OOOPS...

Hmmm it seems this blog is seriously due an update... ooops! Let's give a quick update of what has happened in the last couple of weeks...

Well, I turned 22. As most of you know by now. My birthday was an awesome night! We went for a meal in a place called Joe Banana's which was recommended to me by some Finnish people who live in Hong Kong. It was a fun place and we got free shots because it was my birthday! My birthday was also the day of the Midautumn festival, which is a traditional Chinese celebration of full moon and autumn and harvesting and stuff. The whole week Hong Kong was full of parades, performances, lanterns and people celebrating. On my birthday, after venturing to Victoria park to watch the lantern shows, we ended the night in a couple of bars in Wan Chai.

It was kind of cool to have my birthday at the same time as the Midautumn festival, not least for the fact that we had wednesday off Uni (my actual birthday). We went to Ocean Park (an amusement park here) which was fun even though the famous pandas were sleeping...

My life is still very very busy. I thought it would have calmed down after the first couple of weeks but no... because on top of everything else, I actually have to do some studying now. I was expecting this to be an easy year but seems like I have more work than in Birmingham! I only have to pass which puts less pressure on my studies, but still, some work needs to be done. Anyway, due to the workload, in the last couple of weeks I have (unfortunately) been spending quite some time in the library or Starbucks studying. So have a lot of my friends so I don't feel too much like a lifeless freak ;) We have reading week next week but obviously everyone is going traveling instead of studying so I have spent a lot of time this week trying to prepare for the exams/assignments which are due after the reading week. I have 4 exams after I come back from my traveling, 3 on the same day which is ridiculous! That means I have to do some studying while traveling which I'm not too happy about but I also would quite like to pass my exams...

In addition to all the studying, socialising (5 of my friends' birthdays this week!), Hall activities etc I have managed to find some time to explore Hong Kong more. I've been to Lantau island to see the world's biggest outdoor Buddha statue (which, we found out, was only built in early 90's to attract tourists... slightly disappointing) and Lamma island to hike and relax on the beach. Hong Kong does have a lot of outdoor activities going on, hiking etc but the stupidly humid weather makes them not-so-enjoyable at the moment. I also visited the Monastery of 10,000 Buddhas and The Walled city, which are both located in the New Territories. It is more of a residential area, hence an occasional day trip there is great just to get out of the crazyness of the city for a while. Oh and I also went to Macau again for bungee jumping but couldn't jump because it was too windy. That really sucked.

So, we're off to China tomorrow for 9 days. Exciting times! It's me, Diana, Amber (Australian girl) and Morgane (French girl) going together. I can't wait to do some cheap shopping and practise my Chinese! Reading week also means that the autumn term is pretty much half way through, scary! Time goes so fast :)

GREAT BARGAINS, NATIONAL ANTHEMS AND WEIRD STUFF: TWO FUN-FILLED DAYS IN SHENZHEN

I have always wanted to learn Golf and since I decided to try as many new things as possible this year, I signed up on a one-day golfing course in Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen is less than an hour away from Hong Kong and known for cheap shopping. So like Macau, it's sort of a must-see place if you're staying in Hong Kong.

There was 5 of us HKU exchange students on the trip: me, Juho and Kirsi from Finland, Philipp (Germany/Switzerland) and Asher (Australia) . The course was going to take place on Monday, so the plan was to go to Shenzhen early on Sunday, do some shopping, stay the night, golf on Monday and get back to HK Monday evening. It seems that things never go according to plans here; in the end golfing was cancelled due to rain but we had sooo much fun anyway!

The trip started off funny even before we entered China: we found the formalities and paper filling on the border quite hilarious. Also, the innocent girl that Kirsi is (or at least that's what we thought of her in the beginning of the trip...), she mentioned about her sore throat in the health questionnaire. In a country where a lot people wear surgical masks and are hysterically afraid of SARS and bird flu, that was not a good idea: she was taken away to another room to be interviewed... she survived, but lesson of the day clearly was: WHEN IN CHINA, DENY EVERYTHING.

