March is coming to an end...

Sooo I have done so much stuff since the last time I wrote so much has happened and I've learned a ton. I'll start from that Monday.

I had a midterm which was pretty difficult. I later found out all of the local students had access to a pretty exact copy of the solution, and because it was an open book test, all of the students brought the copy with them. Unfortunately they neglected to share any of this information with the exchange students so we'll see how our grades turn out (should find out tomorrow). Well after that stressful midterm, I went to transportation logistics where I received my midterm. Unpleased with the grade I received I spoke with the professor after class. Half the test was an essay test and I had answers straight from the book because I studied. Luckily he raised my grade to in the states what would be next letter grade. I knew that grades percentage marks worked differently out here, but I wasn't sure HOW differently. Well I was speaking to someone to find out a 75 is the lowest possible A (like an A-) ...just for comparison in case any of you have forgotten, in the states most professors count a 90 as the lowest possible A or an 89.6 if you are lucky. That changed everything, and from the looks of it, I'm doing pretty great in my classes :).

After those 2 classes my friend Dan took me to this place called New York Fries. Its a Toronto chain serving french fries with toppings. Ironic cause its not called Toronto Fries. Anyways, after a delicious greasy meal I got really sick and passed out in the MTR station. I guess I hadn't really been paying attention to what I had been drinking, or rather what I hadn't. Apparently I was really dehydrated and by Wednesday was fully recovered!! (after sleeping and drinking water in bed all of Tuesday). So Wednesday comes around and after a full recovery, I went to Happy Valley Horse Races. My friend Sean from IU had a cousin in town and had to show her the ONLY gambling in HK. I won ~$40 HK ...which is like $5 US pretty fun though!

Thursday came around and it was time to interview a contact for my Transportation Logistics class project. Thank you to my uncle for being a great networker!! I met with a business man at APL and learned a great deal of information about the company! Friday came along and I had dim sum with 3 other exchange students. Our school has this great restaurant with delicious dim sum! After lunch me and my friend Jasmine went exploring to find a post office. Wow, I could not have been more surprised. A tiny room that didn't sell envelopes (luckily they sold padded envelopes) as I needed to send Flat Stanley back to my nephew. After that we went exploring and found this great dessert place. They have a lot of Chinese desserts for cheap! While Friday was interesting...I was super looking forward to Saturday because was off to DISNEY! Yes Disney in HK. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend $50 US to go, but it was my friends 21st and that's what she wanted to do. AND I couldn't have been more happy I joined. While its a pretty small theme park in general, it was neat to see the different cultures and have a little fun of something that reminded us of back home.

There were 4 sections to the park and it actually started off the same size as Disneyland in LA. There is Tomorrowland including Space Mountain (my fave), Buzzlight year (for pics), and a Lilo and Stitch show (didn't see it though). There was a Fantasyland with Its a Small World (my absolute fave), the Golden Mickeys Show (kind of like an Oscars show for Disney characters, really cute!), the Dumbo ride, Cinderella's Carousel, and the Pooh Ride! We did all of the rides in Fantasyland, pretty neat! After that we headed to Adventureland and watched the Lion King Show, pretty well put together. We later found out that the reason the one in HK is more of a story versus song and dancing is because the HK children don't know the story. It was pretty cute! There was Tarzan's tree house which would have driven any parent crazy!! (but apparently Tarzn was bilingual and could read Chinese AND English...which who knew Tarzan could read in the first place!?) ha..and of course Adventureland included the ride through the Jungle River. They actually had 3 different lines one for Mandarin, Cantonese, and English. You could tell our tour guide didn't really love her job as her humor was very dry, and we were the only ones laughing (5 college students). The fireworks at the end were AMAZING!!! I'm EXTREMELY sorry I can't show you pictures because I accidentally deleted them on my flash drive before I put them on my computer. But I guess it is a mistake I'll make once to never make it again!

