5 months in the city that never sleeps

The past few days have been quite hectic. From running around the Shatin mall trying to find a travel adapter that will fit my Dell battery plug...to getting lost on campus a million times...

You never see the same thing twice on this campus. Even if you walk the same road, something new always happens to pop up. CU is smoke-free campus and it's the greenest one in Hong Kong (HK). There are lots of gardens and statues on this campus - and I doubt I've seen all of them.

So I went out to eat with some friends a few days ago; traditional Chinese dinner where you get food in the center of table with a giant wheel in the center where the food is placed. Everything is shared amongst the people around the table. We ordered some "chau faan" (fried rice) and the picture above is what we got. The plate on the left are noodles and the plate on the right is the supposed fried rice. That is by far the whitest fried rice I have seen...ever.

Hong Kong is an amazing city. It's actually a conglomeration of islands and territories. HK is divided into 3 areas: New Territories (where I am), Kowloon, and Hong Kong Island. HK Island is where you will find the "Hong-Kong"-ness often associated with China - ie: street vendors, open markets, etc. Kowloon is like the sketchy part of town that everyone tells you to avoid (mainly because there are alot of prostitutes and perverts there). But it's worth a visit if you are white (they treat Westerners very nicely here because Westerners=money). The New Territories (NT) is where CU is located, specifically in Shatin (pronounced Shaa-teen). There's not much to do in Shatin but visit the huge mall that's one subway stop from campus. It's a group of malls together (and there's a Snoopy's world!) and has at least 8 levels. It's a fairly expensive mall, but you can find a lot of Japanese clothing brands.

HK in general is very heavily influenced by Western and Japanese culture. There are a million Sanrio stores - and anything Japanese you can find in China (how weird?). You can literally live 4 months here and not have a traditional/authentic Chinese meal just because there are so many 7-11's and Western restaurants (even Mexican!). And yes, there is a McDonald's (dur).