our group in front of a tree in Hong Kong

Hong Kong Day 2

again Monday night i woke up twice during the night. i have yet to sleep more than 3 hours straight. i woke up early and decided to go for a run. it seems safe to run on the streets, but it is very humid. i only ran for about 34 minutes. i ran to a graveyard which was very impressive. there were tall tombs up on hills so you could see almost every grave. it was somewhat spooky but mostly beautiful. i will have come back to take pictures later. i found a park and i started to run on a stone path that ran through it. along the path there were many people doing Tai Chi. i felt sorry weaving through some of them, but they just smiled and continued to stretch?. but then i started to hear shouting. I didnt notice the shouting at first because i was listening to my mp3 player. it took me just a few seconds to realize they were shouting at me to get on this jogging track in the middle of the park that i hadnt seen at first. man i felt like a silly goose. other than that i was able to jog around pretty well. this old asian guy was totally kicking my butt on the jogging track. I was totally drenched with sweat by the time i had finished running.

later we met our profs and visited the other universities in which we will be working at. the profs were all super friendly and nice. they spoke english really well because english is the teaching language in Hong Kong -95% of the classes (except in HKU) are taught in English. the university that i will be working at is called Hong Kong City University and is located outside of a big shopping mall called Festival Wok. so chelsea and i are excited about that -we could possibly shop every day! We also went to Hong Kong's biggest university, if i remember correctly it is just called Hong Kong University. the three other girls will be working here. to get to this university we had to take a train and then a bus up this really steep montain -since HKU is located high up in the montains. we were all pretty tired when we got back and some others later went to a local pub, but five of us stayed and i thought them how to play spades and fluxx. I also got skype to work and talk to benjamin and my dad which was very excellent. skype with benjamin and his computer worked very well. skype on his cell cut out often and skype on my dad's computer was very delayed. but it all worked and was very good.

i feel a ton less homesick now and i had my favorite food from asia . it was some type of spung cake -so there is a good chance that it was british food. anyways my throat hurts so i hope i am not getting sick.

Hong Kong Day 1

Here is my first post from hong kong: sorry it will be long because i didnt post last night:i made it ok. it has taken FOREVER to get internet. we did everything right and they messed up something that we were supposed to do, so it wasnt our fault. I had to wipe away tears as i walked away from benjamin and my family =(. i arrived with two others, they seem nice i will tell you more about them later. and i met my roomate who seems cool her bf loves scrubs and she loves cards. i really wish i weren't here. i feel so sad and alone and everything is really strange. i had some dinner here and it was like chinese food. i will like all the tea they give you. i dont feel jet lagged. i slept off and on during the flight -it was soooooo long and uncomfortable. and the movies werent that good. they had nanny mcpheebs, big momma's house 2, the transporter 2, the interpretor, and narnia. well naria was ok (i didnt watch it all) and the interpretor was ok but i didnt want to watch it. i got a window seat and a nice older man sat in the asle, but the middle person didnt show. so that was AWESOME. one of the meals was really good -it was chicken and rice. other than that not the best. the tylonal PMs sorta knocked me out but not for over 2hrs at a time. it was strange, once i got off the plane, it smelled like a chinese restaurant. i feel strange and will probably go to bed somewhat soon. i met guangming (one of the students) he seems nice and very gungho. mike, the IIT guy, seems nice. likes similar stuff as me (except really likes rap). my roomate seems to be cool. we both have boyfriends, she loves fight club, cards, and other things that seem good to me. mike and guamang and i all walked around a bit. it is going to be weird. i hope to find a place to workout. it is weird that i am like 12 hours ahead of you all in time.

first full day post: last night was rough, i took the coldest shower imaginable because i didnt realize there was a switch for the hot water. so i showered really fast then saw the switch and then took a hot shower. sleeping was alright. the beds here are very hard though. both chelsea and i woke up around 3:30am wide awake and starving. it was hard to fall asleep -it was really weird I kept thinking it was 5:30am. finally i did fall asleep and had a horrible dream in which my family and benjamin all died in a car crash because of me. this woke me up at 6:50am. so i woke up crying and freaking out. i figured everyone was ok, but i was still freaked. my parents were on so i talked to them but my sister did almost get in a car accident last morning so that was weird. anywho the people in the reu seem nice i really like all the girls they seem fun. one guy had a shirt that said derivers wanted. hehe. there is a nice cheap cafeteria around the corner which had decent food. chelsea and i went there for breakfast they have great muffins. then we met everyone and went and had "orientation" with students from hkbu. they were nice they had us play some strange chinese ice breaker games which is better explained in person. we also learned some chinese. of course i cant remember any of it now. then we went and ate dim sum. which is basically a lot of appetizers -90% of it fried. some was alright, bothing was outstanding but i tried almost everything except chicken feet. i had crab eggs and seaweed and who knows what else. i was full by the end though so that was good.

after dim sum (this was around 2pm) the students took us to a beautiful mall called festival wok (last night mike guangming and i definitely didnt walk there and instead went to a slumpish looking strip of stores). they had so many designer name brands and it wasnt even their biggest mall. we got octapus cards which allow us to ride all the public transportation and even buy things from most stores -i think. we rode the subway to kowloon park and walked around the mall there and walked past kowloon park. people are walking everywhere and i have seen some very cute asian babies. some people walk around with face masks and i was nervious but one of the HKBU students, named Penny, told me that it was probably because either they were sick with a cough and didnt want to infect others or didnt want others to infect them. it was still rather unnerving. anyways this mall was beautiful too but expensive. then we walked right out onto victoria harbor -i think. it was gorgeous and a lot of fun. we walked along the harbor where they had famous HK stars like jackie chan's hand prints. after that we were getting tired and took the train back up to HKBU.

Then we all went out to eat dinner at the cafeteria. i had steamed chicken and rice, it was not the best. i barely got the chicken out and mostly had bones. so i bought a muffin to eat later. my tummy still feels strange and i am very tired. i havent gotten to see much of the university, i still need to find out where i can workout, etc. i can see a track from my room but i dont know how long it is. getting 25 dollars a day is about 200 hong kong dollars and i definitely dont use that much to pay for food. so i am slowly accumulating money from that. It was raining off and on all day and cloudy, i guess that is how it is most of the time and was very humid. no one wears tank tops although the two girls from HKBU, Penny and Sero, both said it was acceptable to wear them. anywho, i hope to be able to sleep through the night and tomorrow i meet the professor i will work for. i will actually have to take the subway to get to where i will work each day because my prof isnt from HKBU. chelsea doesnt know much about the research project either so that is good =) hehe. anyways she seems cool. well i should go and see what everyone else is up to.

-much love from a panda in china =)

Last Post in USA

tomorrow morning i leave for hong kong im nervous i wish i didnt have to leave but im still somewhat excited. i will keep you all updated somewhat on what goes on on the other side of the world. Hopefully I will be able to keep this updated somewhat regularly but please don't hold typos or spelling errors against me =) (this was actually done friday night but i forgot my password and had to make a new blog) =)