The next day I went to Lamma Island! I'm not really sure about the history of it, but it's definitely a fishing community. There were numerous seafood restaurants on both sides of the island. We entered on one side and hiked up the mountain to the other side. Extremely beautiful!! Here are the pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2599643&id=6844049&l=57cfdda589

I know its pretty hazey, but everything is more beautiful in person!

After that we stopped in Central and did a little shopping (prices at stores are amazing ...2 pairs of shorts for $20 US..that's unbeatable!) It was nice to get home and relax before the next week began!!

So this past Monday the 23rd nothing really exciting happened to my knowledge. Tuesday I took a field trip to the shipyard of HK. After sitting through 2 movies about their operations and listening to a speaker, we actually got a tour of the all of the terminals on the port. It was interesting because the company that operates the majority of the terminals in the Hong Kong port, operates several terminals throughout the world, except for the United States and Canada. We were curious as to why they chose not to operate in N.America. Well our teacher explained how he had talked about it in class (woops!) the reason being that US and Canada have high security restrictions. He went on to say that this was a problem. I was like I'm not really sure how this is a problem, and he said that it would be beneficial to the company and would increase business if they got access to terminals in the US. I sort of shrugged it off saying that personally being a citizen of the US I like my security. Sorry that our security restrictions are too high and we like to protect our people!!! (Sorry to any of you reading this disagreeing!!!)

Wednesday came around and my one class was awesome!! We got cheap stones (which are usually jade, but ours were free so can't complain!) to carve our Chinese names on! This way we can stamp them whenever we do artwork or write a paper. Our professor picked our names and because the Chinese language is composed mainly of sounds, they usually choose the sound that makes your name mean something graceful. Well I don't have the sheet with me, but will have it next week, but anyways the translation for my name is a slang word for beautiful - in other words hot, or sexy. cool..i guess?? lol Anyways my friend in that class has a new pair of glasses and I commented on how cute they were, she said she bought them for $200 HK (<$30 US). So I decided I had to get in on this deal and get some cheap plastic frames. So on Thursday we went adventuring and I picked out some cute purple frames (will show you a picture when I go to pick them up!)

*Back to Wednesday, I ended up going to the Peninsula Hotel for Afternoon Tea. It was amazing!! Hot tea (about 10 different choices) and a variety of foods. I'd say its definitely a must-do in HK. While it was semi-expensive, it was worth it and filled me up!

After adventuring around glasses shopping, a friend from IU who is studying in Shanghai for the semester was in HK. I went to meet up with her and her friends. Introduced them to LKF until they discovered ids were needed to get into the clubs. So at that point we went separate ways and they adventured into other parts of LKF (like club 7-11...aka a bunch of people buying extremely cheap beer and drinking on the streets!) I ended up meeting up with some of my friends from school at Club Cliq. Wednesdays and Thursdays in most clubs are free entry and open bar for ladies, although thist was the first time I'd actually been out clubbin in a good 4-5 weeks! It was fun going with a smaller group!

Friday morning woke up pretty early to go to the Jade Market, what a disappointment! It was no where cool as I was expecting. About 25 little booths all selling the same jade carvings. While things were pretty cheap there wasn't anything I was super interested in. After that I came back home and rested and did homework the rest of the day. I met up with a friend for dinner at a fancier Chinese restaurant. I also learned that there is a legit bookstore in the mall across from my school. I was beyond stoked and bought a book...yay!

So Saturday I was so excited because I was finally going to 10,000 Buddhas. But before we got there, we had lunch at a Turkish restaurant...in HK. It was delicious! It was hard to tell what language everyone spoke. The chef was definitely not Chinese, but possibly from the Middle East or Turkey. Our waiter was a Chinese local trying to make money, and barely spoke English. And the server was a woman...and we couldn't tell what language she spoke or where she was from! Anyways after getting filled up with delicious food, we headed off.

