5 reasons HKU is better than Durham University

Study abroad. The clue is in the name, but I only recently remembered the study part - and it has kicked me hard. With the end of semester creeping closer - and 11 tests and assignments coming with it, I haven't done many exciting things...but it's certainly got me thinking about what I do and don't like about the University of Hong Kong. Don't worry Durhamites, there'll be a response post coming soon, but for now - here's why I love HKU:

1. The courses are more interactive/creative. The lecturers have a lot more control and freedom over here in how they teach and test students. For instance, for my journalism course, as well as more traditional assessments such as writing articles and having tests, we're also assessed on our twitter skills - using the hashtag #hKUDOS to inform people about news on campus.

Great time to be studying journalism in Hong Kong

Or for Psychology, in which 20% of our semester marks comes from tutorial attendance and participation - so no awkward, silent tutorials (Psychologists, I'm looking at you) but instead lively debate and discussion.

2. They know how to do food. No more overpriced, disgusting YUM food and nothing else to choose from. We have a noodle restaurant, a vegetarian buffet restaurant, two canteens, a social enterprise cafe, a pizza/kebab takeaway, western restaurant, Subway, Taiwanese food stall, Frozen yoghurt stall, and two Starbucks.

The Starbucks on campus is the pride and joy of HKU, for a pretty good reason...it's THE cheapest Starbucks in the world.

Why? Although I don't understand the details or reasons behind it, HKU subsidises the food outlets on campus - and often by a decent amount. This means a veggie patty sub and cookie from Subway will only cost me $30 (£2.50)

£1.80 for a coffee? Too tempting..

3. The campus and it's facilities

Despite Hong Kong being far more densely populated than Durham, their ability to build upwards, as well as expanding quickly when needed means a large campus with brand-new facilities. It has a massive library and a study centre (Chi Wah Learning Commons), quirky study spaces, pods and beanbags, a free gym, so much food and even a garden with pond.

I have a special love for Chi Wah (although I guess you have to when the workload requires it to absorb your free time) - although it's probably as busy as Durham's library, it's a much nicer space to work in - from mini office cubicle pods, to lovely views over the courtyard, fishtanks and big comfy leather sofas and floor lamps everywhere.

Chi Wah even has rocking chairs

 The only downside to making the campus so homely is that people begin to treat it like home. It's not uncommon on a weekday afternoon to struggle to find somewhere to sit due to students bringing back nap time. In some napping hot-spots of the library, I've honestly found over half the people there napping. Whether it be with a subtle slightly bowed head, or head thrown back with gentle snoring or even sprawled out across an entire sofa - no shame here.

It's nap-time O'Clock

4. Cheap accommodation. Sure, it's not Durham Castle or anything - no plush carpets, ensuite or cleaners every day, but it's decent. Basic but clean. And it costs less than £1000 for the entire year, self-catered. I wish I could rant and rave about the locals holding meetings and screaming down the corridor at 4am, or that there's only a microwave and two hob rings (although 2 large fridges) between the 30 of us on our floor, but I can't. It's less than 20% the cost of College accommodation in Durham. Bloody marvellous.


5. The lecturers. From my ex-CNN anchor teacher for Journalism, and the monk for my Buddhist Studies course, to my lovely Psychology lecturer and my Mandarin teacher who makes us laugh every lesson (including our lesson in a local dim sum restaurant). I have to give each of them separate credit for teaching such brilliant classes:

Buddhism
Since I'm taking a class in Buddhist teachings this semester, the course is taught by a local monk. Aside from being a brilliant source of knowledge, he is a fantastic teacher with an open mind and good understanding of how young people see the world (His first degree was BSc International Business and Computer Science from Oregon!). Unlike what I expected from this course, he has talked about things I never would have expected. Here are some of his best gems:

• Cheesecake (I'm pretty sure it's his most favourite thing ever) - all buddhist teachings can be related to eating cheesecake supposedly.
• Love, sex, and courtship - he's incredibly open about this and it's also kind of funny when he tries matchmaking students in class to explain Buddhist teachings about love.
• Meditation - it must have been incredibly awkward for the latecomer who walked in to find an entire lecture theatre chanting quietly with their eyes closed
• Quantum physics - I have to admit I zoned out a little, but he did to try to help us understand how Buddhism explains quantum physics, among other scientific concepts.
• Occupy Central - an incredibly interesting conversation about what the Buddha would think of it all.

