Reading Week

In the past two weeks, I've met at least 5 other exchange students, all of whom are very nice, and all of whom I will likely never see again. This seems to be the way such things go -- it takes roughly a semester to get the feel of things, and there's all that traveling in the middle, and just when the city is feeling like yours, and you have the time and energy to make friends beyond the small circle you met in the heady rush of orientation, it's time to go.

I remember in Spain, I lived in an apartment with a French med student, a German law student, and a Spanish DJ. The French guy was dating an Indian woman, the Spanish guy was dating an American, and my British friend Vic was crashing on our couch. We were a regular little L'auberge Espagnole (did anyone else ever see that movie about a bunch of exchange students living together in an apartment in Barcelona...?) and would have dinner parties in which we went around the table saying the word "penis" in all of our native languages, to many giggles [note: the words is recognizable in basically all languages of these languages :-)]. I felt so worldly, and we all vowed to stay in touch -- that lasted maybe 3 months. Since that was also pre-Facebook and pre-ubiquitous-Gmail addresses, I have a small list of old contacts "@hotmail.com" or "@netscape.com" that no longer work.

Now, of course, the HK students and I are internet-savvy, and I have a host of new Facebook friends. But it really is too bad to have to leave just at this turning point when my comfort with the city has begun extending past Tom's and my routines to encompass somewhat of a social circle. My friend from college, Ellen, extended her junior semester abroad to encompass the spring as well as the fall, and although at the time I couldn't fathom missing out on springtime in Providence with my college buddies, I think time spent in a place beyond the 5- or 6-month mark is different than time spent in a place before that.

That being said, I won't miss our closet of an apartment. Tom and I had to find somewhere for him to live in Portland (and for me to live in Portland the 4 or 5 days a week I'll get to be there!) and we gleefully perused the pages of craigslist to see how much more bang for our buck we could get for housing back in Maine. Suffice to say that we're getting a fully furnished, 2-bed/2-bath apartment for a short-term lease with parking and all utilities included for less than we're paying to live in ~180 square feet right now. I'm daydreaming about the cooking projects I can take on with access to an oven and a dishwasher, while I know that Tom is excited about the studying he can do on the formal dining room table (as opposed to hunching over the foot of the bed, which serves as his current desk). Put that apartment in HK though, and I just might consider staying :-).

My next post(s) will be all Thailand-centered -- we leave on Saturday. Five days up north in Chiang Mai (three of those hiking in the hills), six days in Koh Tao on the beach, and four days in Bangkok (including NYE)...

A Visitor!

It's been awhile since I've written in the blog, and my excuse is that my lovely mother came to visit for 8 days and we were too busy doing for me to take any time to write. But she's been back in the States for more than a week, and I'm always happy for an excuse to procrastinate from studying (it's exam time right now, and although Tom and I only have to pass, we don't really know what to expect, so we're on total lock-down!)

Mom stayed at a place called CHI Residences, which is right near our apartment, and it was entirely lovely. Her serviced apartment was more than twice as big as ours and had a few key elements that made me want to hang out there all the time: namely, a couch and a toaster. Eating toast with my scrambled eggs while curled up on the couch instead of having to sit on the bed was just about the best luxury I could imagine.

But anyway. Since she had been brave enough to come on her own, and this was her first time in Asia, I wanted to make sure that we did as many cool things in Hong Kong as possible. I may have gone a bit overboard in the planning department, but I was flexible with changing plans -- I just didn't want to have that dreaded vacation morning moment when no one really knows what they want to do for the day and you end up spending two hours being indecisive.

Some of the things we did were highlights from earlier in the trip that Tom and I wanted to repeat -- hiking the family trail on Lamma (with the best weather and the bluest skies we've seen all semester) and eating ridiculous amounts of fresh seafood at one of the waterfront restaurants; going to the track (where Mom's lucky gambling streak didn't fail her -- she won her bets twice out of four races); bringing her into the notorious Chungking Mansions for lunch at the Khyber Pass (our Wednesday afternoon tradition); introducing her to the best dumplings in the world at Crystal Jade.

But we also interspersed some new stuff in there, which was really fun. I think it's easy, after a few months in a place, to get into a routine and to know what you like and just do that, but a visitor brings a whole new perspective/impetus for trying new things. One of the highlights was our visit to the temple of the 10,000 Buddhas in Sha Tin -- you walk up a steep hill lined with hundreds of gold buddha and warrior statues (and stalked along the way by monkeys which are NOT statutes -- and which are terrifying!) until you get to a temple in the hills with all sorts of lovely, unexpected corners, and 12,000+ little buddhas in the main building (yes, 12,000+, despite the name...). The smell of incense drifts by, and thanks to the incline, there are fewer tourists than some other places. The city stretches out below, and it's all so unexpected and quirky -- truly one of my favorite sights in this city. It's Hong Kong, so it's kind of commercial, and kind of "fixed up" in a sort of inauthentic way -- but despite the newness and the plastic, it has its own authenticity.

We also checked out the Chi Lin Nunnery, which was meticulously restored in 1998, but had such an aura of peace and tranquillity (and I swear it was at least 5 degrees cooler inside its gardens than in the neighboring areas) that it didn't matter that the buildings actually weren't all that ancient -- the feeling of them was. In Hong Kong, too, you have to grab at peace and tranquillity during those rare moments that you find it, so we lingered to enjoy the feeling.

Mom and I did some of the more touristy stuff too, like having lots of dim sum, checking out the antiques along Hollywood Road (spoiler alert: they're very fake), having drinks at the Eye Bar overlooking the gorgeous harbor at night (we could see everything from the balcony!), and having shirts tailor-made from a little shopfront in Admiralty. We also took the scenic bus (Route 6, which goes along winding cliff roads and which caused me to grip my armrest in terror for the entire 40 minutes) to Stanley, which was full of expats and their dogs and babies, but also beautiful blue water and the best fish and chips I've ever had, consumed on a high-up balcony overlooking the water (for those who ever come here, the restaurant was called "The Boathouse" -- yes, just like the only restaurant in NewB, so Mom and I felt at home :-)).

It was a lovely week or so, and when I sent Mom to the airport (after utilizing the amazing transportation system that is Hong Kong and checking in her bags at the MTR stop right near my apartment!) I was newly in love with the city. Right in time to buckle down and spend all my time in the library!

We have finals for the nest 2.5 weeks, and then we're off to Thailand for Christmas and New Year's. Updates to come; timing dependent on internet access!

Shenzhen

Last weekend, Tom had a paper to write (actually, he's had/he has a paper to write every weekend this month -- this semester abroad is a lot more work than that whole undergrad study abroad deal!) We decided to use our visas' second entry into China to go just across the border from HK into the "Special Economic Zone" of Shenzhen for the weekend for cheap shopping, hotels, massage and dim sum.

Shenzhen was established as an experimental "Special Economic Zone" in 1980, which means it basically shares a birthday with Tom. China wanted to try out a market-based economy, but didn't want that darn capitalism to infect the rest of the country in case it didn't work, so it took the formerly sleepy fishing village of Shenzhen (kept that sleepy on purpose, since it was so close to the bastion of capitalism that was and is HK) and turned it into an experimental town.

