement on his face when we found him was something I will never forget. That night was without a doubt the best night I have had out in Hong Kong so far.

I finally managed to get to Central to complete my 'Neknomination' for which I had been nominated twice in one week. Neknomination is where a person is nominated by a friend to consume an alcoholic beverage of some description in a creative manner whilst filming and then nominate a person of your own choosing before uploading the video to Facebook for your followers to see. After reading several articles and hearing so many disastrous stories on the news about these neknomination videos I decided to go against the norm and do an act of kindness as my neknomination. The amount of homeless people that I have been exposed to on the streets in Taiwan and here in Hong Kong has been a real eye-opener and not something we witness in Australia. I may not be able to solve the ongoing issue of homelessness in Hong Kong for the long-term but if I can make one person's night a little easier than by all means I am willing to give it a shot. I do not know about you, but I would personally much more appreciate watching a video of people doing such acts of kindness (to anyone) rather than encourage or watch somebody consume alcohol as quick as they possibly can. If you would like to see my neknomination please see the video below.

Tomorrow will be spent doing group work for a presentation that I have with Owen and Jeremy on Monday for 'Negotiation and Conflict Resolution'. We have chosen to do the recent negotiation between Facebook's (Mark Zuckerberg's) offer to acquire Snapchat for $3 billion. Time to get into some work.