Lets see... What did I do this week?
Monday night, I had class and it was loooong. Fundamentals of the internet was good. It's been by far my favorite class so far. I went to the tutorial/workshop, since I was added in the roster during the weekend, I missed it last week and was a bit confused going in. Trying to explain the situation to the teacher was a bit funny, since he misunderstood me and though I went to the lecture but didn't know he was the teacher.
So, here are a few of the habits of local students in classes here. Students will talk during class, alot. They eat full meals during class, like a bowl of noodles. They sleep alot. They never, never answer questions the teacher ask. They leave early and come in late. Now, not every student does this. And people do shit like this at home too, but it is by a signfiicantly larger amount here, and more blatant. I feel bad for the teachers.
Back to the class. I ended up answering almost every question he asked since nobody else would, and felt like a bit of a kiss ass. After that, there was the actual lecture which was back to back with the workshop. It was a lot of fun, the material is interesting and he had us do a little project. We were given fiber optic cable, and had to transmit a signal as efficiantly as possible in binary with an led along this cable. Out group ended up being the only one that transmited a 2 bit signal, so it could trasnfer 01, 10, 11, 00 in 1 signal length instead of just o or 1. I still fucked it up by mis translating the original message, but it wasn't for a grade.
Afterwards, I ended up going to mong kok for hot pot. I tried eel for the first time, it was okay. Not bad, but I wasn't amazed by it. Although beef and dumplings are awesome. I was there with Marco and a few other people I don't know. Marco is French Canadian and ended up going on the tallest bungee jump in the world during the Macau trip.
Tuesday, I went hunting for a stationary store in Mong Kok with Julian, a German guy I know here. I had the locations for 2, one was at the 608 Nathan Road (its like one the of busiest streets and packed with a lot of stores and malls) and the other was outside a train station exit. Found the 608 one, but accidently went to 680 first, which was the opposite direction. Got there, and it was just books. Not pencils/paper.
After that, went back to the MTR and tried to double check the location for the other. There are computer terminals, but little kids have a habit of standing at them for half an hour playing games. Its annoying, they were doing it another time I was in Mong Kok.
God I go there alot...
Anyway, it was outside exit E2. Went all over the road it was on (its a pedestrian street that runs parallel to Nathan Road. Turns out its sort of behind the other store. In about an hour and a half of walking, we managed to litterly go every surrounding the stationary store except for the stationary store, and then finaly found it. It was massive. You go in, and its really deep and full. Its pretty impressive. And then you go upstairs, and there is a computer floor. And then you go upstairs again, and there is a third floor with more art supplies and jumk. Except the third floor is about double the size of the other two floors combined. Yay.
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Man, I had this entry saved for a while but i fucking forgot the exact sequence of days and shit that have gone in the three weeks I've been letting it sit around.
To keep my mind straight, I am trying to think of major events worth writing about:
Several random nights out/clubbing.
Highlights include following a drunk scottish friend who kept more and more alcohol while I got more an more sober. I ended up carrying him to help him escape somebody from the mafia?! Pole dancing in a club. Sad part is, I was mostly sober. Getting slapped in the face by Czech guy, getting my eyebrow cut by a friend dancing when she hit me in the face and knocked my glasses off. Getting sick in the alley. Getting sick in the taxi home (thankfully I had a plastic bag).
Other events:
Going to the beach when a typhoon started and crossing the harbor during nasty weather.
Reading a lot of books.
Being the only straight guy on several nights for dinner and video games. I wonder if the exchange girls think I'm gay since I end hanging out a lot with gay guys. Shit.
Half Price sushi. Basically, sushi bars need to sell shit since they have to toss it the next day so they sell it for half price at the end of the night. good times.
Ocean Park, a famous Hong Kong theme park. I rode the roller coster and threw up afterward. But, for the ride that you drop up and down, I was fine. i actually found it relaxing because its like falling. Crazy shit. The school ended up renting out the park for the 25th anniversary, so it was cheap and empty except for cityu people.
Playing super smash brothers.
I got a short hair cut and new glasses, my old ones broke and the hairdresser didn't speak very good english so a lot got cut off. Oh well. I'm actually pretty damn hot now. Go figure.
Uniqlo. Its the fucking coolest clothing store. It's like a cheaper version of American Apparel except they also have Anime t-shirts.
Mandarin sucks. I had a quiz that kicked my ass because the teacher used a poor recording on a listening part of the exam where we had to listen for tones, finals, and initials. Good luck hearing anything through that fucking soup of static.
Mongkok computer center: Fucking hell it was cool. Its a mall of computer parts cameras phones gadgets laptops games and so on. I love it.
Video game arcades. They rock. And they are cheaper than in the US.
People being amazed at my skills at stopping myself from drinking alot.
McDonalds delivers 24hrs for free.