The experiment was a success. Shenzhen is now the wealthiest city in China -- if not the most cultured. It's weird to visit a city that is only 30 years old. A lot of the skyscrapers are comparable to those that you can find in Hong Kong. The shopping is ubiquitous. The art scene is slowly, but surely, growing.

But there's still an unfinished vibe to Shenzhen. There are a lot of young, single men standing on the street corners at night to no apparent purpose. There's a kind of "dangerous adolescent" tinge to the air. Tom and I didn't like to wander around in dark streets at night by ourselves (the opposite was true of Beijing -- wandering around in dark alleys at night seemed to be the thing to do).

But to start from the beginning. To get to "real China" from HK, all you have to do is hop on the metro's East Rail Line (the line I take to Chinese University's main campus) and stay on it until the end. Then you pop through customs and there you are! If you're not an American, you can pick up a Shenzhen-only visa right at the border. If you are, you have to use one of your two entries (for which you pay a lot of money -- this is what happens when we make it hard for Chinese citizens to come to our country!). Right as you cross customs you can see one of the more famous shopping spots in Shenzhen: Luohu Commercial City. This is a 6-story mall that sells all manner of knock-offs -- specializing in bags, shoes, and cheaply tailored clothes.

We went there (picked up a couple of pairs of eyeglasses -- eye exam and all! And a purse...and a suitcase...and some "Deisel" sneakers for Tom...) and were pleasantly surprised to discover a restaurant inside where we had some of the best food we've gotten since being here. It was loud, and crowded, and we stuffed ourselves with dim sum only to find that the very cheap dish of "beef soup" that we'd ordered was actually a huge entree that the chef was making at a special station next to our table. Needless to say, we left there stuffed.

The other main appeal of Shenzhen was our hotel. It was a relatively old-school multi-star hotel, that had been bought by a Crowne Plaza, and included a state of the art gym and spa facilities. Being able to spread out all his notes on a big desk made Tom very happy, and getting to work out with a TV tuned to international CNN made us both happy (and I don't even like working out).

We also took the internet's advice and went to a local spa for the day. Since we didn't go to the one recommended for tourists, no one spoke English at ours, but through sign language and a patron who was kind enough to translate at one point, we figured it out. Tom and I were sent to our respective dressing rooms by gender, and then rendezvoused for Thai massages in the same room. Our masseuses were nice, and one knew a tiny bit of English -- the 100 minute massages flew by.

After that, Tom and I wandered around the spa in our silly regulation-issue outfits and checked out the variety of entertainments available inside -- there were rooms for watching movies, rooms for surfing the internet, rooms for playing ping-pong and pool, rooms for getting manicures and pedicures, free fruit smoothie bars, restaurant areas, and big whirlpools. It was no surprise that people can spend days at a time inside. We played a little ping pong, but the whole 100 minutes in a dim room getting massaged deal left us with the urge to do something more energetic than hanging out in a spa. We headed back out into the bright sunshine...

The other really interesting thing we did in Shenzhen was wander around Dongmen Pedestrian Street. This is a part of the city where the locals actually shop, and it was full of families out enjoying the sun, vendors selling fresh melon, dumplings, and lamb kebob, and all manner of goods directly off the truck from the factories. It felt like the most Chinese thing that we've done in all of our travels, and it was cool to wander around and feel completely immersed in a different culture. I rustled up lamb kebobs for us and went to McD's for the addictive iced coffee (I know, I know, that's not actually a different culture -- but a Chinese McDonald's is not the same creature as one at home). We didn't buy anything there -- and we hadn't brought the camera, so we didn't take any pictures -- but it will remain one of my favorite memories of this semester.

By Monday we were ready to come back to HK and our routine of classes and our tiny apartment...

Tailors in Hong Kong continued

Following our initial meeting with the tailor, Tom and I got ready to go back yesterday for the first fitting of the suits, and lunch. We dressed nicely, probably out of a desire to appear more legitimate, and showed up on the dot of 12:30 pm.

Jack welcomed us warmly, and got us cool drinks to sip while he wrapped up some other business. After about 35 minutes of sitting in the office (during which I still couldn't quite believe that we were actually going to be taken out to lunch -- and not in the bad way -- by Tom's tailor), we headed out. He took us to Gaylord, which is rated the best Indian restaurant in HK, and we proceeded to have a feast.

The food was delicious -- and Jack helped me to a serving of basically everything -- but the more surprising bit was that the conversation was delightful. Jack chatted a little about his childhood in Karachi (when it was still in India before partition) and later Bombay, and how when he and his brother started their business in HK they used to split breakfast and lunch with each other because they were trying to pay off their business loan as fast as possible. He told us about some of his business travels all around the globe, and gave us more life advice (but good-naturedly admitted that he knew he like to give "a lot of advice."). He invited us to come to one of the monthly or so dinners he and his wife hold at their house for various customers of his...

Basically, he seemed like he was genuinely interested in people from all over and from all different stages of life, and enjoyed helping two law students out a little bit. After our absolutely gut-busting lunch, we headed back to the shop for Tom's first fitting (and the beginnings of the suit look great!). Jack sent us on our way with handshakes (for Tom) and hugs (for me) and an appointment for next Monday. We left his shop feeling like we had just had one of the most delightful experiences, not only from our time in HK, but in general.

Tailors in Hong Kong

I'm taking a break from mainland-China-related posts (although I have a couple up my sleeve -- more thoughts on our big trip and some on our mini-break this past weekend in Shenzhen) in order to write about getting a suit tailored in Hong Kong. Because it's awesome (so far).

Hong Kong is known for having a ton of tailor shops -- although plenty are just tourist traps that do a mediocre job. Most of the mediocre ones have "touts" -- guys who stand on the corners (especially along Nathan Road, which is a major thoroughfare right near our apartment) and ask every foreign passerby "Tailor? Copy watch?" They often stand in front of the stores selling Rolexes just to add a little much needed legitimacy to their endeavor. But it is possible to find a really good tailor through word of mouth -- people in Hong Kong have opinions about their tailors the way curly-haired people have opinions about their hairdressers.

Anyway, Tom knew from the beginning that he wanted to get a few suits tailor-made here, and I quickly agreed that such items should be written into the budget because I still feel guilty three years later about the time when we first started dating, and I offered to pick up his dry-cleaning, left it in my car overnight, and all of his suits got stolen by a crackhead who broke into the car, hacked out my stereo, and deposited a turd next to my car on his way out... I suppose it is possible that it was actually Finkin.* But I digress.

After doing extensive research, Tom finally asked one of his professors whose style he admired where he got his suits. The professor pointed him in the direction of a gentleman named Jack Balani of Riviera Fashions. With the afternoon off, Tom and I decided to visit.

