Beach Camping

I have been told that Hong Kong is one of the safest cities in the world, I think it really is true. Over the weekend I went camping with a group of friends. After a long day of traveling to our destination, I left my purse on the bus, which contained my phone, camera, credit card, cash and forms of identification. There was little I could do about it at that point, so I tried to put it out of my mind, but I really was devastated. The next day I struggled to communicate through broken English with the bus driver. With help I was able to find the office where my purse could have possibly turned in, although I had no real hopes of actually finding it. To my absolute shock, my purse was there! There was nothing missing! Words cannot explain how happy I was. So, this post is dedicated to the honesty and integrity of the people and Hong Kong and to being more careful in the future. I am so lucky :)

By the way, although I didn't have my camera at the time to document it, we had a great night camping. We had a fire in the sand and went swimming in the ocean. There were about 12 of us and we had the whole beach to ourselves. Picture perfect!

Other Adventures

Free Climbing at Shek O Beach

Lamma Island Fishing Village

Unrelated, if you would like to know more about Hong Kong birthday traditions, youtube "happy corner"

Classes

So it's Friday, which means the end of my first week of classes at Lingnan! The classes I'm taking are called "Creative and Individual Differences", "Cantonese for International Students", "Exploring Psychology in Western and Chinese Cultures", "South East Asia History" and "Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communications". I'm getting more familiar with the school's website, and "Moodle", which is equivalent to Blackboard at CMU. I really like my classes. All but one of my classes contain less than 15 people, and most of the professors make it interactive. For example, in my advertising course, the teacher hands out a card to students every time they answer a question correctly and they count towards a participation grade. It's turned into a competition between groups to see who can collect the most of them which keeps it interesting.

There are also some cultural differences in the class room between the local and exchange students. Most of the time the local students are very hesitant to participate in class or interact with teacher, so exchange students will sometimes get singled out during discussions. I'm also very impressed with the local students because of the fact that they are learning in English, which is not their first language. Overall I'm really happy with my class schedule!

Macau

The average foliage you can expect to see in south east Asia

Ruins of St. Paul's Church

Streets of old Macau

Casinos!

Dinner

The view from our (5 star) hotel window

Last Monday I had my first traveling adventure out of Hong Kong! A group of about 11 of us booked a hotel for the night at the Regency Hotel in Macau for $100 U.S. a night, and with 4 of us to a room it was very cheap. Macau is known for gambling, it's the Las Vegas of the eastern world. We went to the casinos at night and had some fun, they had the games we are used to such as black jack and poker, and a lot of unfamiliar games as well. The casinos were very bright and beautiful at night.

The next day we explored the old city, visiting the Ruins of St. Paul's Church and did some shopping on the way. Afterwards we took a taxi back to the ferry station and headed back to Hong Kong. When we finally got to the city, it felt like we were arriving home for the first time since being in Hong Kong :)

Orientation

This is called a wet market, it's a place to buy fresh fruits, vegetables and meat near Lingnan.

Toads for sale at the wet market!

These are some of the many cats roaming Lingnan's campus, the one on the left is actually stalking a toad on the sidewalk

The past 2 weeks have been very busy. Our classes didn't start until last Thursday, September 1st, so during the week prior to that we had orientation. The first day was just for exchange students, there are 144 of us. We listened to briefings from the police, vice president and exchange student coordinators. We had a survival Cantonese course. We had the opportunity to sign up for several organized trips, I signed up for a hiking tour on Lamma Island and a cultural tour in Shum Shui Po and Temple Street. At the end of our day we had a scavenger hunt that was meant to help us learn important locations, such as the library, local market and mall. Overall it was a good day, I learned a lot and met many other exchange students.

On Tuesday, all of the local new students arrived. It was a little overwhelming at first because I had gotten used to the few exchange students that had been on campus for that week, but they were very friendly and highly encouraged our participation! Tuesday night we had what I saw to be the equivalent of Main Stage at CMU. All of the clubs and sports teams showcased their groups at different booths. I signed up for the women's soccer team (!) and the cat society. There are very many cats on campus, I would say there are as many cats on Lingnan's campus as there are squirrels on CMU's campus. The cat society is a group that raises money to feed these cats.