Without Further Ado: the Arrival

I made it!

Well for the most part I'm settled in. Nothing to call home yet, but thanks to the help of all the study abroad alumni, especially Shai, Sibu, and John (who know how amazing Hong Kong is), your advice and knowledge helped prepare me more than anything else could. Thanks!

It's been quite awhile since the last update, so I have plenty to fill you in on starting with my flight "back to the future." I booked a flight from San Fransico to Hong Kong 12:05 a.m. and a separate flight from Chicago to San Fran at 4:30 Jan. 19th. Thanks to mother nature my flight from Chicago landed in LA instead. Our flight did not land in San Fran until 11:00 p.m. and I didn't get my luggage till 11:30, so I was the person you see every blue moon sprinting through the airport. I checked in my luggage with a special radio call in to the baggage crew "O hold on we have one more person," and then continued walk right on to my flight. Thank you 2 hour time relapse, i wouldn't have made my flight with your help =)

Needless to say, all's well that ends well, and what fun would the trip have been without a little panic and chaos. From there, the number one airline, Singapore, took great care of me. Providing newspapers at the entrance, hot towels, brand new blankets and pillows, a delicious seafood dinner and breakfast, morning towels, personal tv screens with remote control/video game controller, very kind flight attendants, and more. During those 17 hours on Singapore, I was able to watch the Informant (not recommended), read all about the best parts of HK, learn some basic Cantonese by playing dungeons and dragons, and sleep for 8 hours.

Got in at 7 a.m. on Thursday Jan. 22, so I'm in the future now! The fact that this was actually happening, that Hong Kong will be my place of residency for the next 5 months finally hit me as I was blown away by the mountains and surreal environment in Hong Kong.

Once my cab arrived at Hong Kong University Science and Technology (HKUST), which didn't take long as the driver was going 120 mph or km/hr either way he flew. It didn't take long before I met another exchange student Ben and then 10 more who I joined up with for an action packed day. What started as a simple trip to look into visas for mainland China turned into Avenue of Stars, taking the Star Ferry across the water, going to IFC mall, getting lunch, going to the mall with the longest indoor escalator where we caught up with one of the RAs from HKUST, Ebe (lucky for us she is a tour guide at heart) where she continued to take us to the Toilet Bowel ( a restaurant with seats as toilettes, urinals on the wall, and food/dessert served in...toliets), walk down Nathan St., from there to Ladies Market, Eve has us try a variety of street foods which include Octopus ball and other mysterious cultural foods), short break in a park, walk through Temple Street (more street shops), then back to Ave. of Stars to see the Symphony of Lights (light show every night at 8pm where buildings on the street light up in every color and I'll have to go back because I dozed off a couple times throughout due to exhaustion), then back to HKUST where I feel asleep on the bus and almost fell out of my seat if it hadn't been for Kevin catching my fall. Little did I expect my day to be so action packed. Let's just say I sleep very well that night even though my mattress is like a slab of concrete. I didn't have a camera, and due to a minor case of jet lag I pretty much just went with the flow that day.

Today as in the tomorrow of the United States was another day of adventure as we went to Ocean Park to see sting rays, pandas, sharks, fishes, roller-coasters, jelly fish, red foxes, and a gondola! Off to dinner and then downtown, pictures to come. Apparently I had a lot to say, hope all is well in the U.S.A. =)

Random quote: "HIT OR MISS METHODS USUALLY MISS"