There are very few signs towards 10,000 Buddhas as it is a hidden tourist attraction. We finally got there and headed up. Its a pretty good hike up a mountain, but well worth it (minus the fact we got eaten by mosquitoes the entire way to the top!) Here are my pics from my amazing adventure:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2599641&id=6844049&l=b522647d93

Other than that yesterday I just relaxed and got dinner with a friend (pizza actually) ...delicious!

Today I did a lot of homework because before Easter break comes up I have a couple papers and projects due and have a busy week and a half before I'm off to Cambodia!

Here's a couple of plans in place for the next couple of weeks:

Wednesday (April Fools day and 3 peoples 21st bday) - Horse races and possibly LKF
Saturday - Ocean Park
Sunday - Hike up to Monkey Hill
next Thursday - Cambodia (first stop Macau then Bangkok then Phnom Penh...yes that was the cheapest way to go!)
Friday the 17th of April - return from Cambodia
Wednesday April 22 - last day of classes!!!

Possible travels after that:
Malaysia

then finals!!!

then possible hiking/camping on a BEAUTIFUL beach in HK

then MAY 16 PARENTS COME TO HK!!!! (I'm not sure if they know this yet, but that's the plan!!) haha


Hope all is well back in the states - anyone in Colorado reading this, I'm pretty freakin jealous that you got snow, and A SNOWDAY!!! I hope everyone is having/had an AMAZING spring break...and for all you Californians...hope you have an amazing spring break :).

Macau and such

So I know I haven't written in a long time...but that's because I haven't really done that much. Here is a little bit about what I've done and learned and then I will tell you about Macau.

• People in HK have no sense of a personal bubble. Crowding is not an issue and they don't mind getting in your face about it.
• If you are a westerner and you go into a store you get followed around. If we are getting stereotyped for being rich, isn't it true that we wouldn't need to steal something, but rather we could purchase it? So to put a positive twist on the situation, I suggested that maybe they think we will need help or have a question. However it happens in ANY store you go into.
• They have hair cut prices ranged anywhere from $10 US to $50 US and they do a GREAT job!
• Professors love to rag on America. If it is something negative, you can guarantee that America will be part of the example.
  
• If you want more than one packet of ketchup at McDonalds you must ask for it (sometimes twice).
  
• Movie theaters are extremely different. You purchase a ticket for an actual seat (ex. E4). Culture wise, people laugh.....at everything. They have sweet popcorn and salty. Sweet popcorn is caramel corn. Salty popcorn has zero toppings. No butter, no salt, no flavor shakers. However, I can go to a movie for about $6 US. So pretty cheap.
• Some parts of HK smell really bad.
• There are *BODY SHOPS* on every corner (for those of you who don't know, I'm talking about the lotion, spray, flowery type store usually in US malls).
• There is always ice cream and fruit available.

So recently I've seen 2 movies. Confessions of a Shopaholic - very cute and Slumdog Millionaire which I absolutely loved. I've also studied soooo much for midterms. Definitely more than I've studied at IU because I didn't know what to expect. I'd have to say a lot of people are doing the same, at least those of us who's grades transfer. For those who don't - all they care about is getting a C, so if you are in a group project with them, that's no fun!!

I'm in 3 group projects. One with a guy from Purdue (rival) and 3 girls from HK. Our project is all about the Red Bull testing team. Yes the girls who serve samples of Red Bull to the public. Don't ask how that became our topic, please. lol. Anyways we basically have to analyze the work behavior environments of this company and organization.

My second group is with the same guy from Purdue, a guy from Arkansas, and 4 guys from HK. This topic we are doing on APL due to a reference from an uncle (thanks :). ) This project is really just learning about the company and how it operates.

Lastly my criminology group consists of a guy from Long Beach, and 2 girls from HK, and 2 other people who I have yet to meet. Our requirement is to visit a court hearing and write a 2000 word reflection essay. Well Thursday we ended up visiting the court. First of all, it took an hour to get there. Secondly, it was in Cantonese. Thirdly, the first 50 minutes of the hearing it was just the judge speaking. Needless to say there was no translator and the other exchange student and I left and said we would write a lot of the paper (after they helped translate).