Ven. Sik Hin Hung

Psychology
My Psychology lecturer is also just as cool. He is incredibly friendly, always with a smile, and told us that we're always welcome to eat lunch with him as he often eats in the student canteen. He works hard to make his lectures interactive and relevant to real life (unlike Durham which tends to focus on the dry, academic side of Psychology). Here were his lecture rules he laid out at the beginning of the semester:

1. Have a nap if you need to, I will never wake you up - you'll feel better after a little sleep!
2. Sometimes, what your friend is saying to you is more important than what I'm saying - if you want to talk, you can (as long as you don't distract others around you).
3. Sometimes, there's something interesting on Facebook, and if you want to look at your phone, you can (as long as you don't distract others around you).

I can't think of any lecturers in Durham who have given me explicit permission to sleep in lectures! 

The lovely Dr Harry Hui

Mandarin
Coming from Mainland China, but living in Hong Kong for 10 years, our Chinese teacher is very open-minded and honest about life in China (even when compared to other Mandarin teachers in the department). As well as answering all of our many questions for her, both on Hong Kong politics and life in the mainland, she also makes an effort during our class break to show us snippets of Chinese pop songs (including the weirder "Chick, Chick" - see below!) and TV shows - including their version of Take Me Out.

She's also keen to get us to experience Chinese culture - she's given us ideas for Chinese films and TV to watch, and even taken us out for dim sum and finding vegetarian options for me one lesson! Although she said it was impractical for a field trip when we suggested a class visit to Shenzen, she promised she would come along if we were going and invited her.

I have never met someone who is so open-minded to different cultures, and it is refreshing to have a class in which we can joke about China's own silly traditions or her inability to say certain words (such as the ll at the end of 'hall') as well as telling us the parts of Chinese culture she truly believes would benefit us, or how we will always be ripped off even though we've learnt to bargain because we have "a foreign face".

Chick, Chick (NB: most Chinese music isn't this odd)

Thanks for an awesome 1st semester, HKU! 

A night at the (Cantonese) Opera

Attending a Cantonese opera, like any opera in fact, is not for the faint-hearted. It requires focus, an open-mind, intelligent thinking and a long attention span. With 'The Warrior's Marriage' having a mammoth 6 acts and lasting well over 3 hours, it's no wonder we started with four people, but only two of us managed to make it through to the end. If you think you can survive though, it is well worth the effort.

Picking up your tickets
Psshh, you're thinking - just pick them up at the theatre's box office. Nope. Buy them online, then pick them up from any number of ticket outlets - just not the theatre because it won't have a box office.

Reading your english guide
With the opera being sung and spoken in Canto, I cannot understate the importance of picking up the English synopsis when you enter. It was difficult to follow even with those, so you will be at a loss for words if you don't have this or a local to translate for you.

There's a short paragraph for each of the acts, which isn't much when each act lasts around 40mins and you don't know which character is which. Therefore, it makes a brilliant mystery game for discussing what actually happened during the short intervals between the acts.

The Costumes
These are absolutely fantastic, and were probably my favourite part of the show. They are loud, extravagant and over-the-top. My favourite were the hats with two really long feathers coming out from each side, bobbing around and swaying around mesmerisingly each time they moved or talked. At first, it can be difficult to establish who is male and female as the make-up is the same, and the costumes can look quite similar but you get used to this and looking closely at the costumes you can normally begin to distinguish.

Totally going to be able to fend off the enemy with these costumes on...

The Music
If you manage to nab a seat near the front, prepare for noise. The orchestra sit directly in front of the stage so if, like us, you're in the first few rows, and especially if you're towards the left of the stage then your ears are going to hurt from the cymbals pretty quickly as they tend to use them after each sentence. Two of our group were lucky enough to have brought ear plugs, but promptly (somehow) fell asleep with these in during the second act.