As is usual on our Hong Kong adventures, we blundered at first. Following various hallways throughout what we were somewhat sure was the right building, we stumbled into the office of a George Balani (Jack's brother-in-law). He pointed us in the right direction, and I believe called his brother-in-law to warn him we were coming. But finally, we opened a nondescript door on the 6th floor into Jack's private office.

Apparently, people usually make appointments. But, Jack was very gracious and welcoming and asked us immediately what lovely customer of his had directed us there, as he knew that people don't just stumble in off the street and onto the 6th floor.

We told him, and then chatted for awhile about our experiences in Hong Kong and what Tom was looking for in a suit. Jack pulled out several wool swatches that he said were appropriate for a lawyer (i.e. not too flashy -- no My Cousin Vinny suits here). He also brought us gin and tonics, for which I was very grateful, what with the heat of the day and the fact that I needed something with which to amuse myself while Tom was being measured.

Jack quoted his price, and although Tom had come in ready to bargain, the price was so reasonable that I could see the fight go out of Tom's face within seconds. He managed to get Jack to throw in a couple of shirts with the two suits that he ordered, and then commenced the measuring.

Altogether, we were there for ~45 minutes, but this was just the first fitting, which is apparently nowhere near as important as the next one in which the fabric is actually draped around the customer, etc. Jack and Tom discussed style, and then Jack invited us to come back tomorrow for lunch before the second fitting. That's right, Tom's tailor is taking us out for lunch tomorrow. We are having Indian food, though the options were Chinese, Indian, or club sandwiches, really anything we wanted. This may be standard practice in Hong Kong, but it's still pretty damn cool.

In the process of chatting, Jack also learned that we two whippersnappers are getting hitched next summer, and in the delightfully familiar manner that I've never experienced in American culture, gave us advice about living frugally in our marriage, etc. etc. [Side note: the day after Tom and I got engaged, when we were taking a taxi back from the hotel room with which he'd surprised me, we lucked into a taxi driver from a southeast Asian culture who gave us a full 20 minutes worth of advice that he'd gleaned from 40 years of marriage. Unasked for, but much appreciated :-)]. Jack gave pointers on what Tom should wear for the wedding, and then invited us for dinner at his house (!). I'm not sure if the offer will stand, but I'm looking forward to seeing.

We learned that Jack, having never graduated from high school, started out as one of the "touts" on the corner more than 50 years ago, making $13.75/month. After 4 years of that, he got a small business loan from his father and opened up a storefront, growing his business from there. Now, he travels all over the world catering to thousands of clients, and has enough money to drive what he un-self-consciously describes as a jealousy-inducing car. One that he said he would send to pick us up for that dinner at his house. Tom and I had to contain our giant grins and exclamations of "That was SO COOL" until we exited the building.

Can't wait to see what the suits end up looking like! I may have to get one or two myself...

*This sentence possibly written by Thomas.

Contemplation

Contemplating our trip to China has proved a more involved process than I had expected. In some ways, I was surprised at the western touches that we encountered, although I shouldn't have been, as Beijing and Shanghai are major cities with international connections. In other ways, like a movie that you just can't get out of your mind, China was different, not just from home, but from the "home" that we've crafted in Hong Kong.

Our trip was naturally divided in two geographically, but also in some ways emotionally and intellectually. Shanghai was lovely -- the French Concession reminded me of Buenos Aires, and the Bund reminded me of old New York (Tom said it reminded him of Chicago, but I haven't been there yet). There were cool shops and artists and lots of visitors in town for the Expo. Our hostel was spacious, and cozy, and served a killer scrambled egg and coffee breakfast for quite cheap every morning. If I were going to live in mainland China, I think it would be quite pleasant to live in Shanghai.

But it was Beijing that really captivated both me and Tom. Beijing was harder. By that I don't mean that navigation was more confusing, or people less accommodating. But my brain was stretched a little bit more while we were there. Maybe it was the strangely quiet streets; maybe it was the CCTV cameras all over Tiananmen Square; maybe it was the group of middle-aged ladies we saw dancing all together in the park one evening. Maybe it was because we actually got to spend some time with people who lived in Beijing, and who could give us some insight into daily life there.

I think the presence of Communism was in the back of our minds much more when we were in Beijing. It felt a little bit like a city that was waiting for the other shoe to drop -- I couldn't tell if I felt that because I'd read that I was supposed to feel that in the midst of China's "meteoric" economic growth, or if the city really did have bated breath, but there was something there.

Perhaps that sense was well-captured when Tom and I visited my friend Kevin at his workplace "Disney English." Disney English is a new venture on the part of Disney Co. to teach children English through the tribe of characters in the Disney library. It's a brilliant idea -- middle-class parents line up every evening with their little ones to check the place out, and they're signing up dozens at a time. All of these kids will develop a strong association between speaking English and Disney characters, and presumably a life-long loyalty to the Disney brand. And China wants these kids to learn English. Maybe it's an emphasis on education that has always been there, but it seems like there is some kind of informal national mandate to "catch up" with the outside world (although not totally connect with it, see, e.g. the Great Firewall).

But, like a lot of the "catching up" happening in China, it felt a bit manufactured. Kevin -- who is wonderful with kids and fantastic at his job -- would be just fine teaching without the Disney paraphernalia. And there's a reason that "disneyfied" has developed as a term (has it developed as a term? Maybe that's just me...)...the place was cheerfully sterile.

I'm not explaining myself very well (Peter Hessler could do it better :-)). Because the manufactured "catching up" is paired with very genuine people who are living this whole change that is happening in China right now, and that doesn't feel disneyfied at all. All I know is that both Tom and I came away from the city wanting very much to study Mandarin, hard, and return in a few years to try and delve a little deeper.

All for now (it's bedtime in HK). But more on "real China" soon!

Back from the Mainland!

After 10 days, lots of travel and lots of rain, Tom and I returned to a HK of sunny blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. Glorious -- I just took an hour and a half walk around Kowloon and it felt magical.

I have a ton of stuff to say about our trip, so I think I'll break it up into a couple of posts. Some of you may remember that on Saturday the 16th, we took a 24-hour train to Beijing. We stayed there until the evening of the 21st, at which point we took an overnight train to Shanghai. On the afternoon of the 26th, we flew from Shanghai to Shenzhen, which is just over the border from HK (domestic flights were much cheaper) and hopped a bus into the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the evening.

Tom and I took roughly 650 pictures (fo' realz) of which 620 were from the Beijing portion of our trip (not that Shanghai isn't pretty -- but it doesn't have the Great Wall or the Forbidden City -- and it was very rainy for more than half of our time there). If I can expand my computer skills at all, I'll try to put a couple of those pictures on this blog.

First, the trains. I loooove trains, and have always wanted to take an overnight one somewhere -- you get your own little bunk, and free slippers, and can walk the hallways through the night while the train rushes you to your destination... Well, it wasn't quite as romantic as I'd pictured, but it was a very economical way to travel, and we had some nice cabinmates. On the train to Beijing, we shared the cabin with a young man named Hu who was a fur trader (there's a short story in that somewhere -- a fur trader wearing Air Jordans and switching among 3 different SmartPhones). We also shared the cabin with an older woman who seemed to be devoutly practicing some kind of meditation that involved lots of breast-beating and loud nose-breathing. That wasn't so pleasant, particularly at 3 in the morning when everyone was sleeping. But we managed to all carve out enough personal space to get some sleep, and Tom and I each basically began and finished our novels.

