They're out to get my Blood!

I took a little nap today, hoping to rejuvenate my spirits and instead, woke up to find these monstrosities on my face.  

And on my arms.

You don't even want to see my legs.

Macau: Go Big or Go Home

I guess we went home.  

After an astounding, unbelievably lucky stroke of winning round after round of "Sic Bo" (a die game where you basically bet on whether the dice will bee a large number or a small one), I came up so strong that I became cocky about my spot-on predictions that I dropped-and lost-$200 within 2 minutes.  Undeterred, the next day, I was determined to make back my money. That day never came but we did have a blast exploring Macau, the gambling capital of the world.  

losing all your money in a hotel called "Wynn" is no fun.

The Portuguese part of Macau

Chitchatting by the ruins of St. Paul, or rather, what's left of it (which is just a single wall)

We really loved the dancing dragons.

They always said imitation is the best form of flattery.

*Highlight: 

As much as I love Chinese food, the American girl in me was really craving some good ol' fashioned Western cuisine. And no, not the kind that Cafe De Corral tries to pass off nor the kind that McDonald's reliably shells out to millions of customers each day.  The Portuguese part of Macau (the part with the historical significance and lack of casinos) really brought it.  We dined at "Resturante Vela Latina" and walked away filling full-if not fighting with the pesky dwarf in our tummies-if you catch my drift. (And it's not a very fragrant one).

Janice and I were delighted to find CHEESE on our menu. WE LOVE CHEESE!

My most delicious African Spring chicken-a Portuguese specialty.  Sides include french fries and actual fresh vegetables?  HEAVEN...

Among the other dishes ordered included fried rice baked into a pineapple and amazing chicken/fish topped with cheese.  They even served their rice in the shape of a heart! What's not to love?

Good food, good company, good gambling...I can't believe I went to the Asia Las Vegas before I did the real one.  Anyone want to plan a *surprise* welcome back party for me in Sin City?  ;)

A purchase of a "Prayer is the Key" token at my campus bookstore spurred my roommate and I to a two hour discussion at our local coffee shop. It was the type of scenario I had always dreamt I would have in college; sitting in the local coffee shop, discussing life, hearing different ideas being said about the world, expressing my own ideas.  I just never thought that it would be about my spirituality.

For the last year, I have taken steps toward enriching my spiritual side and investigating the workings of believing there's a higher being who created us, is guiding us.  I've gone to my friend's Friday night bible studies and discovered that there exists Christians who dispel previous stereotypes I have had of the group.  I've had many a chats and talks with my Christian and non-Christian friends and family.  

I've been lucky to have been touched by God and have felt a life with him.  Because this world is constantly craving labels for everything, I suppose the label I would have to give myself at this moment of my life is "spiritual" but not Christian.  I'm not because I haven't yet fully given my faith to Jesus Christ yet and until I do so, I do not want to go around pretending to be someone I don't think I completely am yet.  However, I can say that he has brought me fulfillment, a sense of peace and a sense of belonging that I had never felt before.  

I'm not very eloquent at expressing my beliefs.  I've come to discover this when having my talk with my roommate.  She, a staunch atheist, would ask me questions that I'd blubber and stammer to explain.  "It's just a feeling," I'd say.  "What is this feeling?" she'd ask and I'd be stumped again.  Sometimes I got what I was trying to express across and sometimes I think she understood but a lot of the times, I would just get frustrated because we were completely having an "apples and oranges" conversation.  Sometimes she said very unbelievably snobby and naive things that made me all the more realize what ignorance can do to someone.  I tried my best to explain my current situation to her and to talk to her about what changes I've undergone in the last year but I don't think she would even have a tenth of an idea of what I'm talking about until she can experience it for herself.

I was very grateful for our talk because it made me realize all the more ignorant I still am about God.  I still have so much more to learn, so much more changes to go through.  Perhaps next time when I talk to my roommate, I would be able to clearly explain to her my spirituality.

That's also why I haven't posted anything about my journey with God in here until now.  I've never really known what to write and how to say it.  

Now back to that pesky little conversation starter of a prayer key.  I think I'm at the point in my trip where I'm getting really home-sick. I never thought it would happen to me since I've stayed here for a bit before, have had family here and am such a nomad but I got hit with the bug.  I'm trying to bide my time with constant phone calls to home and reading a lot but nothing's been really helping.  I just wanna go home and hang out with my grandparents.  Hence, I pray that everybody at home is doing well and will only get better. I pray that I get over my homesickness since I will be here for four more months no matter what and that I just cherish the time I have here while it lasts.  I pray that I will strengthen my relationship with God and that he will guide me as I truly live alone for the first time in my life. (Aunts and cousins who live ten minutes away do not count!)  I pray that I will stop missing you, you and especially you so much.

