Let me start off the post with pictures from the laser show last night. Anyone who reads this blog needs to watch this show!
Carrie, Erin, Faith, Ashley and myself
the camera kinda focused on the background...
Bruce Lee's star!
We are finally settled in! No more moving! Oh today was long...and really funny.
We were told to meet our group down in the lobby of the YMCA at 10:45 this morning to head to our dorms for the remainder of our stay in Hong Kong. We ate breakfast with the rest of the group.
Erin, Chris, Jeff, and I at breakfast
Erin and I both have 3 rolling suitcases...it is extremely difficult to navigate them, neither of us thought this through while packing. So we called down to the front desk to have a bellhop help us take the six suitcases to our bus for us. We were not prepared for the eye rolling and confused looks from the members of our group. I had assumed that everyone else had a lot of luggage and might need some assistance taking it to the bus as well, boy was I wrong. Most of the other UT students had one suitcase and maybe a backpack. Our bellhops got our luggage on the bus and we hopped on the bus (I was a little bit embarrassed). We arrived at the Chinese University of Hong Kong a little before noon. Our bus stopped at the bottom of a hill and we were told to take our luggage to the top where our dorms were located. How on earth am I supposed to lug three rolling suitcases weighing a good 40 pounds a piece up a 200 yard hill?! Erin and I were both concerned about this. We obviously took the longest to get up the hill and were exhausted upon arrival. We received our room keys and proceeded to the third floor, another difficult feat with all the luggage.
that's a lot of suitcases
Faith is so excited to hear about lugging everything up three flights of stairs
Now it was time for lunch. The cafeterias on the campus are called canteens...not sure about that one, must be a strange Chinese translation. The closest spot to our dorms was another dim sum style restaurant. Our dorm TA took charge of ordering. When the food started to arrive I was questioning whether or not it was a good idea to let her chose.
sweet and sour chicken foot, you don't actually eat it...you suck on it
cashew and curry noodles...i stayed away
a view of a little bit of everything
After lunch the only advertising professor at the Chinese campus, Dr. Lee, along with the dorm TAs led us around to the different buildings. We got to see many of the dorms, libraries, and canteens around campus.
broadcasting room
infinity fountain overlooking the harbor
Dr. Lee told us this clock is a popular meeting spot for couples because it's design means a long lasting and strong relationship
the highest point at CUHK
statue of Confucius
our classroom starting tomorrow!
Finally when all of the touring was over our group went together to the IKEA to buy bedding. This IKEA was on the 5th and 6th floor of a large home decor shopping center.
The mattresses in our dorm rooms are very thin mats so Erin, Faith and I decided to buy cheap mattress pads to soften up our sleeping area. We assumed other kids in the group would do the same thing. Wrong again. Everyone made fun of us for our huge bundled up mattresses. Let's see who's laughing tomorrow when we got a good night's sleep on our awesome mattress pads...
divas at checkout...the rest of the group is waiting behind me for us to check out
see what i mean?
before...
the final product, luxurious right?
Ashley, Erin, Faith and I finished off the evening by catching the MTR to find dinner. It was about 9pm by this time so not much was open in the area. We ended up at the bistro inside the Grand Central Plaza a.k.a. the IKEA cafeteria. Surprisingly, the food was not that bad. I think we were all getting sick of Asian food and needed a bit of a change.
Well, that's about all for tonight. Erin and I are both updating our blogs and I'm about the hit the sack. We did a lot of lugging luggage and walking today. whew...
We got to meet the rest of our group this morning when we went on a tour of the city! There are 20-25 of us from UT. Our professor is so cool and she dresses really cute. I'm excited to start class on Wednesday, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Anyways, about the tour...we woke up early this morning and met up with our group in the hotel lobby. We all loaded up a bus with a tour guide and began our tour. The guide was cracking us up the whole time. She would say something in broken English that she thought was hilarious and had the most ridiculous and funny laugh. Her laugh would make us laugh so it was a great time.
The first stop on the tour was Victoria's Peak, the highest point in Hong Kong. The city is built into the side of a mountain so from the peak you can see all of the buildings as well as the beaches and harbor.
Faith, Erin, and I at Victoria's Peak
cool archway at Victoria's Peak
view of part of the city of Hong Kong
After Victoria's Peak the group headed to the Stanley Market. This was just a traditional marketplace, like you would see in Mexico. The shops were very close together and had a random assortment of items at each stall.
one of the streets at the market
CUTEST little dog in one of the stores!
they play golf in Hong Kong Steffan!