However, it's interesting to hear a Chinese Orchestra, and it's supposedly a bit softer, with more strings, than in Beijing Opera. Something I also noted was that their sheet music is not written in the traditional western way, but rather using gongche notation (i.e. using Chinese characters to mean notes) so it looks something like this:

I would love to learn to read music this way

The Fighting
I must say, we chose a fun performance to watch - being centred around a warrior meant we got an act playing out a battle - this meant not only sword or bamboo-stick fighting each other, but soldiers doing flips and cartwheels, the kings wearing even more extravagant costumes and solo sword-playing.

One-handed cartwheels from a soldier

The Story (Warning: Spoiler alert)
What did make me laugh was how an entire 40 minutes would be spent on slow, emotional scenes, such as the couple having a cup of tea in the back garden, with the warrior convincing his wife that her Father should join the war.
But the climax to the entire show lasted around 5 minutes in which a cloth letter written in blood is brought to the princess and she finds out that her 'Father' had actually killed her biological Father when she was a baby and pretended to be her Father, so was her enemy all along. Therefore she can forgive her husband for killing him as her 'Father' now means nothing to her. And they all lived happily ever after.

The star performers

Despite the 3 1/2 hour long performance requiring a lot of energy to keep up with the plot and dealing with the loud cymbals, it was a fascinating show in which I loved seeing the beautiful costumes, together with the Chinese music, and having great fun deciphering who was who. I would highly recommend it for anyone with a little perseverance.

The Haunted toilet of HKU

HKU is generally a very new campus compared to the old buildings we have in the UK. Only a handful of buildings can claim 100 years, but ghost stories are not reserved to the ancient. One recent evening, I found myself walking along the Chong Yuet Ming building on campus with a group of locals. Soon enough, the conversation and nervous giggling were translated for for me and I was told the story of Hong Kong University's haunted toilet.

Only a few decades ago, if not less, Hong Kong businessman and billionaire, Li Ka-Shing made a large donation to HKU, and an amenities centre was built and named in honour of his late wife, Chong Yuet Ming. She was also wheelchair-bound (this is important).

Left: Chong Yuet Ming. Right: Li Ka-Shing

Since then, claims have been made that the building, especially regarding the 3rd floor girls toilet, is haunted. Why? It was all designed to keep Chong Yuet Ming's spirit at rest.

Chong Yuet Ming Amenities Centre

At the minute a lot of the building is being renovated and so the toilet cannot be accessed - I've also heard that it might have been demolished. But there are supposed to be a number of features that have freaked people out.

So let's start with the door to the bathroom. On the front I am told is the usual symbol of a woman, but with one strange addition - large shoulder pads, a staple feature of Chong Yuet Ming's wardrobe. None of the other bathrooms in the building have this design. Inside the bathroom, there are 3 water pipes that run along the ceiling - seen to be signifying the 3 incense sticks used to show respects the dead.

I'm guessing it looks something like this?

Further to these signs, the door handle is placed unusually high - too high for a wheelchair-user to reach, and there are a few steps leading up the girl's bathroom, again making it impossible for say, a ghost in a wheelchair, to leave the bathroom. Supposedly none of these features are replicated elsewhere in the building.

The last reason to believe the building is designed to keep Chong Yuet Ming at rest here? The building, from certain angles, looks like a tomb. Certainly, sightings of a ghost matching Chong Yuet Ming's description have been reported by many.

CYM amenities centre....or tomb?

Whether these are simply creepy coincidences or there is truth behind the stories,I don't know. But certainly while the HKU campus may not be built on an ancient indian burial ground with a long history, it definitely has some stories to tell.

4 things Europe could learn from Korea, and 1 thing we shouldn't.

I went to Korea for the futuristic, high-tech world of Seoul, the glitz and glamour of K-Pop and K-Drama, and to see what everyone tells me is the "new Japan" - the cool-kid country of Asia. I would agree it is the new cool-kid country of Asia, but it was so much more than anything I could have imagined.

It is my absolute favourite country I have ever visited. There were so many things I fell in love with, and I've come to the conclusion that if Europe implemented my four favourite things about Korea then we would be a much better place.

