SO. Long time no post. It's been just over a week since I've arrived in Hong Kong, and as many have seen from pictures I've posted elsewhere, I've left my room a little since I've been here. The university itself is a little out of sorts in its preparation for exchange students, which was probably not helped by my late arrival Friday night.
The flight itself was without incident, amusingly enough we ended the flight with a cup o' noodles. I caught up on Flight of the Conchords, which has been a gift and a curse, the latter more specifically when I've met New Zealanders here (hard to find a common ground on their country that doesnt involve hobbits or singing comedians, shows you how "worldly" I really am). After collecting my luggage, I met with my exchange buddy Oscar, who took me into town and to my residence. The hall itself is the farthest from campus, at least a 15 minute busride away, but has turned out quite nicely in the end. Built in the 1860s, the Victorian style mansion has been used as a British Lord's castle, a French Mission, a military base for the invading Japanese and finally a university residence. As I've indicated to a few of you, it has very much a "Harry Potter"-like feel, with high ceilings and various dated traditions, including a "High Table Dinner", a monthly occurrence that sees all hall residents decked out in robes and take part in a ceremonial meal. Having arrived late Friday, I missed the first one of the year, but my fellow exchangers (all 6 of them) declared it an...."interesting" experience.
The students residing in the hall are a mixed bag, exchange students aside. The majority are of course Hong Kong locals, many of whom stay up late doing god knows what, running and wrestling in the halls and keeping everybody up. School might not be the priority for some of them, or they just relish an escape from their families. There are other full-time students that come from other China-associated regions, some from the mainland, Taiwan and Macau. My closest association with permanent residents has been with a Macau national named Terrance (sp) and a Shanghainese named Ben. Both are roommates, Terrance is tall and quiet who helped me out with an initially troublesome room situation (they didn't have one for me when I arrived, I slept on a couch my first night, no biggy), and Ben is a more talkative, shorter character that chides Terrance often ("He's from Macau so his dad owns a Casino, that's why I'm his best friend" etc) and aspires to move to the West (he's taking his TOEFL exams this weekend).
Who are my roommates? Yes, I have 2, which is the case for most residences here. Luckily, my hall has some of HKU's largest rooms, which is a small relief. One roommate (Ash) is from Canada, goes to Schulich at York and has a job lined up at TD Securities. The other (Julian) is from Southern England, and is a bit of an unintentional character. He's an outspoken conservative and is quite proud of his proper "Oxford" accent, and aspires to work in estate management (essentially handling the wealth, possessions and property of Britain's upper class). He's always good for a new Britishism a day, for instance "queues" instead of lines, "rucksack" instead of backpack and "dappy" instead of...I didn't totally figure out what that one meant, but the intentions were the same as one would have to describe a dumb blonde.
The weather has been fantastic: Consistently 16-20 degrees during the day, usually without a cloud in the sky. However, clouds aren't necessary here to obstruct one's vision: smog is as bad as many of you might think. By about 3pm, good luck if you can see across the water to Kowloon. Some of the exchange students have tried running outside and have found that their lung capacity was hampered by the smog. The food? Great, and cheap. My first meal was dumplings. I'm forced to buy into a meal plan at residence, but it's generally barely edible and many of us go to a mall ten minutes away for cheap restaurants. It is a rarity that I've spent more than $10 on a square meal here. So far I've stuck mostly to local cuisine, with the exception of one night in which I had sushi and another where I ate Bubba Gump Shrimp at the top of what is one of Hong Kong's highest points (The Peak).
I'm going to take a breath there and leave you with the requisite music selection. I made a mix before I left Toronto on December 31st, thus it's name. It definitely has its moments, but it was definitely made on the fly and could've been better. In any case, enjoy!
Dr. Dreidel - The New Year's Randommix
http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=f81df8c
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