I've eaten more fast food and had more soda than I do at home. Its kind of sad, but its every where.
Mango Mochi! (glutinenous rice balls with mango stuffed in them, and sprinkled with coconut)
Conversations keep turning to food. I miss cooking.
I did make taco's once though.
Diamond Hill, it was this amazingly pretty park.
The Art Museum of Hong Kong. It was fucking cool.
Fireworks for Chinese National Day in the Harbor. I noticed Chinese crowds make different noises than at home. The surprise noise here is WHAAA. So everytime something happened, there would be a couple hundred thousand people yelling WHAAA in unison.
Learning about Hong Kong's cultual Idenity related to China. My roommate talked about. People here feel like they are from Hong Kong, not China. Or at least he does.
My beard itches.
I need video games. I haven't touched my psp much.
Lots of food. You very seldomly cook here, its like 30-50 HKD$ for a nice meal's worth of food, the same price as going out to dinner.
The CityU grass. Exchange students sort of congregate there after the morning.
I'll keep this up to date more and try to write more about the back log of events.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
next entry
So... Wow.
Went to a revolving resturant in a skyscraper with the exchange students. Food was nice, it was a western buffet. The cheese cake was kind of dry. Yet to find decent cheesecake, but so far the black forest cake from the cafeteria is the best (and happily the cheapest). Not as good as Laura's cakes though.
Afterwards, took the jetliner ferry to Macau and spent a night in the hotel. We saw cirque de sole, tried a bit of gambling (i lost 10 hkd of my own cash, and 3.50 of another guys at a Star Wars slot machine. So, I gambled less than 2$ us. I treated it more like a complicated arcade game, not expecting to win anything. Went to a bar in the casino (the first casino was the venetian). (didn't drink anything, just enjoyed the show) We caught the tail end of a burlesque show and a live cover band that did a bunch of songs. Afterwards, went to the Grand Lisboa to try to watch the burlesque show there, but they stopped at midnight. Most of the group I was in wanted to go clubbing, I didn't feel like it, so I ended up going to a noodle bar with another guy (Cameron, who is an exchange student who was here last semester and the guy I used 3.50 from for star wars). It was nice to get to talk to a person for an extended conversation. As much fun as all the group activities have been, I do really like getting to spend time with a small group and just talk or do something laid back. One of the only other times I got to do that was with this Canadian girl at the beach (named Lisa, haven't seen much of her since then, I should fix that). Went back to the hotel tried to find the video game room in the hotel, but it was closed. It was about 3:30 at this point, so I went to my room and read for a bit and went to sleep. Around 5:00, the guys I shared the room with came back (cameron wasn't one of them), along with the people next door. I woke up, and they wanted to go the pool in a hurry, and were all quite drunk.
Being barely awake, and extremely muddled, I thought it was okay and went along. They were drunk, I was tired. Except in the elevator, I finally fully woke up and had a thought.
Why the fuck would the pool be open at 5:00 am. Especially since the video game room was closed.
And it was closed.
Next day, we went on a tour of Macau guided by Cameron since he had been there before. It was a beautiful place. I expected it to be more like Vegas, but I got to see another side to the city. There was an old Portuguese fort, a Catholic cathedral, the remains of another cathedral, a beautiful garden, and a temple. After seeing everything ( i got a lot of pictures, I need to sort and upload them), we went back to the grand lisboa for the show.
Every 20 minutes they do a short burlesque show, it was fucking funny and bizarre and hot. Except after a while, it seemed that one of the dancers was a dude. So, imagine a few leggy Russian girls in lingerie with tails and cat ears dancing to the Final Countdown mixed with lion roars every once in a while.
(I like how I spent the same amount of space describing the show as I did all the historial sites)
Took a ferry back To Hong Kong, took the mtr kowloon tong, walked up that annoying ass hill, and here i am.
I am barely awake and have 9 hours of courses tommorow. So ffffffuck.
Went to a revolving resturant in a skyscraper with the exchange students. Food was nice, it was a western buffet. The cheese cake was kind of dry. Yet to find decent cheesecake, but so far the black forest cake from the cafeteria is the best (and happily the cheapest). Not as good as Laura's cakes though.