1. 24-hour saunas are literally the best thing ever, and we need them (Scandinavians excused because they already have an awesome sauna culture). 'Jimjilbangs' as they are everywhere, especially in Seoul, and are often large multi-story spas offering everything from themed restaurants and hairdressers to karaoke rooms, game arcades and a PC room to play League of Legends. It may sound like a strange place to relax, but it's incredibly popular for couples, friends and families to stay overnight in a jimjilbang on the weekend (especially when it costs less than a tenner). 

Games arcade at Dragonhill Spa

The ground floor will have nude, gender-segregated baths such as jade, charcoal, mugwort, and massage baths at around 40c, as well as a cold bath. There was also a sauna, with a big bucket of salt in the middle you use to rub on your skin - and you normally help each other to rub salt on each other's backs where you can't reach yourself. Something a little odd, but you get used to quickly.

Next to the baths was where I made the brave decision to have an infamous 'Korean Scrub'. Lying completely naked on a plastic bed, a lady using what I can only describe as 'sandpaper mitts' will vigorously scrub almost every inch of your skin to get rid of all the dead skin. It was incredibly awkward and although not painful, certainly uncomfortable. I was skeptical of how soft it could make my skin, but it turned out to be COMPLETELY worth it and I would recommend it to anyone. I don't think I have ever felt that squeaky clean and my skin turned out as soft as a baby's bottom, as the saying goes.

When you're done in the baths, you throw on your t-shirt and shorts given by the sauna and head  on upstairs to the mixed areas. As well as singing karaoke or watching some Korean drama on TV, there are more clothed, mixed-gender treatment rooms available - including ice, oxygen, charcoal, jade, yellow soil and salt rooms. The latter being my favourite, where you get to bury yourself in layers of hot salt crystals. When you're done for the night, you can either crash out in the large common areas, or head to the sleeping rooms, where you can conk out in one of the many bunk beds.

The salt room at Siloam Spa

The most popular snacks from the restaurant I found to be surprising good - Sikhye, a sweet icy drink with grains of rice floating in it, and tea-boiled eggs with a sprinkling of salt. No idea why one is black, but it was good so can't complain.

Sauna snacks

NB - I'm hoping this blog has reached a wealthy investor in Britain by now, and I will come home to a chain of jimjilbangs around the country ready and waiting for me to enjoy....don't tell me you don't want jimjilbangs Europe, I won't believe you.

2. Talking to strangers is not a bad thing (Londoners, I'm looking at you). I never once felt alone or shunned by the Koreans during my trip. My favourite experience was probably when I got adopted by a family in Seoraksan National Park, when they saw I was alone and let me join their hike, and insisted on feeding me a lunch of ramen and homemade kimchi at the top of the mountain. Old ladies gave me sweets when I rested at the mountain viewpoints, everybody greeted me, and people were always offering to take photos for me. In Busan, I had a shop owner come out and join me as I rested to look at my map. After explaining that the UK was "England" and not short for Ukraine, we ended up having a broken conversation about how he thought countries like Scotland and the rest of the UK, or North and South Korea were better off together and his hopes for the future of Korea. 

My adoptive hiking family

Even on the metro in Seoul (population: over 9 million), I had somebody sitting next to me who started up a conversation in very broken english just to try and chat, even if we had to resort to google translate to understand each other. I have never felt so welcomed in a country before, and to top that - I never once had any unwanted attention, nor was I ever hassled or ripped off. 

So dear Londoners, I implore you to reach out and use your GCSE French and German to chat to a tourist instead of fiddling with your phone on the tube. Go forth and make a tourist's day.

3. The food can be spicy and difficult to eat with their flat chopsticks, but is above all else, fun. Admittedly I knew little about Korean food when I arrived, and was surprised when I ordered ice-cold noodles in a spicy sauce, to have my dish presented with a pair of large scissors to cut the really-really long noodles tightly wrapped together. The only difficulty is sitting cross-legged on the floor for the whole meal.

Traditional Korean restaurant in the lively Hongik Uni area

Next, I moved onto a new favourite dish - bibimbap. A large, sizzling-hot stone pot filled with rice, veggies, a spicy sauce and an egg in the middle is brought to your table for you to 'cook' and quickly stir around before the rice sticks and burns to the bottom. When you can finally start eating, it's fantastic. Here's to hoping Korean the next big food thing back in Blighty.