I have to spare a few lines here describing the hotel. I had booked it online: it was cheap, decent looking and in great location - in other words, perfect for us. The place revealed its darker (and I have to say more interesting) side soon after we arrived... in addition to shampoo and soap, the bathroom was equipped with complimentary condoms, disposable underwear and something called 'woman lotion' and 'man lotion'... we figured that the hotel is quite popular amongst local businessmen and their 'lady guests'...

Sunday did indeed include some shopping, as planned. I maganed to bargain in Mandarin, that was great fun! In China, it seems that: limited vocabulary + some creativity + a lot of hand gestures = good deals. Me and Kirsi did most of the shopping, while the boys went for a full body massage. The massage was apparently extremely enjoyable... not quite a 'happy ending' but Asher later figured out that those sorts of services would have been available as well...

In the evening, instead of going out we stayed in the hotel, drinking Weird Stuff (dead cheap local alchol, also known as Strawberry Vomit) and playing poker (which I think is illegal in China... ooops!). It was fun despite the fact that I kept losing a lot, Shenzhen was clearly not as lucky for me as Macau! We also played I Have Never which is always a wondeful way to get to know people better and that evening indeed led to some interesting stories but those shall remain a secret between the five of us :P

Monday morning we found out that golfing was cancelled due to rain. The day before I heard about a cyclone warning but none of us really knew what a cyclone is. Turns out it's just a lot of rain. Why not just call it 'rain warning', I do wonder... Anyways, no golfing for us so we had to figure out a plan B. Without much information available in English, in the end we just decided to pick a random metro stop and get off there. As a lucky consequence, we found a go-carting place and decided to go for it. It was only 60 HKD per person for 10 minutes which is dead cheap. And it was a lot of fun! Since it had just rained, we were all dirty and muddy after the race but that only made it more fun! Also, turns out I'm crap at go-carting but I'm crap at so many things and still do them, doesn't really matter :P

Later we all went for a foot massage which was niiiiice! According to boys not as nice as the full body massage though ;)

So a lot of stuff happened in just a couple of days! I'm sure I've forgotten lots of funny incidents already, and most of them probably wouldn't make any sense now anyway! A couple of things are worth mentioning here though.

-Singing of national anthems in order to annoy the taxi driver. Well he was overcharging us anyway.

-Me eating the 'Do Not Eat' -stuff. You know the stuff that comes with for example electrical equipment and keeps moist away from things or something.... well it came with a mooncake so I figured it was something to do with the cake and hence edible. I wonder if my travel insurance covers Plain Stupidity...



ps. I just red through what I've written here and may I just say thank Goodness my granma does not understand English.

pps. It's my birthday tomorrow... we're partying tonight because tomorrow is a national holiday, hence a day off from Uni. Yay!

HIGH TABLES AND LOW EXPECTATIONS

I had my first Starr Hall high table dinner on wednesday. All the Halls have a high table dinner few times a year, which basically means dressing up nicely (suits for guys and dresses for girls), eating together with a few hundred other people and listening to speaches (more or less boring). Kinda Harry Potter style. The event was all in English which was nice, but I was very disappointed by a couple of things. First of all, no photos allowed be taken during the meal, which seems strange in a country where everyone is absolutely OBSESSED with taking photos. Even stranger however was the rule of no talking during the meal. Firstly, in China and Hong Kong, meals are very social events so it was weird that there was no talking. Also, how does anyone expect 500 18-25 year old students to be quiet for two hours... so talking was happening even though it was frowned upon. So I have to say I am not very impressed with the HT dinner. I was however told not to expect anything amazing of it. The HTD is compulsory, but luckily we only have it once a month in Starr Hall. Some places have one every week... on the other hand, I've heard that the other Halls' High Table Dinners have less rules, and talking is actually allowed. Wonder why ours is so strict...?

I'm doing a small trip to China this weekend, to Shenzhen (great for shopping apparently!) so went to get my China visa today. That was surprisingly painless, I was expecting the Chinese buraucracy to be somehow impossible to deal withbut was actually very pleased with the process!

MACAU: WORLD'S LONGEST & LARGEST...