Afterwards, took the jetliner ferry to Macau and spent a night in the hotel. We saw cirque de sole, tried a bit of gambling (i lost 10 hkd of my own cash, and 3.50 of another guys at a Star Wars slot machine. So, I gambled less than 2$ us. I treated it more like a complicated arcade game, not expecting to win anything. Went to a bar in the casino (the first casino was the venetian). (didn't drink anything, just enjoyed the show) We caught the tail end of a burlesque show and a live cover band that did a bunch of songs. Afterwards, went to the Grand Lisboa to try to watch the burlesque show there, but they stopped at midnight. Most of the group I was in wanted to go clubbing, I didn't feel like it, so I ended up going to a noodle bar with another guy (Cameron, who is an exchange student who was here last semester and the guy I used 3.50 from for star wars). It was nice to get to talk to a person for an extended conversation. As much fun as all the group activities have been, I do really like getting to spend time with a small group and just talk or do something laid back. One of the only other times I got to do that was with this Canadian girl at the beach (named Lisa, haven't seen much of her since then, I should fix that). Went back to the hotel tried to find the video game room in the hotel, but it was closed. It was about 3:30 at this point, so I went to my room and read for a bit and went to sleep. Around 5:00, the guys I shared the room with came back (cameron wasn't one of them), along with the people next door. I woke up, and they wanted to go the pool in a hurry, and were all quite drunk.
Being barely awake, and extremely muddled, I thought it was okay and went along. They were drunk, I was tired. Except in the elevator, I finally fully woke up and had a thought.
Why the fuck would the pool be open at 5:00 am. Especially since the video game room was closed.
And it was closed.
Next day, we went on a tour of Macau guided by Cameron since he had been there before. It was a beautiful place. I expected it to be more like Vegas, but I got to see another side to the city. There was an old Portuguese fort, a Catholic cathedral, the remains of another cathedral, a beautiful garden, and a temple. After seeing everything ( i got a lot of pictures, I need to sort and upload them), we went back to the grand lisboa for the show.
Every 20 minutes they do a short burlesque show, it was fucking funny and bizarre and hot. Except after a while, it seemed that one of the dancers was a dude. So, imagine a few leggy Russian girls in lingerie with tails and cat ears dancing to the Final Countdown mixed with lion roars every once in a while.
(I like how I spent the same amount of space describing the show as I did all the historial sites)
Took a ferry back To Hong Kong, took the mtr kowloon tong, walked up that annoying ass hill, and here i am.
I am barely awake and have 9 hours of courses tommorow. So ffffffuck.
here is a copy of my first entry from hong kong
So, lets see...
Went to the night market near Mong Kok. I believe its the most crowded distrcit in the world, by population density. Its where you go to buy fake bags and shit. Ate food, met some people.
Went to a Karaoke bar. It was interesting. The guy leading the exchange students, Lorencio started the singing. He has a decent voice, but he chooses shit songs. I hate that aerosmith song from armegeddon. I tried singing beat it in front of about 100 people. Emphasis on tried. The lyrics didnt show up on the screen, and I had most of the song memorized. Afterwards, went bowling. That was interesting. I ended up playing with the most serious group of exchange students. They were there instead of Karaoke, and had been playing for a few hours before I got there. First game was shit, although in the last few frames I went from 60 something to 99 and jumped above getting last place. In the second game, I fucking dominated. By the 7th frame, I had a score high enough that more or less couldn't beat me unless they played like jesus. I ended up with 154 and the highest score of the night. Booyah.
Another night, we went out to bars. I met some more people, and learned a Hong Kong drinking game. There was a band, and we got there at the tail end of happy hour. So each person ended up with 1 drink. We sort of loitered for a while until the employees kind of gently made us leave.
Next night, was supposed to be victoria peak and the night club district, but I took a nap at 3 in the afternoon and woke up at almost 11. Fucking alarm didnt wake me up.
Another night, went to harbor to see the festival of lights. They took the tallest buildings and made them light with some music. It was okay. I was slightly disappointed with the show itself, but the view of the buildings was the bee's knees. And I got my picture with the Jackie Chan hong kong walk of stars thingy. And a bruce lee statue. Afterward, we crossed the bay and went to the red light district. A lot of prostitutes and bars...
(and when I say we during this, I usually mean the exchange students. We are sort of doing these events in groups of about 100)
Went to a mexican bar and got some surprisingly decent tex mex. And a margarita, it was kind of strong.
Another day, we went to the beach. The beaches are okay, LBI was nicer. But the water was calm, warm, and shallow. So no worries about drowning. But not very clear. Afterwards, I ended up going to dinner with bunch of girls from all over the world.
Last night, I organized a group of about 10 to see inglorious bastards. It was fun. I lost my phone in the theater, and when I tried going back for it, another movie started so I had to wait until 15 past midnight to get it.
On my own, ive randomly walked around mong kok. I found one of the largest hobby shops in Hong Kong, but was kind of disapointed by the lack of gundam models. The toys r us in festival walk had more models. (festival walk is a massive mall next to the campus, we end up going there a lot) And yes, it sort of is part of Hong Kong culture. They fucking love malls here for some reason.
Other notes:
Apparently foreign people don't see Star Wars like in the US.
Every culture but the US drink heavily and early.
People shit thier pants when they find out you can get a rifle from wal mart.