A delicious £3.50 bibimbap with all it's side dishes

4. Making mountains. Ok, this isn't something we could necessarily learn, but I had to find a way of squeezing in how beautiful Seoraksan National Park is - it was the highlight of my trip. I don't know where to begin - the crystal clear waterfalls, colourfully painted buddhist temples, the sharp craggy mountains, or the amber forests of Autumn. It was all so beautiful, and it is one of those places where photos can never do it justice - but it's the closest you're going to get. Unless you listen to my succinct advice and get on the next plane to Seoul. 

Too many beautiful pictures to choose from: 

And the 1 thing we shouldn't learn from Korea?

Beauty standards. The western world has got nothing on Korea. Within a day of visiting Seoul, you instantly pick up that this is a glamorous city, a city to be beautiful and fashionable in. It's only when you discover statistics like a reported 20% of women in Seoul age 19-49 have had cosmetic surgery that you see the darker side of Korea's beauty. Then it's everywhere - there are surgery clinics on every block (even opposite the late-night bars in Gangnam!) and if you can't see one, then there will be an advert somewhere telling you how you could be even more beautiful.

Surprise! You had plastic surgery.

Vanity comes with this too, and it was normal for the only sound on a train to be the shutter sound from a phone, or to see a woman standing on a busy shopping street, or the centre of a metro station with her hand held high in selfie-pride as she undergoes her own photoshoot. And don't think that they would rather somebody take a photo of them and their friends instead, they will politely decline and choose the selfie-stick above a real person. For me, the vanity and beauty standards is something I really hope Europe doesn't learn.

Dragon boat racing on Cheung Chau

The group of us gathered at the ferry terminal, all freshers curious to try out the traditional, yet fiercely popular sport of dragon boat racing as part of the University society's orientation camp on Cheung Chau. After the hour-long ferry, costing only $13 (£1), we alighted still sleepy-eyed yet amused by the polar opposite of busy, urban HK island, this little island full of wandering locals on narrow, car-less paths - only bikes ringing their bells to squeeze past us. The sun was already relentless, although luckily this time I managed to avoid getting sunburnt (especially as I've only just recovered from my last sunburn).

Cheung Chau beach

As the team walked us along the promenade to the harbour, we walked past a long line of beautiful, clean white dragon boats, with their dragon heads and tails, and big ceremonial drums. Our excitement subsided as we reached the harbour and found that our boats were much less, uh, polished. 2 old wooden dragon boats with flaking paint and no dragon head nor tail nor drum sat waiting for us. As it turns out, the fancy decoration is reserved only for competitions. So there we go.

Not for us...

Our team of ten climbed into our boat and our two instructors taught us first individually to learn to paddle - a much different technique to rowing or kayaking back home, before learning to paddle together, including who we should be watching (i.e. not the person directly in front of you, but diagonally opposite), the different commands and the rhythm.

Dragon boat racing tends to have short, intense races which meant practicing for say "60 paddles" before taking a few minutes to relax and chat, and throw some banter between us and the other boat. The switching between head-down, intense racing and chill-out time with the boat made for a good laugh of a session. Our instructors, Erin and Yukiko were both fantastic and really helped us work together and improve our technique individually, as well as teaching us lots about the sport in general. Concluding with a few races, things got pretty serious quickly and despite how quickly your arms tire with such a fast pace and the intensity you paddle with, we pushed through, and won two of the three races.

The winning team!

Aside from some time in the boats, the rest of the day was spent playing beach games, and exploring the island - including a very, very narrow little cave, which legend says was used as a pirate's hiding place for his treasure.

With the DBC members showing us around, we were lucky for them to translate the street cafe menus and recommend some mid-afternoon snacks for us. We started off with mango glutinous rice dumplings, which we watched being made through the window. The mango was sweet and juicy, whilst the surrounding dough was sticky and reminded me of mochi.

Mango glutinous rice dumpling

The other, unexpected afternoon snack which I was just TOO curious not to try was 'Deep fried ice-cream balls'. A scoop of soft, purple taro ice-cream covered in hot crispy batter. Honestly, I still don't know quite what to make of it. I think it was nice, but I don't really want to admit that something as insane and unhealthy as deep-fried ice-cream could taste very nice.