We foolishly did not pack any snacks, assuming we'd find things to eat on the train. We found things, but they were overpriced and disgusting versions of Chinese food -- sheer hunger meant that we ate them anyway, and washed them down with a couple of cheap beers (by far the culinary highlight of the train trip). The countryside that we passed along the way (and we had a lot of time to watch it, since we were on that train from 3 pm Saturday until 3 pm Sunday) was pretty gray -- as we got further north it got closer to wintery-feeling and there stopped being the lush palm trees and other greenery of the south. We did see rice paddies for the first part of the trip, and some subsistence-looking farming during the latter part of the trip, interspersed with more industrial development. When we arrived in Beijing West Station, we were thrilled to get off.

Beijing West is huge, and filled with the flashy giant TVs that grace many squares in the city, vendors selling various things, and taxi drivers trying to rip us off. Luckily our hostel's website told us what to expect to pay to get there, so when we were quoted a price that was 4 times that we were able to walk away in disgust. A cold snap had just descended upon the city, so we were shivery, and happy when we found the official taxi stand.

Our hostel was a place recommended to me by my dear friend Kevin, who lives in Beijing with his Beijing-born wife and their 5-month-old twin boys. It was a few blocks from their apartment, facilitating visiting, and in a charming old hutong. Hutong means essentially alley, and in Beijing, hutongs link the larger, more commercial streets, providing a lot of the character and soul of the city. A lot of people living in hutongs don't have their own toilets, so most hutongs have public toilets at either end. Lots of individuals make use of their space to sell cigarettes and sodas and snacks out of the ground floor of their buildings, so there is a semi-informal economy going on there. Sadly, in China's mad rush to "modernize," a lot of hutongs are being destroyed (and people are being forced to move further out in search of affordable housing).

Our hostel, luckily, did have its own plumbing, and our room was actually very nice (no more of the dorm-style hostel rooms for me -- this was a proper double with an en suite bathroom!). We settled in and grabbed some showers, and then set out to explore the city in the dark.

We walked down the hutong to one of the main avenues and strolled down that for awhile, just looking at the buildings. After the hyper-commercialism of HK, it was kind of surprising to see how little retail/restaurants/etc., existed, although there were definitely shops and places to eat. It was a Sunday evening, so it was fairly quiet, but we walked along Wangfujing Street, which is considered a major pedestrian-friendly street in the city. There was some public art, several hotels, and a gorgeous old Christian church, and a lot of stores advertising name brands like Gucci and Burberry. However, it definitely didn't have as developed a feel as, say, 5th Avenue. It felt slightly abandoned -- although that might have just been the cold and the fact that it was a Sunday night.

The next morning, we met up with Kevin (who kindly brought us an umbrella and Tom a sweatshirt -- we hadn't planned very well for the weather up north) to grab breakfast and head with him to his office at Disney English before sightseeing. He brought us to a typical hole-in-the-wall Beijing eatery where we got two trays of steamed pork buns (baozi) for 10 yuan (US$1.50). The place was still dirty from the breakfast rush, but those steamed pork buns were some of the most delicious and wholesome things I'd tasted in months -- and we were glad to get some fat and protein in us to help us stay warm in the rain. [As a side note, the street food in Beijing and Shanghai was one of the highlights of the strip -- more on that later].

I'm going to pause for now, but my next post will talk about Disney English and hotpot with a typical (Kevin's) Beijing family :-).

Comforts of Home

This jaunt in HK is the third instance in which I've spent a chunk of time living in another country. Not that that makes me an "expat expert" (::groan::, I know, but I love plays on words); however, I think it gives me some authority to speak to my own natural progression when living in a foreign land.

The first week or so is like being a tourist -- there are tons of things to do, and see, and I notice them all. I probably take pictures of them all. My senses are bombarded from all sides. It is exhilarating, and exhausting.

After that phase comes the "settling in" part, where I figure out what things I like at the grocery store, and find a place that sells toothpaste, and learn how to navigate public transportation to get to places I'll visit often, such as school or my apartment. The second part of this phase includes finding less immediate staple options, such as a used English-language bookstore and a spot where I can get a real cup of coffee if I want a taste of home (that bit was easy in HK, where Starbucks abound).

Finally, I get to a point where I'm walking home at the end of the day, and instead of looking around and thinking "I'm in ___!" I look around and think "I wonder if that pepper in the fridge is still edible. And I really need to get a pedicure." In other words, I've hit the comfort phase, and it's happened a lot faster in HK than in happened in other places (the wide usage and understanding of English helps -- as does living with my fiance :-)).

Right now Tom and I have a long-term place to stay, a daily routine, a weekly grocery list and a rapport with most of the security guards in our building. We have some restaurants we know and like -- Tom even has a barber. It's nice -- it makes HK feel manageable, and like it's beginning to be "mine." Which is probably good, because we leave for our journey to the Mainland on Saturday and I have a feeling that's not going to feel familiar at all -- not even in the "I've travelled somewhere in Europe that felt like this before" kind of way.

While there, I won't have access to Blogger (thanks, Great Firewall!). But I will try and write my posts as we go along, and put them up all at once when we get back on the 27th.

At that point, I will be supremely grateful for all the comforts of home that HK can provide!

Lamma

On Saturday, Tom and I met up with two different sets of friends for an excursion to Lamma Island, the "other" major outlying island of the SAR (I always think of Lantau as the primary one -- perhaps because that's where we spent the previous 2 weekends). Lamma has a slightly different vibe than that on Lantau (and that on HK Island and Kowloon, for that matter). No cars are allowed, and everyone seems to have a couple of dogs and a couple of kids. The main "street" is like a wide sidewalk lined with little shops selling sarongs and snacks and organic soap. It's kind of like the South China Sea version of Woodstock, with beaches.

Our primary destination was a spot called the Bookworm Cafe, which serves delicious vegan and vegetarian food. Since most of (affordable) HK is heavy on the meat and starch, we were all craving some salad. After that, we planned some reading at the beach to take advantage of the warm weather.

On the way over, we noticed that the ferry ride was much rougher than other trips we'd taken -- the captain was obviously booking it (maybe he wanted some vegetables too). We also noticed that a bunch of locals were getting sick -- I mean puke bags and all (and this only got worse on the way back). We found it very curious, since it was pretty likely that these people take such ferry trips on a regular basis. Luckily, our Western stomachs were apparently immune to seasickness (on that day at least) and we made it to Lamma uneventfully.

The cafe was charming and the food was delicious -- once it came. We were there for more than 2 hours before our party of 6 was fully served and had eaten, but the soy mango cheesecake at the end saved the cafe from a bad review -- it was really really yummy. Using soy yogurt instead of cream cheese, the cake managed to get the sweet tanginess of normal cheesecake spot on, while being less brick-like in the stomach. It's enough to make me want to buy a springform pan!

