What a busy week! With each day comes the learning of a new lesson AND the realization that I have so much still to go. Classes are revving up but not enough to making going out during the week too difficult.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should have previously mentioned the Buddy Exchange Day program that happened last Saturday (after the first week of class). For this event, we were assigned a local "buddy" for a day spent in Stanley Plaza and Victoria's Peak. My buddy, Sophie is a first-year student from Taiwan. She is very intelligent and shared with me many perspectives of cultural differences pertaining to things like family, community service and education. I met her the morning of our departure and we spent the day venturing around Stanley Plaza (a tourist bay), taking pictures on the beach and browsing the markets.
The next location on the agenda was Vicotira's peak. The group took a coach to the top and dropped us off for our own exploration. One of the higest points in Hong Kong, Victoria's Peak overlooks the entire harbour, making for a beautiful panoramic view of the city. Sophie and I eventually made it up to the observatory where I took more pictures and met up with Daniel and his buddy, Prateek.
Our buddies parted ways from there and Daniel and I joined another group of exchange students for the evening. One of them had a buddy whose parent's belonged to the exclusive Hong Kong Football Club that surrounds the jockey pitch. He generously invited us there for dinner where we enjoyed a great meal on the patio overlooking the night sky.
I survived the first week of classes! After the previous week's exchange activities, I was more than ready to finally begin classes (really nerdy, I know). Monday begins bright and early with a 9 am Operation Management class. Our professor in that class is great. Although she is a local , she speaks very good English and actually received her PhD at the University of Michigan. Right after management, Daniel and I must book it to the next class for our accounting lesson. This professor probably has the hardest English to understand but makes up for it with his Asian antics (spelling out words like "cost" and "cause" because they sound the same when he says them--or jumping up and down when he talks about the CPA exam). He seems really interested in exchange students and likes when we volunteer in class. The last class on Monday is a Thomson Reuters Certification class taught by a local PhD who constantly brags about her students going to work for major investment banks. Apparently she has a 95% pass rate for the certification class so I'm hoping I'm one of them!
Tuesdays are a pretty slow day. Classes don't begin until 12:00pm with a snooze of an economics professor who goes exactly by the book. Our day ends with a finance course and professor who swears by calculus and memorization.
There are definitely some differences in the academic system here as compared with the states. The first is simply the course structure. Here, in most of my classes, the entire course is composed of a midterm and huge final with a few quizzes or assignment mixed in. In the states there are weekly quizzes, multiple groups projects with presentations, nightly assignments and exams worth and third of what they are here. I'm afraid it may be challenging to stay motivated to keep up with reading and reviewing if there is no homework or assignment points attached to the effort.
Another thing that is noticeably different is the classroom environment. Many students here arrive late to class without any reaction from the professor. They also talk consistently, A LOT. I was sitting in the front row of my accounting class struggling to hear the professorbecause of the chatter in the back of the room. The most surprising part is that the teachers are extremely tolerant. Only one has specificallydiscouraged classroom discussions while the rest have yet to address it.
The last major difference, somewhat contradictory to the claim above, is that the kids here are extremely smart and motivated and most professors think that exchange students (because they have mostly pass/fail classes) are here to vacation and party. Most locals here take 8-9 classes on average and are very serious about their grades. Here, an individuals grades determine everything from a students ability to take classes to the likelihood he or she will be able to study abroad. I have heard local students rarely go out and never sleep.
I am hoping to reverse the reputation of exchange students here by attending class and actually performing well on exams. Currently, professor faith in us is low but it's only the first week with many more to come. Overall. my courses will be challenging but not any harder than in the states. I think Daniel and I are both fully prepared to work hard while enjoying the time here as well.
On Sunday (yes, the day before the first day of school), we traveled with a group of exchange students to Macau for a day trip. Macau is another special administrative region of China and is home to some of the most expensive casino chains in the world. The day began early with McDonald's breakfast at 6:45AM before we boarded the subway to head to the ferry station. After going through immigration, we loaded on the ferry which traveled surprisingly fast. We were in Macau in about an hour and spent the next 45 mins going through customs and immigration AGAIN. Alot of waiting for sure.