Deep fried ice-cream ball

The night finished off with eating some tasty, homemade food at the family restaurant of one of the team members and a final wander through the streets to explore the shops and street cafes at night before catching the ferry home after a long day of new experiences.

Kalmaegi, the little typhoon

After several days of whispering rumours that the first typhoon of the year was coming (although September is the end of the season - particularly known for the worst typhoons), yesterday Tropical Cyclone Kalmaegi hit Hong Kong.

During the day, the Hong Kong Observatory issued a T3 (Out of 10) warning - an eminent sign of incoming bad weather. Hourly updates informed the city to the current and forecasted position of Kalmaegi, the wind speeds in Hong Kong and precautions we should start taking. For the first time in three weeks, I felt more than a mini gust of wind.

By the afternoon, what the heavy cool breezes were already telling us, the Observatory confirmed. A level 8 typhoon would be with us in the coming hours. Although the current signal warning was still at T3, people were waiting for the T8 signal to be raised. When the T8 signal is hoisted, the city becomes a ghost town with schools and workplaces are closed, doors and windows locked and everybody waiting calmly inside for the storm to pass.

And so, after an evening of wind and rain, excitement and curiosity, the level 8 signal was given at 10pm. I looked outside my window. No wind, no rain, no thunder or lightening. I could even see the lights on the other side of the bay - usually a sign of good weather. By the time I went to bed, the rain had come with occasional gusts of wind but nothing worse than earlier in the day.

I regret to say, either the weather didn't get much worse, or I'm a deep sleeper, but I heard nothing much worse than a british rainstorm that night. Although, the fog in the morning was like nothing I've seen - only a wall of white was visible outside my window.

Come the morning, the T8 warning was still active which meant 'Typhoon day!' (No snow days here in HK), but with the warning downgraded back to T3 by 11am, afternoon classes were back on and a trek to University in the rain was necessary.

However, whilst I say how anti-climatic the whole event was, the newspapers reported hundreds of delayed and cancelled flights from the airport, 128 fallen trees, flooding in some areas, and a landslide. I guess we must have been nicely sheltered, or I really am a deep sleeper.

And that was little Typhoon Kalmaegi, and she's already left without causing too much drama...

Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Both in Hong Kong and across East Asia, today families are gathering together to celebrate what is comparable to Thanksgiving in the US, and is the 2nd most important Chinese festival of the year (after New Year). People will sit in the parks, eat mooncakes together and watch the children play with lanterns and flashing LED toys.

NB - Hong Kong has got the holidays right. Mid-Autumn festival itself isn't a public holiday but the day after is...no need to worry about going to bed with the full moon still high in the sky.

Mooncakes

Mooncakes are a vital part of the celebrations. They look almost like pies - flaky pastry traditionally filled with lotus root paste, a nutty paste, or red bean paste, and some also have salted duck egg yolks inside.

Every event I go to, from first lectures, to our first floor-meeting, the past week has involved sharing lots of mooncakes. I've had lots of flavours from a modern fruity tea flavour to a traditional nutty one that reminded me of a smooth, dense peanut butter although the egg yolk is a bit... too strange for my liking (I've been told it's a marmite thing).

I'm looking forward to tomorrow when they all go on sale, like an xmas sale and I can try some more flavours, such as the 'snowy white mooncake' and Haagen-Daas ice-cream mooncake.

I didn't have any good photos of the inside...so credit to Flickr
(https://flic.kr/p/pdH7d)

Thanksgiving
My celebrations started last weekend, where I got involved in a project with my University to visit the elderly and give them a Mid-Autumn mooncake gift. Hong Kong is a busy, fast-paced modern city and unfortunately this has left a lot of elderly residents feeling lonely and isolated as their children move far away or have little time to visit them. The aim of this project was to give the elderly a chance to talk with someone, to meet some of the university's students and to let them 'celebrate' Mid-Autumn festival with somebody.

Last weekend, I was paired with two local, cantonese-speaking students (most of the elderly speak little, if any, english) to visit the homes of four older people in Hong Kong. Although I couldn't talk to them directly, the power of translation helped me learn that the elderly of Hong Kong are a diverse, vibrant bunch who will always work hard and keep a smile on their face.