Not to segue from food immediately to the loo (but actually, yes, I'm doing that...), the cafe was also the first place in HK where I utilized the traditional squat toilet (albeit a finished porcelain one). In China, squat toilets (as opposed to the ones you sit on, like we have at home) abound, but HK's western influences mean that most places here utilize the familiar porcelain throne. However, more casual places do contain porcelain squat toilets (and I'm sure the really casual places just have a hole in the floor). This squat toilet was quite nice, although balancing in a squatting position reminded me that I need to so some lunges. Anyway. It was good practice for our trip through the Mainland, which commences in about a week :-).

After our meal, we walked along Lamma's main road and peeked into many delightful stores -- since we were running so late, we didn't do as much browsing as I'd hoped, but Tom and I plan to return this weekend to meander to our hearts' content. The beach itself was crowded, but swimming in the South China Sea was wonderful, as always, and the relaxed atmosphere of the island was truly charming. I'll share our future adventures there with the blog next week!

National Day

Last week, Tom and I were lucky enough to get another holiday -- HK celebrates both western and Chinese holidays, so the vacation schedule is a mishmash of nationalist and Christian and older religious traditions. Unlike the Mid-Autumn Festival, people came OUT for National Day, which celebrates the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Of course, the turnout may have had a lot to do with the fact that there is a big fireworks show in the harbor. The major artery of Nathan Road was shut down to allow people to walk down it, and all of the roads by the harborfront in Tsim Sha Tsui were blocked off to keep the crowds under control.

Tom and I bought some Tsingtao at the 7-11 and drank it as we walked down the street (it's still weird not to reflexively hide the open container from the police!). We found a good spot by the highway rail (the highway was closed to both human and automobile traffic -- giving the entrance into the tunnel a weird, slightly apocalyptic look, despite all the crowds of people everywhere else). The fireworks show started about a half-hour late, but from the get-go it was impressive. The fireworks were huge, and bloomed impressively up above the skyscrapers. But the coolest part was the sound -- the harbor gave each "boom" a magnifying effect so that it reverberated throughout the city. Plus, each "boom" was punctuated by the collective "ooohs and aaahs" of the crowd.

Fireworks are one of my favorite things in the world anyway, but to be surrounded by such crowds showing such vocal appreciation was a delight. Tom bought a light-up pair of bunny ears for me and "forced" me to wear them, and I grinned like a little kid at the circus all the rest of the evening.

Although National Day celebrations on the Mainland are arguably bigger and more impressive (and the Mainland gets the whole week off -- unlike capitalist HK), this was quite the show for a region that is only celebrating its 14th National Day (the first was after the handover in 1997).

Festivals...and Food

Last week and this week are both "holiday" weeks in HK, in that we got last Thursday off for the Mid-Autumn Festival and we get this Friday off for National Day. Tom and I were pretty excited for Mid-Autumn Festival, because the HK Tourism site makes it sound like it's the second biggest holiday of the year here (after Chinese New Year). However, HK was pretty subdued on the day of, and when we wandered down to the harbor on Wednesday evening we saw mostly families headed home with their kidlets holding little blow-up "lanterns." No dragon marching through the street (that happens in a neighborhood on HK Island). No one else carrying beer as they walked (we take advantage of the lack of open container rules when we go out, since the beer we buy at home costs about an eighth of what it costs in a restaurant).

However, the government had set up a lovely little lantern display on the promenade in Tsim Sha Tsui (overlooking the harbor and HK Island). The display was themed "Memories of HK," or something similar, and contained vintage "street signs" and other paraphernalia from HK's 1960s hey-days. The lantern display in conjunction with the everyday beauty of the lights over the harbor was quite nice, and upon more detailed examination, the kidlets' lanterns were actually pretty cool feats of construction -- little blow-up toys in all sorts of shapes with a non-heating lightbulb in the middle, so the wee ones could get in on the action without all the danger of a flame surrounded by flimsy paper that real lanterns bring.

Besides lantern displays, families in HK eat "moon cakes" and contemplate the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival -- and when we got down to the water we actually saw people doing this (so HK celebrated after all...!) Tom and I bought two moon cakes to try as well, since we'd read a lot about them and were quite curious as to taste. Moon cakes are round pastries with a lotus seed paste filling and other items inside -- traditionally an egg yolk, but now they put more palatable beans in some (in fact, to cater to western tastes, now they make ice cream sandwich moon cakes! We tried ones with lotus seed paste -- but no yolk). The tradition of moon cakes derives from a legend about Ming Dynasty revolutionaries who hid messages organizing their overthrow of Mongol rule in the cakes and/or as ciphers on the characters written on the outside of the pastries. We didn't know too much about the tradition, but were eager to try these delicacies that they'd been hawking in the metro for the past month. I made some tea and we cut the cakes into fourths, as per tradition. They were actually pretty delicious in a weird, fruity sort of way!

In addition to the rather anti-climactic festival, Tom and I have spent this past week making progress on our planned trip through China. We're going to take a 24-hour train to Beijing on October 16, and we had to get Chinese visas to do so first. This entailed a labyrinthine trip to the Chinese embassy, where we were lucky to squeeze in before 5 pm (and where I picked up our passports with the new visa stamps just yesterday). Chinese visas are expensive -- since the U.S. makes it expensive/difficult for Chinese to come into our country, China has apparently decided to reciprocate in kind. However, the line at the embassy was long both times we went -- China is really a hot spot right now. [Note: for more proof, check out the NYT front page today -- the congressional bill regarding Chinese refusal to reevaluate the renminbi has sparked a variety of articles and Op-Eds]. I am particularly excited to visit China thanks to all my Peter Hessler reading (see previous blog entry).

After a few hours of bureaucracy, Tom and I set off in search of food in the area, since I could feel the beginnings of a migraine tickling around my head and was entering into my distinctive "hungry" (read: cranky) mode. We were determined not to eat at one of the ubiquitous fast food chains, be it American or Honky (is that even an adjective? If not, I like it, and I'm going to use it to describe things "of or from Hong Kong"). After a moment of hesitation, we stepped into a little place with noodles in the window, drawn in by the smell (and the fact that the restaurant's hawker spoke a little English :-)). I ordered rice noodle soup with shrimp dumplings and Tom ordered egg noodle soup with brisket, and while mine was good and hot and chased away the crankies, Tom's was superb. The broth reminded me of "pho" from a Vietnamese restaurant -- rich and nuanced -- and the noodles had more flavor than mine. We slurped away happily at the soup and at two glass bottles of Sprite, and mentally marked the address so we could return.

Up until the past couple of weeks, we haven't tapped into the legendary food in HK so much -- we're on grad student budgets, and have weird schedules that sometimes mean when we're hungry we're so hungry we just want to eat something we know instead of trying to navigate something new and different. But the little things -- trying mooncakes, getting weird and different drinks at the 7-11 each time, our noodle soup lunch -- are keeping us interested. In addition, we've made a vow to try some more restaurants from "the book" (aka the Lonely Planet guide). This vow sent us last Saturday to a meal that I'm still dreaming about -- and that only cost us about U.S. $60 total!