Our next stop as at a jewelry manufacturing company. We got to see how the company designs and creates the pieces of jewelry they sell. At the end of the tour we had the opportunity to purchase their pieces. I got some beautiful pearls!
Dynasty jewelry manufaturing
jewelry production
By this time we were all so hungry! The last stop on our tour was a boat ride around the harbor and lunch at a floating restaurant. This place was so cool. The architecture was typical Chinese. The entire building/boat was so elaborately decorated with dragons and chinese symbols. We sat down at a table to eat and were so confused about how to eat the food in front of us. Luckily, one of the other girls sitting at our table was an expert in Chinese food and helped us out. Everything I tried tasted so good! We would finish one plate and waiters just kept bringing more and more until we were stuffed. The dessert, "coconut pudding", was a little strange but I loved everything else. At the end of the dining room was a Chinese imperial throne. We just had to take pictures!
still on land waiting for our water taxi
on board the boat
our cute new friend Ashley!
the boat driver
how cool is this restaurant?
view of Hong Kong from the harbor
Ashley and I at the restaurant
all smiles
our attempts to look like serious royalty
All of us were exhausted after the tour so we took naps. We all went to look at the Hong Kong Avenue of the Stars. This is the Hong Kong version of the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. We found Bruce Lee! The Avenue of the Stars was on the same boardwalk to view the Hong Kong laser light show. This was amazing! The tallest buildings in Hong Kong across the harbor participate in a 15 minute long laser and light show complete with matching music. Hong Kong is beautiful at night because of all of the colorful lights and signs. Adding music and laser lights in the mix makes for a fantastic show. I'm exhausted from today so I think that's all for now.
After sleeping off the jet-lag Faith, Erin, and I were ready to explore our new home. We got ready and packed our bags for the concierge to come pick up for us. The first thing we wanted to do was walk around the Peninsula before we had to check out of the room. First stop: the pool. We had seen pictures of the Peninsula pool from one of the hotel's books they had in our suite. It was just as fabulous as the pictures. I got out my camera and snapped a picture as I was walking in and was told by a staff member that no pictures were allowed. Bummer...
swimming pool at the Peninsula
We also stopped by the work out facility and the spa. I could spend an entire vacation in that spa. It was so beautiful and relaxing even in just the waiting area. After our tour of the hotel we made our way to the dining room for breakfast. There were so many choices at the buffet, Belgian waffles to pork dumplings.
Steffan made it to Hong Kong!
my huge breakfast at the Peninsula
Erin sipping coffee
After breakfast we decided it was time to take a look at our surroundings. I felt so small walking out into the street full of people and sky scraping buildings. We found some typical Asian market places that smelled terribly of fish...
unidentified foods at the Asian market
Hong Kong loves KAPPA!
We stumbled upon a large staircase in between Tiffany's and the Asian outlet mall and decided to see where it would lead us. It took us to this amazing park right in the middle of Hong Kong called Kowlong Park. It reminded me of Central Park in New York City, a bunch of trees and flowers in the middle of a huge city. Erin needed to use the restroom so we stopped by one in the park. Little did we know that Asian bathrooms are a little different from those in the United States.
Thai Chi students walking down the steps from the park
Chinese aviary
Faith and I at a really cool sculpture inside the park
FLAMINGOS!
first experience with Asian toilets...
poor Erin was the guinea pig
As we continued on our journey through the streets we came across the 5th avenue/Rodeo Drive of Hong Kong. This shopping puts anything in America to shame. All of the stores are huge. They are multiple stories high and some are also underground.
Marc Jacobs
Prada
Dior
Tiffany's!
This is the store I was most excited about. I had never been to an H&M so I did some damage there. Brandi, you are going to be so jealous!!
In the middle of the shopping area we found a giant sculpture. It was so cool. We offered to help a couple of Chinese women take a picture in front of it and they returned the favor. The statue was surrounded by beautiful architecture and an atrium about four stories off of the ground. We saw several brides and what looked like prom pictures being taken in this area.
helicopter leaving the launch pad from the top of the Peninsula...makes the Rolls Royce look like a taxi cab
At this time we needed to check into our room at the YMCA with the rest of the group. All of our luggage was still at the Peninsula next door so we had a bellhop run it over to the other hotel for us. The Peninsula staff seemed disappointed they we were downgrading ourselves...so were we :(. Walking across a busy street with a bellhop toting all 9 of our suitcases was quite hilarious though.