1. Our groups our huge. In America we would never have group work with a team this huge.
   
2. The language barrier has been an issue in all groups.
   

So besides group work and movies, I've gone out for late night sushi a couple of times. The majority of the menu (no appetizers, no desserts) but the rest, is all half price starting at 9:30 pm or 10 pm at almost all sushi restaurants. It is pretty amazing. I've stuck to a lot of safer stuff, but tried some of their more exotic creations involving mangoes (not a crazy kind of fish).

Okay so this weekend I was supposed to be in Shanghai, but due to a change in a midterm, it would have been extremely inconvenient, so instead me and a friend Jennifer, from Syracuse, went to Macau. We left at around 1 pm on Friday and journeyed to the ferry, which was surprisingly empty. We landed in Macau and stepped off the boat into a rain storm that looked like it was never going to end. Luckily, by the time we got situated in our hotel around 330, it was clear, but cold. When we checked in our hotel upgraded us to a "Premier Executive Suite." Nothing special, but nice none the less.

We started our journey off at the Grand Prix Museum and Wine Museum. Personally I thought it was one of those attractions that you pass on interstates. When you are a kid you might think its cool, but when you are grown up you know better than to stop and pay for something like that. Oh well, we got to try some wine and learn some pretty neat stuff for less than $3 US. After that because of the weather, we decided to get dressed and head over to the Venetian. We picked up our tickets to see Cirque du Soleil - Zaia. We had an hour to kill so we walked around the shops and the casino. We were super stoked to see the show though and wanted to save our gambling experience for after the show. The show was amazing, tons of actors, actresses, dancers, singers, and tons of props including a 4000 pound globe. We were in LL and there were only 3 rows of seats behind us, but of the ~4000 people in the room, our seat wasn't bad at all. I would definitely recommend seeing the show - however, not if you've been to Vegas. (On the way out everyone was saying how the one in Vegas is better).

After the show we gambled the slot machines a little bit at the Venetian. I definitely left with extra money - pretty exciting!! Next stop was MGM. The hotel was back on the main island of Macau and was extremely beautiful on the inside. We walked around the casino and stopped at the slots where I proceeded to loose my winnings :(. After that we wanted to get some dessert and headed back to our hotel cause nothing was really open. Our hotel had a lounge with the most amazing desserts (chocolate mousse cake). Very delicious. While relaxing, we planned out Saturday's route for walking around and hoped for good weather. We headed up to the room and watched The Pursuit of Happyness. Yes our hotel had about 10 English channels (including HBO, ESPN, and FOX news), 7 Cantonese channels, and about 5 Portuguese channels.

Saturday we woke up and got ready for the day. We checked out of our hotel and walked outside to warm weather and sunshine. YAY! We asked the hotel for breakfast type places and he said to start walking. Eventually we found a cafe that had decent food (I didn't get much because I was looking forward to those Portuguese egg tarts). After eating we started walking around to see the temples and other ruins and shopping in Macau. We got lost, but a guy from Portugal led us to the ruins through a shopping area which was extremely convenient. Now that we knew our way around we took pictures, tried egg tarts, and did a little shopping.

We finally made our way to the casinos which was the end of our journey before bungee jumping. Don't freak, I didn't do it, but only because of the price (~$200-$300 depending on the added options like pictures, dvds) I just thought that I'd rather spend money on another trip than 15 seconds of my life. My friend Jenn wanted to jump though, so I sat at the bottom and waited and watched. It looked pretty neat, but nothing special, minus the fact it is the tallest in the world!

Here are the pics from Macau:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2589670&id=6844049&l=d9227a555e

After her jump, we headed back to HK. It was a neat relaxing trip away from HK. Can't wait for my next ones:
Cambodia
Shanghai
Malaysia

and then China with the fam. Hope all is well back home. I'm pretty sure it is, but don't rub it in because I miss it dearly!! Especially because everyone is going on SPRING BREAK!! So have fun and be safe!