Crystal Jade is an HK chain -- there are probably 4 or 5 in the city, including one in the airport (in case anyone ever has a layover -- GO HERE). We had to take a number and queue in line, and it was in a mall (like everything in HK!), so it wasn't like it was some cool little hole in the wall that we discovered, but the smells when we got inside were hitting every tastebud I knew I had and some I didn't. In fact, when I wrote that sentence, my mouth watered :-). We got noodles with shredded cabbage and pork (my favorite) and shrimp in spicy sauce and Shanghainese dumplings (which are filled with pork and broth) and it was all so good that Tom and I have talked about the dumplings alone at least 3 times since Saturday. So. More food exploring is on our horizon, for sure!

Now we're off for a bar night with some friends from my program -- more later this week!

Epic Weekend, or, Lantau Island

So, about that epic weekend...

It all started when we met with friends of friends for a drink last Wednesday. First of all, they were delightful, and we felt like we were catching up with old friends rather than meeting new ones for the first time. There was a lot of laughing (and a lot of wine). Secondly, they had us meet them at this outdoor bar called RED, where we got to sit on a breezy patio overlooking the "fragrant harbor" (that's the phrase from which the name "Hong Kong" derives). It felt just right -- EXACTLY what one should be looking at while in this skyscraper city.

But most importantly for this story, they were quite a bit more familiar with the city than we were, and suggested some hiking options for us for whenever the weather cooperated. We decided to follow their advice over the weekend, and planned a trip out to Lantau Island to hike the second smallest mountain in Hong Kong, Lantau Peak.

Lantau Island is west of HK island (still part of the SAR though), and its northern part contains the airport. But the rest of the island is a mix of mountains, beaches, and parkland. We took the metro to the end of the line, which got us onto the island. Then we hopped into glass gondolas to travel 25 km up and over some beautiful scenery, bringing us to the town of Ngong Ping, which houses a lovely monastery and the "Big Buddha" (the biggest, outdoor, seated, brass Buddha in the world -- kind of impressive, except for all those qualifiers and the fact that it was built solely for tourism purposes within the past 20 years :-)). We walked quickly through the town to the trailhead for Lantau Peak.

The Lantau Peak trail is nicely maintained, but it has no switchbacks on the side we were climbing, so it basically goes straight up. And no shade -- which makes it quite the sweaty trail to take at high noon in the most humid city in which I've ever lived (sorry D.C. -- you've been trumped!) Plus, it's been awhile since I did any kind of hiking :-).

After lots of breaks on the way to the top (each of which had a breathtaking view), we made it up and over the peak. When we got down from the mountain, only about 3.5 or 4 hours had passed, so we thought we'd head straight to the beach. However, the trail placed us right on the side of a highway, albeit a highway with a sidewalk running alongside it. We trudged down that highway to the tantalizing beaches that we could see spread out below, but as much as we walked and walked and WALKED, we couldn't get any closer to them. After a couple more sweaty hours, we finally caught a bus to a town where we could hop the ferry back to civilization (HK island), but we were beat.

We woke up the next day with incredibly sore legs, having not used those muscles in that kind of way in awhile. But we still had "beach" on the brain, so we dragged ourselves out to the island again and hopped on a bus by the metro station, crossing our fingers that it was the right one.

After a speedy ride over some pretty big hills, we spotted what seemed to be a homemade sign for the beach we had in mind, and got off the bus (again with those crossed fingers that we weren't getting ourselves lost). We headed down a driveway and stepped through some trees to...paradise!

The beach was not too crowded, the sand was yellow, the open-air restaurants were serving BBQ and beer on the beach, and beautiful mountain scenery surrounded us. Tom and I took turns swimming in the South China Sea (someone had to keep an eye on our stuff -- although it seemed no one else on the beach was taking that precaution), and stayed to have dinner in the dusky evening at a South African restaurant. It was perfect.

So it's true that some of HK's most delightful past-times are to be found, not in the impressive skyscrapers, but in the outdoorsy "hinterlands." Tom and I are headed back this Sunday to hike the other major mountain on the island and get some more time at the beach. Just as soon as my legs stop aching!

The Peak

Following an epic weekend (which will be blogged about once I'm caught up) I find myself at school on Monday with a pile of reading to do -- but obviously writing on the blog comes first!

Tom and I had talked about going to the top of "the Peak" since we got here, but wanted to wait for a perfectly clear day so we could take advantage of the views. "The Peak" is actually "Victoria Peak," and it's the tallest mountain on the island of HK, although it's about half as tall as the tallest mountain in the entirety of the SAR. The top of the Peak used to be the exclusive address to have in HK, and the only way residents could travel between their homes and downtown was via sedan chair (or on foot -- but they wouldn't want to get their fancy clothes all sweaty walking up 500 meters every day).

An enterprising chap came up with the brilliant plan to build a tram to the top of the mountain instead, and that began operating on a steam basis in 1888. Sometime in the 20th century they switched to electricity, and essentially that's what exists today: tram cars pulled up and down the mountain on cables thanks to electric power.

Like most things in HK, it's extremely touristy at this point -- but still very cool. The car goes up a very steep gradient while you hang on inside for dear life (it's enclosed, so you're not actually in danger, but still...) and stare out the windows at the skyscrapers getting smaller and smaller below you. When you get to the top, you come out into (what else?) a mall. But you can leave the mall and the Starbucks behind, and walk around on your own to peer at some very posh apartment buildings and a few colonial structures, and take in the view.

Oh, the view. It really is pretty damn awesome (that's right readers, I said "damn" instead of "darn" -- that's how cool it is). You stare down over the tops of hundreds of incredible skyscrapers and the harbor, and any kind of weather that is making its way over the city is visible from miles away. The perspective makes the skyscrapers kind of shimmery, because it's a bit bizarre to be looking at them from the top. Plus, when we went there was a stiff breeze blowing, which was such a welcome change from the oppressive humidity of the city that I could have stared at any view for hours.

We walked around a shady trail for awhile which circles the mountain, and managed to head back down without purchasing anything or succumbing to the "Bubba Gump Shrimp Co." restaurant (with table signs saying "Run, Forrest, Run" -- seriously, the pieces of American culture that HK has chosen to adopt are downright silly sometimes). But I've heard rumors that a professor at my school begins each morning with a brisk hike up to the Peak, and it makes me want to go back (if not every morning... :-)).

Rains in Asia

So, I'm still catching up from my week off of blogging here. As this post will demonstrate, that week off wasn't exactly due to a plethora of exciting adventures -- more like the reality of classes settling in. Over the weekend, it rained BUCKETS, and Tom and I tested our skill at amusing ourselves indoors in our tiny apartment.

