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!