I have officially started my #1 mission for this year: traveling around Asia. I spent Saturday and Sunday in Macau - also know as Las Vegas of Asia. Gambling is illegal everywhere else in China so a loooot of rich Chinese businesmen pop to Macau for a weekend. There was also a lot of pretty girls looking for rich husbands (no, I was not one of them, even though I was sort of hoping to bump into Donald Trump...) The ferry from Hong Kong only takes an hour and HK residents don't need a visa to get there so it's a rather cheap and hassle-free weekend destination. I bet 99.9% of exchange students make at least one trip to Macau during their stay in Hong Kong. I went with 4 other girls: Kirsi (from Finland), Sammie (from Canada), Megha and Lan (both from USA).

Macau has the world's largest and longest. Largest Casino, I mean. And longest Bungee jump. These were our only actual plans for the weekend, besides that we were pretty clueless and unorganised... We didn't even know if Macau had different money than Hong Kong! Turns out that it has but it doesn't matter because most places accept also (or in some cases, only) HK dollars. Macau money also looks weird so we ended up calling it Barbie Money... :P

Saturday evening, after checking into the hotel (which was well nice and only 18e/£12 per person per night) we started looking for some food. Macau, an ex-Portugese colony, is known for its Portugese restaurants, so we wanted to try some of that, in order to have a break from Chinese food. However, this was easier said than done... our hotel was near the city centre, but turns out it was pretty much the centre of where the locals live, not where the casinos/restaurants/tourists/taxis are, so it kinda felt like being in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, after wandering aimlessly for a while, we managed to find an amazing Thai restaurant, and even got to sample some Portugese wine there.

Our next (and main) destination was the Venetian - the world's largest casino. And it was pretty WOW. Difficult to describe - go and see it youself! ;) It is huge, all right, but that's not the coolest part. The whole building itself is amazing, marble and gold and mirrors and pretty things everywhere. Basically a huge palace. And the coolest thing: it has a fake Venice inside. On the second floor. Really. A fake sky, fake Italian buildings, canals and gondolas and everything ...well not quite everything yet, some of it is still under construction. It should be finished in November, I'm definately going back to see it! I mean, the real Venice is sinking and smells bad anyway so this may be as good as it gets ;)

Since we were at a casino, the obvious thing to do was to gamble. None of us are huge gamblers so we mainly focused on the slot machines, which were kinda crap. They had like a gazillion buttons and we had no idea how to play, and if we won we didn't know how and why it happened, so basically they just took our money. It was dead cheap and lot of fun so didn't really matter even if we lost! I wanted to do some actual gambling, so decided to go for Blackjack. I changed some money, obviously expecting to lose it all, but instead I won 700 HKD (70e/£50)! That was soooo cool, I hit blackjack twice in a row (apparently the odds of that happening are veeeery small) and the others on the table started betting with me. I was 'the lucky one' of the table! :) That was so much fun, I wasn't even in it for the money but it was great, I can understand why some peopl get addicted to gambling. Luckily, my friends were sensible and made me stop when I started losing so I didn't lose all my winnings (which is what usually happens....) I bought a round of cocktails for my friends and saved the rest of the money for the Bungee jumping.

We had planned to go clubbing later but when we were about to leave the Casino, it was already 3am so we just headed back to no-mans-land for some late-night snacks and sleep. Hong Kong has amazing clubbing scene anyways, no need to go somewhere else for that!

On Sunday we had planned to go Bungee jumping (none of us had never done it but we were eager to try, after all it is world's longest, who would say no to that...).However, earlier in the morning I got a text from my friend Diana, who was gonna come and join us for the day, that there was no space on the ferries back to HK after 3 pm... That meant we had to go to the ferry terminal first thing on Sunday. The lady who I spoke was extremely confusing: at first there was no space letf, then there was space at 5pm, then there wasn't, then there was space at 4pm if we paid extra... in the end, we managed to get tickets for the 3.50pm ferry, without having to pay the extra (Super Class) fee. At that point, it was 1.30 so we only had time to go back to town to get some food (portugese this time!). We're definately gonna go back for the bungee jump though! It's something I've always wanted to do. Not everyone was so excited about it though: Lan mumbled something about wanting to check the death rates of Bungee jumping... well, Macau is all about gambling, right? ;)

So I had a really good time, but I have to say Macau wasn't as amazing/colorful/shiny/Vegas-like as I had expected, but that was at least partly due to the location of our hotel. On the other hand, a friend of ours said that it's best to go there with no expectations at all and it'll be great, and I see what she means. Also, I guess if you stay in a fancy 5-star hotel and only leave your room to go to the fancy casino next door, you'd have a very different experience.