HK has a very advanced weather warning system to keep its residents apprised of impending typhoons and/or flooding. The HK Observatory issues a rain warning at three levels: Amber, Red, and Black. Generally, when there is a "Black Rain Warning," everything is cancelled. For typhoons, the Observatory "hoists" signals of either 1, 3, 8, 9 or 10. A signal 10 means a direct hit, and HK is pretty much going to be a disaster (if I remember correctly, only one or two signal 10s have been issued here in the 20th century).

Luckily, we weren't facing typhoon warnings over the weekend, only rain. We were at Amber alert, which is the lowest one, but darned if it wasn't more rain than I've seen in the States (except that one freak morning thunderstorm in D.C. this summer). Since we'd stocked up on granola bars, frozen dumplings and beer at the grocery store, we were quite content to stay inside whenever we peeked out the windows in contemplation of leaving.

The question was what to DO inside. Certainly not schoolwork (sorry Mom!). In an interesting change from the casebook culture of law schools Stateside, neither of our programs really assign set books for reading -- more like a selection of pieces in a range of different books, none of which can be posted online or photocopied by the professor because of HK's strong copyright rules. So, schoolwork has to be done at the library with the books on reserve.

Tom is in the middle of "War and Peace" and was all set for indoor activities, so I grabbed my less hefty book and settled in as well. The book I read was called "Oracle Bones" by Peter Hessler, and what started as a rainy day distraction quickly became one of my favorite reads in a long time. Peter Hessler writes narrative nonfiction in the John McPhee style (and studied under McPhee at Princeton). He came to China in the mid-1990's with the Peace Corps to teach English in the Sichuan province (the region where they had the horrible earthquake in 2008). He stayed in the country after his stint, moving to Beijing as a clipper for the WSJ and eventually becoming a correspondent for the Globe (and more recently the New Yorker). He's written three books over the past 6 or 7 years about his time in China, and his writing really made this moment in time for the country come alive for me. China is in a pretty darn exciting spot of its history right now, and the United States' relationship with China is inevitably in some kind of flux. Reading Hessler's narrative, which intertwined the stories of some of his former students with information about the country's preparation for the Olympics, the experience of scholars during the Cultural Revolution, and the journey of a Uigher middleman named Polat made me very excited for the trip to the capital that Tom and I are making in October.

HK's Favorite Past-time

It's been more than a week since my last post -- much to catch up on!

Last Wednesday, Tom and I went to the Happy Valley racetrack to participate in HK's favorite past-time: betting on the races. We arrived in the stifling heat to find a beautiful grass course surrounded by tall apartment buildings -- the lights were stunning. We were also pleasantly surprised to find that general admission tickets got us very close to the action -- we were able to drag a cocktail table over right next to the fence! After fortifying our stomachs with McDonald's (yes yes, I know, but they're everywhere, and are better for you than some of the local fried foods!), we ordered some beers and set to work figuring out the racing forms. There were 8 races scheduled, with a minimum HK $10 bet (about $1.25). We selected horses via a very scientific method (funniest/prettiest names -- at least that was MY method) and proceeded to lose our money race after race, except an HK $18 win-fall during the 7th when Tom correctly picked a horse to place. We also proceeded to drink a lot of beer.

It was awesome, even when (or particularly when) some of the loudest thunder I've ever heard rolled across the sky, and the clouds opened up with a vengeance, delaying the final race. Since every time I bring Tom to a horse race it rains cats and dogs (animal theme here), it was par for the course (oh I'm mixing my animal and my sports metaphors!). Everyone crowded indoors for about 20 minutes and the beer kept flowing, so we were fine. We finally headed home about midnight, thankful for the slight break in the humidity wrought by the storm.

For an interesting historical fact about Happy Valley, it was originally where a lot of westerners settled when they first got to HK. Since it's a muggy little valley, they all proceeded to get malaria, and many of them died. Consequently, there are several beautiful old graveyards in Happy Valley decorated in a cool gothic (?) style. I'm definitely going to have to check them out in more detail when I'm not distracted by the gambling...

More to come soon!

Very Superstitious

I noticed today that, like many buildings in eastern China, my building does not have a single floor that contains the number 4. No 4th floor, no 14th floor, no 24th floor. This is because the word for "4" is very similar to the word for "death" in multiple Chinese dialects. Thanks to a little Wikipedia research, I learned that the number 14 is even worse than the number 4, because the word for 14 in Cantonese sounds like "certainly die." I also learned that buildings in Hong Kong, in addition to skipping floor numbers that end in 4, also skip the entire series of 40th floors, so no floor 41, 42, 43, etc. Our building also doesn't have a 13th floor -- a common Western superstition -- which I think is a nice illustration of the "East meets West" culture of the city.

Tom's and my flat is on floor 9, which happens to be the luckiest single digit number in Chinese (hey, if I'm going to follow the bad superstitions, I might as well follow the good!). The number 9 sounds like "long-lasting" in Chinese, and therefore it is used a lot as symbolism in connection with weddings. Since a healthy portion of the conversations that occur in this flat have to do with wedding planning, I think that's a good sign! Perhaps even more interestingly (to some of you), the number 9 has a very similar pronunciation to a vulgar Cantonese word for male genitalia, and the people of HK make lots of plays on words to reference that. I'll leave it to readers to determine whether our living on the [penis] floor is good or bad luck ;-).

Tom and I start our informal (i.e. Rosetta Stone) Putonghua (i.e. Mandarin) lessons this week. But researching unlucky numbers has reminded me that it would be useful to know a little Cantonese, so I don't try to give someone my address and end up saying something completely inappropriate!

"Mayor of the Market"

One of the things that Tom and I keep reading in guidebooks is that haggling is part of the thrill of cheap shopping in Hong Kong. As our daily shopping routine includes scouting out the local wet market for fresh fruits and vegetables and char siu (bbq pork) (we haven't quite worked our way up to buying live fish or raw meat...not to mention the live snakes and frogs!), we decided it was high time that we put some bargaining skills to use. Tom, in particular, feels that negotiating down from the posted price is an absolute requirement.

Our first attempt came when we tried to buy some asparagus. The woman weighed the vegetable and showed us a price on a calculator. Tom countered with a lower price, and the woman calmly proceeded to remove half of the asparagus from the pile on the scale and then take our money. Five spears of asparagus for $20 HK is NOT a deal. Bargaining fail!

Our next attempt came when we tried to get a $5 HK adapter for $4 HK. The gentleman selling the thing seemed disgusted -- I guess maybe because $5 HK is a pretty great deal in the first place (it's only about 65 cents)!

These failures definitely bothered Tom more than me, and when we went to the night market on Saturday evening, he was determined to get some fake Oakley sunglasses for a much-cheaper-than-posted price. Some Tsingtao fueled our venture, and Tom stuck to his guns in order to bargain the vendor down from $130 HK to $70 HK with respect to those sunglasses. Victory in hand, Tom also bargained another vendor down from $150 HK to $70 HK for a dress (for me, not him :-)). That vendor, impressed with his skills, laughed and said to him as she handed him the dress, "You're cheap." It was pretty much the best compliment one could get there, and it fueled Tom's confidence. We strode up and down the night market, looking for a place to eat, and when other sellers called out their wares to us, Tom magnanimously waved his hand at them and said, "Not tonight...not tonight." I had to tease him for pulling that "Mayor of the Market" act, but I certainly appreciated the cheap dress (which I'm wearing right now ;-)).