My favourite visit was to an 81 year old lady who told me her favourite thing to do in Hong Kong is visit Disneyland, but she also quite likes the rollercoasters in Ocean Park. Then she explained she sings in a choir and I was lucky enough for her to sing her favourite cantonese songs to us....until she wanted to hear the three of us to sing. My fellow students sang beautifully, but the only song I managed to join in with was Jingle bells, where the cantonese version sings 'Ding dong ding' instead of 'Jingle bells, jingle bells'. What can I say, I tried.

After a long day of walking around Kennedy Town between flats, we were lucky enough that the last lady we visited treated us to a cup of chinese tea and a bowl of fresh slices of orange. It was a lovely end to the day, where I hope we were able to put a smile on a few faces, and I got the chance to have a glimpse into everyday life of Hong Kong.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Tai Hang Fire Dragon
Yesterday, a group of us began the real celebrations and visited the Tai Hang neighbourhood to see the traditional fire dragon dance. A 220ft long dragon made of straw, covered in incense giving it a fiery sparkler-like appearance danced through the streets carried high and mighty by young adults to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival.

Tai Hang Fire Dragon

After getting extensively lost and fearing we missed it, we eventually found our way to where we could hear the dragon's drums and see the crowds trying to get a glimpse. Worried we would never get close enough as we stood on a half-empty side street, a local near us explained that the dragon has to be carried along every street in the area, and their long windy route takes a long time but will come right up next to us.

Soon enough the procession began down our narrow street, and we were greeted with a drummer that stopped beside us, playing the rhythmic beat for the dragon. Whilst we could not yet see the dragon, we certainly noticed a wave of foggy smoke and the strong smell of incense drifting in the air above us.

Drum-roll....

After a minute of getting the beat, the drummer was pushed down the street on his float and what felt like hundreds of young men began to blaze past us, holding the dragon high in the air as it raced down the road. From the large, fiery dragon head which swirled and circled up and down and left and right across the street, to the long thin body in which we could feel the glowing heat of the incense warm our cheeks, running straight down the street.

The Dragon's head

The Dragon's body

The best part came at the end, where the tail reached where we were. It suddenly swerved from the centre of the line to smash itself against a little shop sign before swooping low over a group of ducking police officers on the side of the road - from what the local told us earlier, I have no doubt somebody was unlucky enough to have a little hot ash fall on their heads.

Victoria Park Lantern Festival

We were also lucky enough to have a wander through the nearby lantern festival (a day before the massive crowds thankfully). Only hours before, we had a short but heavy rain that resulted in some beautiful reflections on the soccer pitch of the lights and lanterns above. Walking past these, you get to see some beautiful shaped lanterns and glowing lights - everything from the traditional lanterns to a neon castle and space guns and gameboys. It's a real reflection of Hong Kong's love for ancient traditions integrated into a high-tech westernised world.

7 things I've learned from 7 days in Hong Kong

Moving to Hong Kong is like entering the jungle for the first time. It's overwhelming - the deafening roar of traffic in the centre, or of freshmen shouting their hall cheers at the Uni, the sound of the summer thunderstorms unlike anything in the UK, and the feel of the heat on your skin and the humidity in your lungs, with something to see in every corner, from looking up to the blinding neon Chinese signs, and further to the tip of the skyscrapers, to down the steep hills, and across to the busy roads, the shops and the people walking around.

Shopping at Ladies Market, Mong Kok

Settling in this week has taken me everywhere from the large shiny shopping malls brimmed with top European and American designers (with western prices too) to the old streets and markets where only cantonese is spoken and I have had to overcome my timid British politeness to learn to haggle hard and ruthlessly. It feels like I've only seen a corner of Hong Kong as I've begun to explore this wonderful city with new friends from across the world, and I absolutely love it here already - I'm so excited for the coming year.

But for now, I present seven things I've learned from my first seven days in HK:


1. Air-con is my new best friend. As I was checking into my room on Sunday, another exchange student came to reception to ask for an air-con smartcard and how to top it up. Then the receptionist said the words no Hong Konger ever wants to hear, let alone two Europeans who believe 17c in the definition of summer, "You can only buy air-con from the office. Office open on Monday". We both exchanged looks of horror as we realised the impeding trauma. 90%+ humidity at night, 30c, no air-con. It is as bad as it sounds. I felt like a lobster (and was as red as one too) in a saucepan of boiling water. TIL: air-con is even more important than WiFi.

