Philippines!

Thursday night was the night that I was leaving for the Philippines! At 9 pm our group left campus to head to the airport for our 1:30 am flight. We stopped for dinner and then headed to the Airport, where we waited in the longest check-in line ever, that we happened to be at the end of, with no more people behind us. If we had just waited 30 minutes we would have had no line , oh well. Security and immigration was simple as usual and after some snacks we headed to our gate, where we discovered the greatest airport addition ever, reclining chairs that overlooked the runway. I took advantage of the chairs and the free wifi, and chilled before the flight.

The flight to the Philippines was pretty turbulent, so I wasn’t able to sleep much but at 4:30 we arrived in Cebu. Customs in Cebu is a joke. You have to fill out a customs form which stressed me slightly, but it turns out that when you actually pass through customs they don’t even look at it. I could have checked that I had guns, drugs, and some illegal plants and know one would know until after I left. We exchanged money at a booth that was pretty much just a wooden box with someone sitting in it with a calculator.

We got a private bus to take all 11 of us to the resort which cost 100 Pesos each. Since 1 USD equals 42 Pesos, that meant that the ride was very cheap.

We arrived at the resort at 5 am, and not surprisingly our rooms weren’t ready. Regular check-in was at 2 pm, but they agreed to try and have the rooms ready by 9 am. We spent the next 4 hours just sitting in the resort restaurant waiting for either our rooms to be ready so we could sleep or breakfast to start so we could eat.

Resort as the sun was rising.

Some of us were tired

At 6 am breakfast started and we paid the 500 pesos for an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. And we spent the next 3 hours eating and walking around to explore the resort. The weather was really weird, one second it would be raining the next second it was sunny.  And at 9 am we finally got into our room and slept until 1 pm.

After waking up I walked out and explored the resort, then sat on the beach for awhile. I was still pretty tired.  Vincent and I went swimming in the ocean a little bit later. The temperature was very nice, and the resort had a cool diving platform floating a little bit away from the shore.  This platform seemed cool until we got out to it and ended up finding a dead baby goat floating nearby, so then we swam back and chilled on the  beach. Something a little odd about the beach is that there were constantly people just on the other side of the barrier that separated our resorts beach from others, that were trying to sell us island hopping tours, snorkeling, and jetskiing. It turned out that they resort doesn’t allow them on the property because they are competition and they even have a sign warning against being ripped off, but I am pretty sure that that was just to keep people from going to the competition.

Later in the day we went out to explore the area just outside the resort. This area was unlike any where I have really been before. The first unusual sight we saw was a group of children playing soccer in the same field as some cows, which is just one example for  how less developed countries have more disease. Walking along the street we had to navigate around goats, dogs, and children saying “Give me peso.”  It was an interesting experience.

We went back to the resort and then took a taxi downtown. Taking a taxi in the Philippines is interesting because they don’t usually follow the meter. When you get into the taxi you have to negotiate a price or check to make sure the driver will use the meter, or you will get ripped off.  In the end we got 4 taxi’s to take our group of 16 to Cebu City, for a total of 1600 Peso, or ~US$40, this is really cheap considering it is about a 45 minute drive. This ride and the other taxi rides throughout the weekend were some of the scariest drives I have been on. We were going along at around 80 km/h down narrow roads with buildings close on either side, and we would pass vehicles while other vehicles were coming at us in the opposite lane. And not only that we would sometimes pass vehicles while vehicles in the opposite lane were getting passed, essentially turning a 2 lane road into a 4 lane one.

We eventually safely made it to the area we wanted, and found a place to eat.  Everything was ridiculously cheap on the menu. I ended up getting some shrimp full pasta, an appetizer, and a beer for around US$6.  Afterward we tried to get into to a nearby club, but since we were wearing shorts they didn’t let us, which was odd because of how warm it is, and that we are tourists, oh well they lost out on our money. We went to a bar afterward, and  it was Marc’s birthday, so the band sang to him. Shortly after, Vincent, Adam, and I took a cab back to the hostel because we were tired, but the others stayed out much later and had the interesting experience of going to this weird place where they were betting on rc car races. Odd.

Menu (sorry its rotated) 

Our group minus a couple behind me.

Total Cost of Dinner for me

On Saturday we woke up earlyish because we had a prearranged snorkeling trip to go on. I had wanted to go SCUBA diving while in the Philippines, but no one else did and the price for going by yourself was substantially higher than the price for going with a partner, so sadly I was not able to. We had arranged a deal with one of the people outside the resort for this snorkeling trip for around 700 pesos a person for a day of snorkeling, with lunch included, and they picked ups up in the morning at the end of the resorts beach area.

