#4: China [Hong Kong]

First Week In Hong Kong

Arrival in Hong Kong:

    Arriving in Hong Kong from the Philippines was actually a lot more difficult than I had originally thought it would be. Before I could get on my plane to Hong Kong, I was supposed to pay an international airport terminal fee of 700 pesos. I only had 200 in my wallet do I asked around for the nearest ATM. The first ATM was out of service, so I went to the information desk to ask where the other ATM machines were located. However, all the other ATMs were VISA only, so I couldn’t get any money out. At first I didn’t think I was going to make it out of the Philippines because I didn’t have the money to pay the airport tax. Fortunately this fool happened to get $100 Hong Kong dollars back in April just for fun, so I was able to exchange it to make up the 500 difference (with only 20 pesos left over!). 

    The flight seemed really short and I hurried to the baggage claim area and then headed to the bus terminal. The bus fare was $20 HK and took about an hour to get to the Sha Tin New Towne Center, where I was supposed to hop on the train to my new home at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The transit station was actually an enormous 7 story mall and was packed full of people at 10 pm on a tuesday night! Anyways, I made it to the student hostels in time and cranked up the air conditioning in my room. I met my orientation week roommate, who is from Germany. For some reason he didn’t like the air conditioning to be on, it made him “too cold” and i guess “Germans like to get acclimated to their environment”. Well call me a baby, but I have trouble sleeping in 85 degree weather with 80% humidity. 

Orientation:

    Orientation was basically a reiteration of orientation at UCSD, but I learned a few new things about my temporary school. One thing I learned very quickly is that the campus is very tiring to walk across. CUHK is literally built on a mountain and you have to walk up steep hills and staircases to get anywhere. The buses are very infrequent as well. I guess this is a good thing though because I need to lose the pounds that I will be gaining from the large amounts of food I have been eating here. 

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    During orientation I met a lot of people, but I forgot most of their names. However, I have become friends with a lot of people from the United States, especially the kids from the UC schools. It appears that UCSD has more study abroad students at CUHK than any other university, with around 15 students. The second day we had a welcome lunch with our college. I am in United College and live in Hang Seng Hostel, which is at the bottom of the hill. I’ll post a picture of how many stairs I have to walk up each day just to get to the bus stop. I really like my room though and the building is pretty well maintained. I was given a double and just met my roommate earlier today. His name is Derek and he is a first year from nearby Macau. My room is on the first floor of our building, but we still have a decent view of the ocean and the mountains. 

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    On Saturday, September 4, 2010, we were given a day tour of Hong Kong in which we visited the Peak on the top of HK Island, Stanley market to the south, and Tsiem Sha Tsui in Kowloon. The Peak had amazing views even though the air was very smoggy and it was hard to see past the island. The mountains above HK are home to its most affluent residents. During British colonial rule it was exclusively a British residential area. Over time, it became open to all government officials, but still exclusive form the rest of the population. The mountains were extremely exclusive especially before the technological age of air conditioning because the weather was much more comfortable than below, usually 1-2 degrees celsius cooler during the summer. Now the peak is open to any resident that can afford to live there, meaning that it is still a very restricted place to live. Housing in Hong Kong is unbelievably pricey. In fact, a home in the mountains above HK sold for a record $59 million US dollars. 

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During the 20th century, the easiest way to make it to the Peak was by the Peak Tram, which winds it way to the top from the city center on a steep incline. At the top there is a state-of-the-art visitor center that has really interesting architecture. The cost to go to the top of the building is $3 USD, but i chose to wait until my mom visits to spend the money and instead bought a mango sundae at McDonalds. For lunch I had noodles with pork and shrimp dumplings. 

    After the peak we headed to the southern side of Hong Kong island, where many Europeans and Americans live. (Oh and according to the US consulate representative who visited the Americans, there are over 84,000 US citizens in Hong Kong.) Anyways, south HK island has pretty nice beaches with good places to eat and shop. Our destination was Stanley, where I bought more ice cream and bartered with a Chinese woman, who gave in to my price despite the fact that I did not intend on buying anything (bartering is fun!). 

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    After Stanley, we traveled back to Kowloon peninsula so we could visit the area known as Tsim Sha Tsui. This area has really nice views of the city skyline of Hong Kong. We decided to travel along the Avenue of Stars, featuring handprints and plaques dedicated to famous Hong Kong film stars. Of course we had to pose next to the plaques of the most famous HK stars: Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Chow Yun Fat. 

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We also attempted to do jumping pictures in front of the Bruce Lee statue, but it failed epically. A lot of people were staring at us so we eventually gave up.

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    After walking the entire Avenue of Stars, we ended up outside the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Next we took a picture by the Beijing 2008 olympic torch and then found a place to grab some food. We stayed around Tsim Sha Tsui until 8 pm because we wanted to see the famous Hong Kong light show. It wasn’t that amazing, but certain aspects of it were really cool such as the light displays on the Bank of China tower and the fact that it was synchronized with a Chinese music mix. 

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    The light show only lasted for about 15 minutes and after it ended we left to explore one of the most lively streets in Hong Kong- Nathan Road. Nathan Road is pretty much a combination of Chinatown and the Las Vegas strip. It’s a really interesting and vibrant area with a lot of cool architecture. We actually stopped in one of the malls just to go up the escalators to the higher floors with glass walls. We travelled down Nathan Road to reach the Temple Street Night Market, where you can barter for cheap knockoffs. The walkway is very narrow and the place was full of locals and tourists. By the time we reached the end of the market it was already 10, so we walked to the nearest MTR station to catch a train so we would make it on the last campus shuttle. Some of my friends decided to stay out later and ended up going karaoking until 7 am. I on the other hand, had a good nights sleep. 