Right, that was a lot of text about my 24 hours in Macau! Now, other news briefly...


-I have now started my tutoring job. Very fun but challenging. The girl I'm tutoring, Claudia, is very very smart so I actually have to work hard and prepare a lot of material for the lessons. She's really really sweet, and so is her mother so I'm sure it's gonna be great. And they money is quite good :P

-There was a MASSIVE water fight outside my hall a few days ago. It was between two nearby Halls, Ricci Hall and Lady Ho Tung Hall. Years and years ago, the boys from Ricci Hall stole a kong from the in LHT, so now every year they re-enact it. This is how it goes: the Ricci boys come marching, wearing suits, chanting their hall song, trying to get through the wall of LHT girls who are armed with hundreds and hudreds of water balloons. Eventually, a couple of the boys get through, get lifted up on a table and steal the kong. Result: a lot of wet local students, some broken bones and twisted ankles (yes, I'm serious) and a bucnh of hysterical foreigners who've never seen anything like that before.

-It's still pretty hot here, even though it's becoming more bearable. I heard from my Mum that it's getting chilly in Finland, probably not so warm in the UK either... mwahahahaha!

-A lot of fun stuff has been planned for the rest of the week, stay tuned! :)

BUSY BUSY BUSY!

Heh I'm feeling some pressure now; a lot of people have complained that I'm not updating my blog often enough! That means that people are actually reading it which is great :)

Rite, a lot has happened again. The Unit-O that I explained about earlier has been crazy but fun so far! On friday we had a Beach Party in Deepwater Bay. It was a lot of fun! We barbequed and played silly games like Dodgeball (polttpallo in finnish) and they were like 'wowww amazing' when I told them I'd played before (well not in like 10 yrs but still!). Seems that some things really are global :) Yesterday we played basketball against another Unit. I got to play and was actually pretty good - I think the boys in my unit have newly found respect for me! Tonight we're gonna cook together and I'll be in charge of making pancakes (at home I am officially known as the pancake meister so this task is indeed perfect for me).


All in all, it has been another hectic week - everyone stays up late and sleeps late as well so I'm often not up until like 10, the in Uni til about 5, perhaps try to do some work, go for dinner with friends, then Hall activities for the rest of the evening... so haven't slept much in the last week but thanks to the (cheap) Starbucks on campus, I've managed make it through my lectures ok! :)

Luckily the weekend was quite chilled. On saturday I pretty much just slept, did my laundry & tidied my (half of the) room and fun things like that :P On Sunday I went up to Victoria Peak (highest point of Hong Kong) with some other exchange students. The view from there is great, even though apparently it's even better when it's dark so I'll have to go again some evening. There's even a Madame Tussaud's wax museum up there which I have to say was a lot more fun than the one in London! You can dress up and do silly things, so obviously a lot of embarrassing / funny photos were taken :D

I have met a few Finnish people here which is nice; not that I ever purposefully aim to hang out just with Finnish people but it's nice to speak Finnish occasionally. Also a random thing happened: there's a professor in HKU who has studied Finnish and translates Finnish literature to Chinese! Anyway, he's been trying to find Finnish people and hence started randomly talking to me in the library. He told me about FBC (Finnish Business Counsil) which is basically a network of Finnish people living in Hong Kong. They are arranging a Cray Fish Party (rapujuhlat) which basically means eating a little crayfish, some bread and drinking a lot of shots. It'll happen later this month and apparently everyone is welcome so me and the other Finnish kids are probably gonna go. It's an old Finnish tradition - not very common everywhere but quite popular in the coast where I'm from . I haven't been to a crayfish party since moving to England, and couple of the other Finnish exchange students have never been so it should be a lot of fun!

I'm starting my tutoring job today, exciting times!