2. 'Everyone speaks English in HK' is wrong. Especially when you need it most, like in taxis or on buses (and don't think that street names are the same in English and Cantonese either!). On my first afternoon in HK, I made the mistake of catching a little green minibus to go shopping. Only after I was on the bus did I realise it doesn't have stop buttons.....you have to shout at the driver....in Cantonese.
I sat petrified as I tried to decode what the locals were saying at each stop, and panicking over getting the tones wrong and saying something silly instead of "Stop here", I was lucky enough that my bus terminated where I was going. Now I've found where the regular buses go and I'm going to stick with them for a while...

Not until I've mastered Cantonese...

3. 2D maps are useless. Take my first visit to campus, for instance. Trying to get to the other end of campus, the map showed a simple journey - straight, left at this building, right then straight ahead. That would be fine, if the paths I was following weren't on different layers of the campus. I walked until I hit a dead end. Then realised I needed to climb several flights of stairs to carry on walking the "same" path on the map.
As confusing as this layered city is for foreign little me to navigate, it's incredibly efficient and useful. Traffic on the roads rarely stop for pedestrian crossings helping ease the number of cars driving around this small dense city, and bridges and elevated walkways allow pedestrians to have plenty of space, freely cross the roads and be free from the noise and heat of the traffic.

"Lower University Street" - which is not so low after all

4. Hall spirit is taken seriously. Kudos to the local students at my hall - you either go hard or go home. This week they have been having their orientation, which involves several early morning wake-up songs played over the PA system (very much to my frustration), shouting the hall cheers for hours out in the heat, and doing group activities until 5am! Their orientation has finished now, and I'm beginning to see more of my floormates (or "Villagers") but they must be pretty busy - our first floor meeting has been arranged for 11pm so everyone can make it.

5. The views are incredible. Never have I visited a city in which skyscrapers seem to grow from dense. It seems that wherever you are in Hong Kong, you will never have a view without the green mountains or the blue sea. The view from my 14th floor bedroom overlooks Pok Fu Lam cemetery but I still have beautiful mountains towering beside us, and I can see Belcher Bay (on the edge of Victoria Harbour) and the boats sailing through in the distance. I'm still jealous of those on the sea-view side of the building though.
Of course, the best part is the rooftops parties we've had in the evenings. It's the only place in the halls where you're allowed to drink alcohol and with the humidity increasing as the evening wears on, it's the perfect place to get a bit of sea breeze and cool down and relax. And the nighttime view of Hong Kong's firefly-like army of lights in just as beautiful as the daytime.

Room with a view

6. Being a vegetarian is difficult. For my first authentic meal (Shamefully, I gave in and got pizza at IKEA on my first night), I headed to our accommodation's on-site restaurant, 'Bayview'. I ordered a veggie sounding dish only to find when I got it that it had mince mixed into it, and the soup also had lumps of meat. So my excitement dimmed as I ate my bowl of plain boiled rice and the reality that I shouldn't be so surprised it's difficult being a vegetarian in China sunk in. Go ahead, roll your eyes at me.

Not as veggie as it sounded...

7. Nights out are very expensive or very cheap (but only if you're a lady). First night out we headed to a Karaoke bar in Kowloon. But with the cheapest beer at $52 (£4) we quickly headed over to infamous Lan Kwai Fong to an awesome little Brew House, where beer was only slightly cheaper.
Yet only a few days later I discovered a much cheaper way to go out - "Ladies Night". Somehow, for some reason, this means free drinks all night for the ladies. A large group from the Sassoon Road residences all headed out together and we had an awesome night of free drinks, meeting new people and dancing.

Very thankful the microphone wasn't passed to me!

Some risks aren't worth taking. Including Chocolate beer. 

And so that concludes my thoughts on surviving my first week on the other side of the world. Classes start this week and so I am sure there is more fun to be had (minus the classes), especially as we have Mid-Autumn Festival this weekend.