Getting Settled

So our streak of effortless adjusting kind of came to an end when we went up to the Chinese University of Hong Kong to register for my classes. The Chinese University of Hong Kong is up in the New Territories, which is just north of the Kowloon peninsula and is called the "New Territories" because it was given to the British a few years after the other parts of Hong Kong. This is the part of the SAR (Special Administrative Region) that contains the majority of the green space -- in the form of mountains and foothills and rolling green. And the Chinese University is built into those mountains -- high, high up into those mountains! Since my map did not show elevation, when we arrived at "University" station, I figured we could skip the slightly confusing shuttle buses and just walk to where we wanted to go. Boy was I wrong. One sweaty hour later, we finally admitted defeat and climbed back down to get on a bus which was, thankfully, air-conditioned.

When I finally found where I was supposed to go, things resumed their smooth running. The process was easy and the people were friendly...and the views from the mountainous campus were gorgeous. Although my orientation will be on the main campus this week, I won't have much reason to go back there once classes start, as all my classes will be occurring in the Graduate Law Centre, which is in the middle of the business district on Hong Kong island.

Tom, who had kindly accompanied me in all this informal hiking, also accompanied me the next day when we went to check out the Law Centre. Just like his school, mine is connected to a series of malls. I think HK has so many malls because it's too hot to walk around outside during the summer, and too rainy during vast other chunks of the year. That, and the fact that the national past-time is shopping. But since we're poor graduate students with no money to shop, we just appreciated the malls for the air-conditioning.

The Law Centre was the last stop on a long day of exploring a different promenade in Kowloon, taking the Star Ferry over to Wan Chai, and taking the Lonely Planet's guide to "forgotten streets in Wan Chai" (which, although "forgotten," were pretty darn crowded with people!). After getting lost in the series of malls, we stumbled, sweaty and disoriented, right into a reception for the MBA students. They were wearing suits and had cocktails in hand, I was wearing my frizzy hair like a nimbus around my head and was clutching a crumbled map. Although the Law Centre itself was closed for the last day of renovations, hopefully now that I've found the place I'll be able to make a more dignified entrance next time!

One of the coolest parts about that long day, though, was the trip on the Star Ferry. The Star Ferry has been around since 1880, and used to be the only way people could get between Kowloon and HK island, as I think I mentioned in an earlier post. Although many still use it to commute, for us it was a breezy, 8-minute break from walking, which afforded us amazing views of the harbor, all for about 30 cents. I could ride that ferry back and forth for half a day!

First Impressions

I'm writing this post from a sunny spot on my platform bed in my tiny apartment in the Jordan neighborhood of Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tom is here with me watching the Yankees play the White Sox on TV :-). After ~3.5 days in HK, our internal clocks are slowly starting to adjust (HK is 12 hours ahead of NY time, or, as Tom says, Maine time) but we still get up pretty early and have trouble staying up past 9 pm.

If I had to describe our arrival in HK with one word, that would be "welcoming." Everything is welcoming -- the public transportation is incredibly efficient and user friendly, people are helpful, the apartment did not lose my reservation...! After an uneventful 15+ hour flight, we got to the HK airport on time, our bags showed up on the luggage carousel immediately, we had no problems with customs or immigration, and the Airport Express train brought us within blocks of our apartment. We dropped off our bags and rinsed our faces, then headed to the nearby Temple Street night market to check out the stalls and get some food.

The Temple Street night market is a popular tourist destination, and has all sorts of cheap goods for sale from ~7 pm to midnight every night. While we were mostly on a search for food, I will definitely check out some of the t-shirt and jewelry options there...and practice my bargaining skills. We decided to eat at an open-air seafood/noodle place -- Tom had oysters in a ginger and green onion sauce and I had noodles and pork. We each got a healthy-sized bottle of Tsingtsao (sp?) beer as well, and thoroughly enjoyed our meal under the breeze created by a dozen well-placed fans.

We woke up the next day and headed up to Kowloon Tong to take care of Tom's school registration, as his classes start a week earlier than mine. The City University of Hong Kong is a pretty, leafy, modern campus in a nice suburb, and Tom got all of his logistics taken care of relatively easily. The school is connected to an extremely nice mall, with an indoor ice skating rink and lots of ritzy stores. Getting up there on the metro takes ~25 minutes door-to-door, which was a nice change from my hourlong commute in Washington (I think my commute will end up being even shorter, as my school is a little closer).

After the trip to KT, we accidentally took a 7-hour nap from 4 pm until 11 pm -- the 12-hour time change really is tough to get used to! After the nap, a couple of hours of reading were followed by a brief night's sleep and we woke up on Saturday determined to resume normal hours.

Our day began with a walk down Nathan Road (a commercial thoroughfare that runs next to Kowloon Park, and is lined with gorgeous old banyan trees along certain blocks) down to the waterfront promenade where we looked across the bay (ocean?) to HK Island proper. Unfortunately, the smog from the mainland was readily visible as well, but the view was still gorgeous -- huge skyscrapers backed by pretty mountains. We stopped by the Star Ferry terminal, which, until the metro was built in 1980, was the only way that commuters could get from Kowloon (the northern part of HK Special Administrative Region, which is connected to the mainland) and HK Island. A night tour of the harbor by ferry is towards the top of my to-do list! Finally, we picked up a late lunch at "Tim Kee's French Sandwichs" in one of the more derelict parts of the city -- a trip off the beaten path which was totally worth it.

A tropical thunderstorm kept us indoors in the afternoon, but today is another sunny day and we plan on more adventures. Delicious buns from a nearby bakery will fuel our morning!

Packing

In the past month I've finished editing an article for the law review, wrapped up my clerkship at the Federal Reserve, thrown two 30th birthday parties for my one and only, gotten engaged to that same one and only, moved out of Jenny and Eric's spare bedroom in Washington, D.C. and unloaded all of my things into my parents' upstate New York attic for the umpteenth time of my life, and negotiated the terms of a Hong Kong apartment with a gentleman named Pinky Lung.

Said apartment is only 450 square feet (and in HK, they trickily count one's share of common spaces such as the elevator as part of the square footage), so packing should theoretically be easy: bring as little as possible. But 5 months in Asia consisting of both school and traveling necessitates a wider range of things than one would think. My goal is to throw it all together tomorrow morning, to give me all of Tuesday for a last-minute trip to CVS (to stock up on hair gel and migraine medicine) and Border's (to try and find a Cantonese phrasebook). Tom and I rendezvous at his uncle's house in Boston on Tuesday evening, and take the shuttle flight out of Logan on Wednesday morning to JFK. From there, it's a bit more than 15 hours directly to HKG. Hopefully the positive reviews I've read about Cathay are true!

I will try and use this blog as a bit of a journal -- and a nice, optional (for my readers) way to provide updates :-).