Saturday, July 31, 2010




This is a group picture after the lunch.

很多事 - A lot of Stuff

It has been awhile since my last blog update. Nothing extremely big has happened since then. Not yesterday, but the Friday before, it was my friends birthday. If you have any Korean friends, you should eat their birthday dinner with them. It is a custom in Korea that if it is your birthday you treat everyone for dinner.

This past week we got a lot of rain, but it has cleared up for the weekend. Last night, I went to see Inception. In Hong Kong, instead of buying a movie ticket and sitting where ever you'd like, the ticket you purchase has a designated seat on it and you have to sit there. It was really cool watching the movie and being able to look down and read some of the subtitles in traditional characters from time to time.

Today, we met our Chinese counterpart of IBCE. They only found out on Thursday that they would be in the program. All of the kids I met seem really nice. We went out to dinner with a few of them tonight, and it was a lot of fun. During the lunch, it finally felt like the program was completed. Everyone at both colleges is incredibly excited for it, and I felt honored for the opportunity to be in the program. The next coming years are going to be fun for sure.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

台风 - Typhoon

Our first typhoon is happening right now. I was expecting it be a bit stronger, but it is only a level 5. This past week I was incredibly busy. I had a test on Wednesday, oral test on Friday, and a speech on Tuesday. Everything went pretty well, and I'm happy to have it all done with. I got a haircut last Thursday. Everyone but me seems to like it. It's really Asian looking. It's been pretty quiet here without anything too interesting to report on.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

黄大仙- Huang Da Xian

Today for afternoon class, we went to Huang Da Xian. It's a temple for this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Tai_Sin . We got to practice our Chinese with one of our afternoon teachers, and it was very useful. I haven't put up the pictures yet, but they are soon to come. We had a test today which was pretty difficult at some parts, but hopefully I did ok. Friday, I have an oral test which requires me to memorize 4 paragraphs in Chinese and then recite 1-2 from memory. Then they ask me supplementary questions that I don't know yet. Friday, we might have our first typhoon since we've been here. I'm mildly excited for it, but I hear we'll be trapped in our dorm for a couple days if its bad so that'll probably be very boring. On Monday, I need to write my own speech that has to be 3-5 minutes long and then it'll have a 10 minute Q&A session afterwards. So, I've been pretty busy recently. After Monday, things should quiet down for a little while. Tomorrow, I have the day off, so I plan on getting a haircut, and I'm praying that it goes well, and I don't look like Goku afterwards.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

按摩和保龄球 - Massages and Bowling

Friday morning, I missed the first hour of my morning class to go get my mainland visa so that I could go to Shenzhen Friday night. Shenzhen is the city right on the border between China and Hong Kong. One of my friends had heard about a massage parlor where it was ridiculous cheap. It ended up being less than $70 for 3 hours of massage, a place to stay for the night, unlimited fruit and ice cream, and access to a sauna and hot tub. It was my first massage ever and it was really good. Saturday morning I ended up coming back early because I didn't bring enough money with me.

Saturday me and another IBCE classmate were going to go bowling with some Koreans in our class. He ended up getting stuck in Shenzhen for too long so he was a little late. It ended up being me, three Koreans in my class, one of the Koreans friend and his three friends, and another student from the US. We went to a restaurant where we all got some noodle dishes. We went bowling after that. It took me awhile to get warmed up but it my last game I got a 158. After that, six of us went to a Beatles themed bar to watch the Paraguay vs. Germany game. It was really fun to hang out with some people who actually live in Hong Kong, and hopefully I'll hang out with them again soon.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Peak, Buddha, Beach

I've been very busy since my last post. This week we had Thursday off for Hong Kong's Independence Day. A bunch of us decided to go to Victoria Peak because the sky was very clear that day, and we thought we'd get a good view of downtown Hong Kong. It took awhile to get there, but it was well worth the view. I uploaded my pictures a couple days ago. Unfortunately, my lack of a tripod made some of the night pictures really bad. We didn't take the tram up to the top of the Peak but took a bus instead. I've decided I'll be owning a house at the top because the view is incredible. One side you have the ocean, the other has all of Hong Kong .

On Saturday, we went to see the Tian Tan Buddha, which also a good ways away from where we live. We took a cable car to get there which is really cool. You go over the water and over a bunch of mountains. I thought this Buddha was really old, but it turns out I'm actually older than it. It was built in 1993.

Today we went to the beach, and it was awesome. We kinda took the wrong bus, so we didn't end up exactly where we wanted to go, but everything worked out. We ended up buying a ticket and went on a 20 minute boat ride to a beach. It was pretty crowded, but the water felt amazing. After swimming around for awhile, we went to the other side of the island, and no one was there. There were some rocks in the water, so we kinda snorkeled using them. I got pretty burnt because at the store the sunscreen was like 70 HKD, so we all bought lotion that had SPF 24 for a lot cheaper. It didn't work out too well... Unfortunately, I didn't get to do too much American stuff for it being 4th of July, but it was still a great day