Kowloon/New Territory Tour

Bright and early Saturday morning, we headed off on a tour of that "other" island of Hong Kong: Kowloon.  

Hong Kong is divided up into two sides; Hong Kong Island which is full of rich people, the finance center, and big city life.  The Kowloon side is full of bigger space, more average Joe's (I say average because Hong Kong overall is very well off) and cheap shops and eateries.  

Because Hong Kong University is located at Hong Kong Island, we went over to the other side to check out how they live.  

Our tour was conducted by this annoying and booooring tour guide who would turn the most fascinating stories into a snooze-fest.  It would be okay but she kept expecting us to pay complete attention to her (which was impossible because, SHE'S BORING) and when we didn't, she would call us out.  Lady, this is not class, this is not a lecture, we PAID for this tour. We'll talk if we want to! (Ok, that sounded mean but she really was mean and boring) 

First stop was at Yuen Po Street's local flower and bird market.  We got a taste of some pretty local flowers...

and then flew over to the array of colorful and noisy birds.

One even came home with me. I named him Oliver. Oliver MacArthur. =)

It then started to rain.  Fitting because the next stop was Wetlands museum, where we immersed ourselves in the scientific and national geographic of Hong Kong.

My final destination (I say "my" because even though the tour bus headed onto Tsim Sha Tsui, I left early to eat dinner with my family) brought us to the Wong Sai Tin Temple.  

It was a very beautiful and peaceful place but completely touristy.  Sigh...when I was in Europe, the churches and cathedrals there were also completely run over by tourists.  This place as well. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Overall, a very productive tour. I got to see a lot of the parts of Hong Kong that I had not seen before when I came two years ago.  I missed the next day one cause I slept in but no worries, Four months of discovering this place will leave me a pro in no time!

Shopping for the Soul

With its no sales tax policy and boundless shops at every corner of every street, Hong Kong is a shopper's paradise.  The locals shop, the tourists shop; everyone is constantly consuming the latest trends.  Since I'm an exchange student with no real clubs or work obligations and the term has just started which means no homework yet, what else should I do but shop?  

I headed over to MongKok, one of the more famous Hong Kong shopping districts.  The place is known for its "ladies market" where 3 or 4 blocks are filled with street merchants lined out, proudly displaying their products, which range from shampoo to fake LV purses.  

Now comes the fun part of bargaining.  The merchants know you are a tourist and even if you're not, their starting price will always be off the roof.  Most of the time, they'll name a price, say, HK$300 but almost right away, they'll tell you they're going to cut you a deal and bring it down to, say, HK$210.  This is where your bargaining skills come in.  You have to remember to not calculate these prices by US $.  You have to remember that this is (almost) China, the place where everything is made from!  Normally, for the first few shops selling a product I want, I won't buy but I will bargain just to check the average price for the product.  Then, I'll be especially ambitious the first time around and say an outrageously low price, say, HK$120.  The other person would generally beg me to raise the price, which I will slowly.  Sometimes, I'll pretend to walk away and they'll pull me back. If they really can't sell it to you for the price you offered, then they'll let you walk away. That's happened to me a few times for some things I actually really wanted but since they let me walk away, I had too much pride to return and offer to lower the price. 

Nonetheless, I still dropped a few bucks at MongKok last week.

Oooh boy, and I still have 4 months left!  Let's hope retail therapy doesn't leave me broke!

Red, White and Screw You!

I'm very sad that I won't be able to attend to the voting booths this November and fill out my ballot box like every other responsible citizen of the United States. But no worries, my absentee voter ballot will be shipped to me any day now!

This presidential election is certainly shaping up to be one for the books.  On the Democratic front, we have a charismatic young black novice, Barack Obama and his vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and on the Republican side, we have a political veteran John McCain and his vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin.  No matter which party wins, we're going to have either the first African American president or the first female vice president serving and leading our country for the next four years.  

Barack is already well-known for his appeal with the younger voters and constant media attention.  It's been the target of McCain's gripes for the past few months.  However, I suppose the Republicans are finally getting some of that spotlight they've been craving with Sarah Palin and her whirlwind personal life.  When it was first brought to light that Palin was going to be the vice presidential candidate, people speculated on her beauty pageant past.  Now, with recent news that her 17-year old daughter is pregnant, the tabloids seem to have found their new favorite cover-girl.