AC is fucking amazing. Its so god damn hot and humid outside. I'm getting more used to it, but when you feel AC after being outside, its heavenly. They make you pay for the electricity in the dorms. There is actually a card you can when you want to turn it on. Ive used about 30-40$ hk dollars in the past 5 days. Sadness.
They love malls.
I get started at on the trains alot.
There are a lot of 7-11.
the octopus card is godly.
H&M is the exact same in Hong Kong as it in Sweeden.
Uniqlo has gundam t-shirts
Cell phones are crazy.
Laptops are surprisingly, not that crazy.
There arent many trash bags on the street.
I like noodles.
The cheesecake from the supermarket tastes like shit.
You can get a melon that has grown to have a face for 10k HKD.
My hair does not do well in the humidity. A few minutes after flat ironing it, I could see it curling up. I need another hair cut.
CityU is small but crowded.
Everybody is scared of swine flu. They give out the masks in the front.
The night security guard for my hall is much friendlier than the day one.
Thats it for now. I'm tired and I need to go the canteen for food before class starts.
Went to the night market near Mong Kok. I believe its the most crowded distrcit in the world, by population density. Its where you go to buy fake bags and shit. Ate food, met some people.
Went to a Karaoke bar. It was interesting. The guy leading the exchange students, Lorencio started the singing. He has a decent voice, but he chooses shit songs. I hate that aerosmith song from armegeddon. I tried singing beat it in front of about 100 people. Emphasis on tried. The lyrics didnt show up on the screen, and I had most of the song memorized. Afterwards, went bowling. That was interesting. I ended up playing with the most serious group of exchange students. They were there instead of Karaoke, and had been playing for a few hours before I got there. First game was shit, although in the last few frames I went from 60 something to 99 and jumped above getting last place. In the second game, I fucking dominated. By the 7th frame, I had a score high enough that more or less couldn't beat me unless they played like jesus. I ended up with 154 and the highest score of the night. Booyah.
Another night, we went out to bars. I met some more people, and learned a Hong Kong drinking game. There was a band, and we got there at the tail end of happy hour. So each person ended up with 1 drink. We sort of loitered for a while until the employees kind of gently made us leave.
Next night, was supposed to be victoria peak and the night club district, but I took a nap at 3 in the afternoon and woke up at almost 11. Fucking alarm didnt wake me up.
Another night, went to harbor to see the festival of lights. They took the tallest buildings and made them light with some music. It was okay. I was slightly disappointed with the show itself, but the view of the buildings was the bee's knees. And I got my picture with the Jackie Chan hong kong walk of stars thingy. And a bruce lee statue. Afterward, we crossed the bay and went to the red light district. A lot of prostitutes and bars...
(and when I say we during this, I usually mean the exchange students. We are sort of doing these events in groups of about 100)
Went to a mexican bar and got some surprisingly decent tex mex. And a margarita, it was kind of strong.
Another day, we went to the beach. The beaches are okay, LBI was nicer. But the water was calm, warm, and shallow. So no worries about drowning. But not very clear. Afterwards, I ended up going to dinner with bunch of girls from all over the world.
Last night, I organized a group of about 10 to see inglorious bastards. It was fun. I lost my phone in the theater, and when I tried going back for it, another movie started so I had to wait until 15 past midnight to get it.
On my own, ive randomly walked around mong kok. I found one of the largest hobby shops in Hong Kong, but was kind of disapointed by the lack of gundam models. The toys r us in festival walk had more models. (festival walk is a massive mall next to the campus, we end up going there a lot) And yes, it sort of is part of Hong Kong culture. They fucking love malls here for some reason.
Other notes:
Apparently foreign people don't see Star Wars like in the US.
Every culture but the US drink heavily and early.
People shit thier pants when they find out you can get a rifle from wal mart.
AC is fucking amazing. Its so god damn hot and humid outside. I'm getting more used to it, but when you feel AC after being outside, its heavenly. They make you pay for the electricity in the dorms. There is actually a card you can when you want to turn it on. Ive used about 30-40$ hk dollars in the past 5 days. Sadness.
They love malls.
I get started at on the trains alot.
There are a lot of 7-11.
the octopus card is godly.
H&M is the exact same in Hong Kong as it in Sweeden.
Uniqlo has gundam t-shirts
Cell phones are crazy.
Laptops are surprisingly, not that crazy.
There arent many trash bags on the street.
I like noodles.
The cheesecake from the supermarket tastes like shit.
You can get a melon that has grown to have a face for 10k HKD.
My hair does not do well in the humidity. A few minutes after flat ironing it, I could see it curling up. I need another hair cut.
CityU is small but crowded.
Everybody is scared of swine flu. They give out the masks in the front.
The night security guard for my hall is much friendlier than the day one.
Thats it for now. I'm tired and I need to go the canteen for food before class starts.
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