Our student guides led us to a tourist arena outside the ferry station to what seemed like a European village. There were pastel villas, street side bistros and an Italian themed amphitheater. Surrounding the village, there was a massive coi pond and across the street, the casino strip began.
We first entered into The Sands casino just to explore and observe the atmosphere. They were serving cool drinks on a cart and I picked up iced tomato juice with lemon shavings (delicious by the way) while we walked the floors. It wasn't too crowded for a Sunday afternoon but after the Sands, we took a shuttle to the Grand Lisboa hotel, one of the most oddly constructed buildings I have seen. This casino was absolutely packed with locals. I forgot how nice it is to have smoking bans in the states because it was barely tolerable here. The smoke hovered around the floor never truly dissipating.
From the casino, we walked to the town center. It was so crowded with locals celebrating the last day of the holiday before work on Monday. I realize I have become so used to the lack of personal space and the bumping and nudging of street traffic is expected. We made our way to the ruins at St. Paul to take pictures and eat local food. I kept thinking how Macau seemed oddly European until I realized Macau was formerly a Portuguese colony. All the Euro stuff made perfect sense then.
In all, Macau was beautiful but from what others said, not nearly as big or lively as Vegas. We didn't stay to experience the night life but instead took an early ferry home to get ready for class the next morning.
Today began another sponsored trip by the business school: Lunar New Year One Day Tour. The itinerary was packed with stops for the afternoon. In celebration of the Chinese New Year, many commercial stores were closed but because everyone was on vacation, the streets were full of locals taking in the festivities. The atmosphere reminded me a little of a "festival" in the states only magnified a ton. The street vendors were in full swing and at our first stop in Mong Kok it was impossible to avoid the crowds as we ventured through the Ladies market and ate the local food. At Yaumatei I discovered the joy of mango bubble tea. Though I knew it was offered in the states, I had never tried it and was amazed at how popular it was here. Mango in general is huge here. There seems to be a mango-flavored everything. It must be expensive to get the to the states but here it is one of the most popular fruits.
As night fell, our group traveled along Nathan Road, one of the busiest and most popular commercial roads in Hong Kong. We ate dinner on a luxury store strip and after dark, ventured into the harbour for the fireworks show. They began promptly at 8:00 and last a good 25 minutes. They were amazing--put every other firework show I have seen to shame. The streets were packed with people and after the finale, we relaxed with friends to let the crowds die down before heading home.
Now that it has been a week since arriving, most of it seems to have flown by--yet at the same time, I feel like I have been here for months. I know how to get around the city, I've mastered the exchange rate and even learned how to say "Happy New Year" in Cantonese. This weekend was the Lunar New Year celebrated as one of the biggest holidays here in Hong Kong and China. Being the year of the Rabbit, many shops and business have been closed for the entire week in celebration.
In terms of travel, the school had planned a few things to get us out and about in the city. The first day of Chinese New Year we went to Lantau Island with a large group of other exchange students. Lantau Island is on the western part of Hong Kong. We traveled there by "coach" (charter bus) and took a cable car up the mountains to "big Buddha", a massive man-made tribute to Buddhism. The town where it was located was pretty touristy but they had a mini-parade celebrating the new year.
After going up the mountains, we took another coach to Tai O, a small fishing village. There we went on a small boat out in the bay. The enticing ride was purchased with the potential for a dophin citing but sadly, none were spotted. The markets around this area were amazing. Each vendor had tubs of water full of live creatures that natives would purchase fresh and eat daily. Daniel and I went by one vendor just as two 50lb fish were being brought in a killed right in front of us.
From the village we descended the mountain on a windy-two lane road. We ran into trouble when another bus was traveling up the opposite direction and almost collided with ours while attempting to turn. Needless to say, I was releived when we arrived at our last location of the day: Tsing Ma Bridge, the largest and longest suspension bridge in the world. That night we went out with new friends made from the day and stayed out entirely too late. Thank god school has yet to start.