THE PROS AND CONS OF HALL LIFE

I have to admit, it's kinda nice living in a university accommodation again. Well, it can get pretty noisy and the kitchen is tiny, but on the other hand the common areas (kitchen and bathroom) get cleaned everyday by the Hall staff! I don't even have to buy toilet paper or take the rubbish out (not further than the kitchen anyways...) So it definately has it's advantages! :) Apparently my Hall is most wanted by the local students and hence very difficult to get in; when I tell some of them where I live they are like 'Ooooooooh I'm so jealous'. I get that from some exchange students as well, apparently some of the older halls are pretty nasty (bugs in the showers etc). So far I've only seen some of the newer halls so far so I don't think my place is THAT special, hmmm perhaps I need to visit some of the older ones so I can really appreciate where I live :)

A drawback is the many compulsory activities. HKU believes in Hall Education, which means that a Hall is more than just a residence. Living in a Hall provides the individual a chance to fully develop as a person, and is seen as complementing the education that students receive in classes. It's not too bad in mine; Starr Hall a pretty new hall and hence has less established traditions compared to some older Halls. At the moment, we have something called Unit-O, which pretty much means playing games, cooking together, wearing matching outfits etc with ppl on my floor and the floor below, in order for us to get to know eachother & bond. It sounds like fun but takes place every evening from 7pm til late for two weeks so I kind of won't be able to socialise a lot at the moment... I don't think it'll be too bad if I miss some of the events because the hall 'rules' are not so strict on exchange students. However, tonight's activity is kinda compulsory, and annoyingly some of the exchange ppl I know are going to a Jazz Club later which sounds like a lot of fun but I think I may have to give it a miss if I don't want to be forever frowned upon by my flatmates...

Oh and I have a job! Someone from the international office e-mailed me and asked if I was interested in tutoring her colleague's daughter so I went to see her today and looks like I've got the job! Yay! This is the first time someone actually offered me a job without me having to apply. Kind of like being headhunted! And they pay 150 HK dollars per hour (about 15 euros/£10) which is good money anyway, but especially here! :)

I can finally think something negative to say about my life here. The gym at the university. It is free and apparently really nice, but everyone has to take a course to obtain the membership. The English-speaking gym course is every other week and only takes 20 ppl at time, so 40 exchange students can join it per month. And there's something like 700 of us here. HKU was advertising free gym facilities but what's the point if only a minority of people can join it. Looks like I'll have to look for somewhere else for a gym, at the moment it's way too hot to go running and I'm already feeling anxious due to lack of proper excercise!

MEXICO MEETS KOREA

Right, Uni has officially started. It was very exciting. For the first 20 minutes. Now I'm bored and waiting for the next holiday. Oh and everyone here gets a Reading Week! Except I'm gonna call it Travel Week :)

My course (business) is very international. Through my Korean friend Ted, I met a couple of other Koreans who are fulltime students on our course. We all went for luch together to Soho. It was so cool, we took a taxi there and back (as I said earlier, taxis are such a bargain here) and had Mexican food. A slightly different experience from the typical 'crappy-sandwich-and-a-bottle-of-coke' kinda luch that I'm used to in Birmingham. It's crazy that with the same money I spend in England I can live very very very nicely here...

I recently found out that the area where we live is very up-and-coming, it's close to city centre and an MTR station is planned to be opened here in 2012. Hence the house prices and rent are constantly increasing. And we pay absolutely nothing to stay here. Pretty cool! :)

The weekend was a lot of fun! Went for dinner and some drinks with other exchange ppl on friday. The international office had arranged two tours on sat & sun: one on Hong Kong island and another one in Kowloon and New territories. The latter one was actually quite rubbish and I didn't really see much, but it was a good chance to meet new people though.

I have taken dozens of photos already, will put them up soon! At the moment, if anyone's interested to have a closer look at what Hong Kong looks like, I found these links for some amazing pics:

http://www.pbase.com/accl/hongkongdowntown

http://www.pbase.com/accl/hong_kong

I have to admit these links is my cunning plan to get more people to visit me here :P

I have finally decided to continue with Mandarin instead of starting Cantonese... After having spoken to a lot of locals, it seems to be the best option. It is more widely spoken, and also becoming more widely used in Hong Kong as well. So if I was to come here for work some time later, Mandarin would be more desired than Cantonese. Not that I'm planning ahead or anything... ;)