Perhaps it's because the media is notorious for being left-winged, or perhaps it's because Palin is a woman, but it seems to be the consensus that most of the press on her is unfavorable and focuses solely on criticizing her capabilities as a mother and citing that her beauty queen past may make her not fit for the job.  

I have a bone to pick for that.  First of all, how does being a beauty queen make you less capable of being a good civil servant to the country?  I'm so sick of pageant girls having this bad rap of being superficial, fake, and can't be taken seriously.  In fact, I would say that Palin's pageant sash shows that she's an extremely competent potential vice president.  She has good looks to ride on but instead of wasting her life away by marrying some rich old man or trying to be a model, she had the drive to actually go out there and run for governor of Alaska. And win!  Pageantry also requires a lot of competitive streak, a type of tenacity and a lot of hard work.  To be successful at it, you have to be a pretty capable young woman.  Adding onto that, the fact that she won Miss Congeniality shows her genial nature.  It shows she wasn't one of those girls who would step on anyone just to win the crown.  She did something that made the other girls like her enough to want to vote her for the title.  (Miss Congeniality in most pageants are voted by the other competing girls).  Besides, pageantry was just a hobby that she did when she was younger.  Obama likes to play basketball alot, how come no one gripes about the lack of seriousness in that? How come he can play basketball but still be a good leader for our nation?

Secondly, the fact that Bristol Palin is pregnant most certainly does not mean that Sarah was a poor mother.  One can only be responsible for another human being for so long.  It's no secret that Palin is pro-life so her and her daughter's decision to keep the baby makes perfect sense.  How about instead of lighting on that fact, bring up the part on how Palin was able to juggle motherhood and a successful and life-consuming career all at the same time?

To get to where she is today, it takes more than just good looks.  I hate how Hillary was chastised for looking too stern and cold and now Palin is chastised for being too pretty.  If you ask me, Obama looks a little bit too skinny and frail to be able to handle the weight of the entire country on his shoulders. Why aren't people worried that he looks like he may collapse at any moment?

With all that being said, I'm still voting Democrats.  I do believe that Obama will do a wonderful job leading our nation and I think it's definitely time for a change in regime.  Besides, I'm way too liberal to support the other side. 

Nonetheless, I must say I am also very much a feminist and I do wish that people would stop hounding Palin. It's already hard enough that she has to deal with her 17 year old daughter being pregnant and running for V.P. under the serious scrutiny of the world.  She doesn't need extra sexism stirred into the pot.

Icky Yicky Paperwork

When comparing food, give me Shui Mai over a burger anyday. 

When looking at transportation, I'd rather wait 10 minutes for the mini bus than drive my car through traffic hell.

When involving shopping, um, hello??!! shopping marts and malls and streets and plazas at every corner is a shopper's paradise versus the nightmare of driving 10 miles to a ghetto shopping complex.

But with higher education, I'd say the U.S. kind of has Hong Kong beat.  

All 2 weeks long, my fellow international students and I have had to suffer through confusion, agitation, poor living conditions, miles and miles of walking up mazes and stairwells and asking for things but only receiving blank stares.  All because Hong Kong University is soooo poorly prepared in accommodating international students.  

We arrive, say, from the airport.  No one tells us that an Octopus card is pretty much the most important thing you'll need here. With one swipe (not really a swipe, more of a pound) of the card, you can buy necessities from your local convenience store, ride the public transit systems, get drinks, etc etc.  

Next, you get to the place where you'll stay for the next FOUR months.  If you're lucky, you get Starr Hall, a swanky little newly renovated residential hall. If you're not as lucky (like me), you get R.C. Lee or Lee Hysan Hall where it's a little dingier, older and smellier.  If you're the most unluckiest of them all, you either have  Pokfield Residence, some nasty hostel, or no place to stay at all.  The process to switch out of your living situation is also difficult and frustrating. My friend has weak joints and is still stuck living in a place with no elevators!  Thanks for treating us like second class citizens, HKU!

And then there's registering for classes.  You register for classes on the first day of the semester. HUH?  And also, there's no central place for you to find the location of the classrooms. If it's not under the departments' timetable, you have to go to each department's website and look it up.  And you sign up for tutorials (discussions) separately and by hand.  

Everytime I ask a questions, I keep getting uncertain people directing me to the wrong place. I spent 3 hours this afternoon alone trying to apply for a student Octopus card.  

So thank you UCLA and thank you URSA. I took you for granted but never again.