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The very last picture is of me with my new friends that also attend UCSD. We took the picture because we are all familiar with Miramar, right by our campus.

#2 Philippines [Cebu]

Philippines Beach Vacation

    I finished off my trip to the Philippines with a three day vacation on the tropical island of Cebu, about an hours flight from Manila. On the way there I happened to sit next to a Chinese businesswoman on the bus and then again on the airplane. We talked for a good amount of time and I told her how it was my first time on my own and that I was a student at CUHK. She then offered to have her personal driver give me a tour around the city of Cebu and Mactan Island. I was shocked by her generosity and refused at first, but gave in after she said she would be resting for a few days because she was jet-lagged from Los Angeles and wouldn’t need him anyways. On the way to my hostel (my first hostel experience!), she was telling me about her family and mentioned that she is the aunt of Kim Chiu! Kim Chiu is one of the most famous Filipina actresses, so I asked her if she could tell Kim that I said “hi”. Basically....KIM CHIU KNOWS I EXIST! I feel so lucky to have run into her. She went out of her way to make sure I was safe and enjoyed my short trip to Cebu, which I am extremely grateful for.  Everyone I encountered on my trip to the Philippines treated me like family and I will always remember all that they did for me. 

 Tour of Cebu City

    The first place we went on our tour was the Taoist Temple, perched on the hills of Cebu City. The temple was beautiful and gave me a small preview of what I would see in China.

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 It wasn’t very large, but the architecture was very intricate and the landscaping was amazing. We actually were told not to take pictures of the specific shrines, such as the one on the left, but I managed to sneak it in before the guards noticed.    

    We then headed towards downtown Cebu City, where many relics from the colonial Spanish era still remained standing. On the way we crossed Colon Street, the oldest road in the Philippines. The traffic wasn’t as bad as Manila, but it was exactly easy to navigate because there were hordes of people in the streets. We stopped at Magellan’s Cross, which is dedicated to the early explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who died in nearby Mactan Island in a battle with natives. If you can recall, Magellan travelled all around the world before dying in a battle in the Philippines. His death and the defeat of the Europeans are a source of pride among locals because they considered the first battle between Asians and Europeans to be a victory for Asians. He was killed by Lapu Lapu, who was a warrior and is regarded as a national hero for stopping the European advance. 

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Outside the monument there was a poster dedicated to the Hong Kong residents killed in the Manila bus hostage crisis. I noticed that most of the flower bouquet stands had been knocked down and picked apart, so I gave two begging children 20 pesos each to help me clean up the memorial. I h-a-t-e giving money to beggars, but I figured it was the right thing to do for the memory of the innocent people killed earlier in the week. Also, when I was outside the monument, some people asked to take a picture with me. They offered to take a picture of me in return so I accepted. However i didn't think they would jump in on the picture on my camera...

    Fort San Pedro, a very old spanish fort, was right down the street so that’s where we headed next. I showed them my student ID and i got 10 pesos off the admission price (25 cents- yay for being cheap). It only took about 10 minutes to walk around the perimeter wall of the fort and I managed to get some pretty decent pictures as well.

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It was interesting how many Koreans visit the Philippines and it seemed that the fort was full of multiple Korean tour groups. After Fort San Pedro, we headed a few blocks inland to the Basilica del Santo Nino, a very old Catholic church. Since it Sunday on a three day weekend, the church was packed full of people. There were even people in grandstands outside for mass. Santo Nino is basically the same as any other basilica, except the church complex had a really wide plaza for outdoor services. 

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    I didn’t stay at Santo Nino for too long because of the crowds, plus I was pretty tired and felt like going back to the hostel. When I finally checked in, a young woman from Poland invited me to tour the city on foot so I joined her on a really long trip downtown. We stopped by a couple of malls and bought some sweets, which included chocolate cake from Goldilocks and dried mangoes. We also tried to get into a casino, but were too underdressed. By the way, the Abercrombie and Fitch shirt I was wearing, I purchased for $3 at a market. 

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We walked around downtown for a while and then ate dinner at Jollibees, where I showed her how Filipinos eat. 

Tour of Mactan Island

    On my second day in Cebu, I decided to travel to nearby Mactan Island. Mactan island is the adjacent island to Cebu where the airport and most of the nearby beaches are located. The most famous resort is the Shangri La, which is this really fancy hotel with a private cove. I was able to pass off as a guest and went down to their beach. The water was really warm and there was an abundance of tropical fish. 

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    Since I hadn’t really spent much money on food in Cebu I decided to go all out and eat lunch at the Shangri La. The buffet was $30 and most items on the menu were around $20, so I bought the cheapest thing possible- a club sandwich. Although it was a really good, I don’t plan on spending $12 on a sandwich again any time soon. After lunch, we headed to the other famous resort on Mactan Island, but stopped by the Lapu Lapu Monument for a photo. 

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    As I already mentioned, Lapu Lapu was the famous warrior that killed Magellan in the battle between the europeans and the natives. Next was the Plantation Bay resort, which is famous for its lagoon-like atmosphere. The entire hotel is placed on or next to man-made lagoons that are clean swimming  pools. The lagoons are large enough to accommodate kayaks and had small sand islands. 

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 Many of the hotel rooms even had docks to tie up the canoes and stairwells to get into the lagoon. The nicest suites were place in the middle of the lagoons! After Plantation Bay, I went back to my hostel and relaxed for the remainder of the trip. Although I was only there for less than three days, I’m really glad I made the trip to Cebu because it was good to relax and see the natural beauty of the Philippines.