The next day Daniel and I took care of administrative stuff: setting up bank accounts, getting registration and ID cards, paying room and board. At this point after dealing with a lot of university staff, and clerks throughout Hong Kong, I realized that not many people spoke English--or at least not as many people as we were told did. English and Cantonese are the primary languages but it is hard to find a native that is completely fluent in English. I heard that many professors are hard to understand as well. This night we again met up with out fellow Miami student and went to Mong Kok in Kowloon for dinner. This restaurant, apparently famous with exchange students, was called Mr. Wongs. It is owned and operated by a tall slim Asian (Mr. Wong) who speaks broken English and attempts to guess where you are from upon entering. After he greeted us, he asked our order. Although one student who could speak Cantonese was in the group, he could not read traditional characters rendering us all useless at reading the menu. Mr Wong understood and proceeded to serve us a smorgasbord or authentic cuisine: orange chicken, spring rolls, pan noodles, beef broccoli, garlic shrimp, fried rice and pork dumplings. It was amazing and only 40HKD (or $6 USD). After dinner, our group went further into Mong Kok to the night markets, specifically, the Ladies Market. Here, the streets were lined with metal walled vendors who sold everything from Tori Burch shoes to high powered laser that are illegal to purchase in the states. When you walk in a booth, they assume you want to buy and immediatley begin rattling off prices. If you think the price is too high, just walk away and the price begins to lower. I eyed a bracelet that began at around 450HKD and left when it was at 30HKD. I liked bargaining more than actually buying anything. On our way home, we stopped at a desert joint and all enjoyed mango sorbets with coconut bubble tea. Yum.
Our taxi driver (and most others in HK) didn't speak English. We had to show him a picture of our school name in Chinese characters for him to understand.The first noticeable thing about Hong Kong traffic is the fact that they drive on the opposite side of the road. It was and still is hard to get used to. Also, they don't have 4 way intersections. Instead, intersections are circular roundabout with a garden center and cuts leading off the the circle for the side roads. I was shocked when I saw a speed limit sign that said "80" until I remembered they use the metric system meaning 80 kilometers per hour. Driving through the city, the building were innumerable. If you looked out one window you see skyscrapers in a deep gorge surrounded by water, and on the other, a deserted mountain that stretched beyond sight. The streets and mountains were lined with palm trees and tropical shrubbery that contrasted sharply with the European cars and apartment buildings. It's almost like New York City (times 100) was picked up and dropped in the middle of the Amazonian rainforest--plus mountains. I could not believe the texture, depth and density of the area.
After we arrived, we unloaded our stuff and checked in. I was so thankful to be rid of my ball and chain of a duffel I dragged it to my room. My dorm, on the 5th floor of the newest building, is amazing. Myself and 3 other girls share a bathroom while each room has it's own sink. My roommate has yet to move in. I'm pretty sure she is local though. The view from my window overlooks the back of the university. As you can see online, the campus is extremely vertical with my building being closest to the water and furthest from the academic center.
After Daniel checked in (he lives in the dorm next door) we met up with a fellow Miami student who told us how to get into town in order to get our bedding and other things. We began by taking a taxi to the nearest MTR (subway) station. Hong Kong has one of the most efficient transportation infrastructures in the world with the MTR connecting everything from Hong Kong Island to the mainland. The stations are also very easy to navigate, clean and safe. We took the MTR into the middle of Kowloon (the mainland) to Kowloon Bay. There, we wandered around a mall eventually finding the "Megabus" that took us to "Megabox" where IKEA was located. Yes, I said Ikea. The store was located on the 3rd and 4th floor of what looked like an office building but was actually another mall in the bottom 20 floors. The trip took us quite a while and when we were done shopping, we re-did the entire route only taking a bus from the MTR station to HKUST instead of a taxi. My arms were so sore from carrying all my room amenities and I slept very well that night.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should have previously mentioned the Buddy Exchange Day program that happened last Saturday (after the first week of class). For this event, we were assigned a local "buddy" for a day spent in Stanley Plaza and Victoria's Peak. My buddy, Sophie is a first-year student from Taiwan. She is very intelligent and shared with me many perspectives of cultural differences pertaining to things like family, community service and education. I met her the morning of our departure and we spent the day venturing around Stanley Plaza (a tourist bay), taking pictures on the beach and browsing the markets. 