Contrary to what the resort warned us the day was not bad. The snorkeling was better than my only other experience in Florida, and I got to use my underwater camera for some cool photos. Our guides caught blowfish and starfish for us to hold, which although environmentally unfriendly was still kind of cool. We also had a very good lunch on an island. They cooked us the food on skewers over a fire. We also had fresh mangoswhich were delicious. After lunch we went back to another snorkeling area, but only a few of us actually went back into the water and instead we chilled on the boat. Something that I didn’t like is the first time after snorkeling I got on the boat and was offered a cocunut in the same fashion the starfish had been offered in the water, and I naively assumed it the guide had found the coconut in the water and was being generous,  it turned out however that it cost 350 peso which is a lot (we later saw them for 50). Oh well.

On a boat and its going fast (not) and ...

Not very tasty for 350.

Excellent Lunch

The boat took us back to the resort and then a little later we had another taxi ride to Cebu City for dinner. The restaurant we went to was very good, and cheap. I ended up getting some squid, but if I had wanted to I could have had 2 crabs for around US$5, crazy. All of our portions  were very large and the quality was good as well. We got dessert afterward, and some of us got a regional dessert called Halo Halo which I think is just candy soup. They combine what looked like ice cream, coconut milk, and an assortment of candy into a bowl. The people that tried it said it was disgusting.

After dinner we went to Mango Avenue ,which is where all of the clubs are at. The cover for the clubs we checked were all 100 peso (~US$2.5) and included one or two drinks. We danced at the club for awhile, and then some of us went back to the resort. When I got back, I thought it would be cool to walk in the water at night and look at the stars that are nonexistent in Hong Kong. I was walking in the water, which was about 6 inches deep due to the low tide, and suddenly I felt a sharp stinging feeling on my foot. It turned out I had been stung by a jellyfish and quickly left the water and treated it how you should, which warm water and vinegar. I was a little worried about dying for awhile since I didn’t know what got me or if lethal jellyfish were in the area, but after 30 minutes when I wasn’t in excruciating pain I figured I was fine.

Jellyfish sting a few days after

On our last day, we woke up and took the taxi back to Cebu City and eventually back to our island (Mactan Island) to go shopping at too malls.  I stocked up on souvenirs and some dried and fresh mangos, which are my new favorite fruit.  I also could have got a hair cut, manicure and pedicure for a total of 150 peso if I wanted to (50 each). The haircut was actually more expensive than other places I had seen (30 pesos=US$0.75), if I had had more time I would have done it but I didn’t want to keep others waiting. We went to the very cultural Pizza Hut for lunch, where I found Sausage Stuff Crust pizza on the menu. A new experience at this mall was the bathrooms did not provide toilet paper. You could buy it for 20 pesos a pack though, which was a little annoying.  It was odd that inside the mall it felt very much like a first world country, but as soon as you stepped outside it went back to a third world feeling.

After shopping we went searching for a massage.  We took a tricycle, which is pretty mucha motor bike with a passenger cab. Thankfully we didn’t ride in it long because I didn’t really trust the safety at all, and somehow we fit around 8 people in the same little cab. We ended up finding a place where we could get an hour massage for 150 pesos. The massage was very good, and the establishment was not sleezy at all. I would say that my massage there was just as good as the ones I have had in the US, but for much much cheaper.

After the massage we had to go get our bags from the resort and go to the airport. Something nice about the resort was that they had a shitty exchange rate. Normally this would be a problem, except that to figure out what we owed for the rooms they took the price in USD exchanged it to pesos using their exchange rate (40 instead of the 43 it actually is) and then charged it to our credit cards. The credit card companies do the right exchange rate though, so we ended up getting a nice savings.

We took a van to the Airport, and then waited for our flight. Something different that the Philippine government does is charge a tax when you leave fly out of the airport. You have to pay 550 peso to leave, which thankfully we had been warned about by another exchange student.  Security here was also pretty lax, with the exception that I had to remove my shoes, something you don’t have to do in Hong Kong. One of my friends here had gone through security in Cebu earlier this year, and he said he had a water bottle with him that he had forgotten to finish. He asked them where he could dump it out and they said he could keep it just as long he finished it before he got on the plane. This is probably why the FAA doesn’t think the Philippines airline industry is up to standard.

The flight back to Hong Kong was uneventful, and after we landed we took a taxi back to UST and I went to bed.

“Chippewa Drummer” finds first Geocache in Hong Kong

On Monday, Peter, Matt, and I hiked right outside of campus to this park that separates campus from the closest city, Hung Hau. We hiked up the mountain and eventually located the approximate location of a geocache using an app on my iPod, mostly pictures past finders had taken.

The view from the cache location was pretty cool, it enabled us to see the ocean and Hung Hau. Up until this point I didn’t realize how close Hung Hau was to campus because it was a long bus ride around it, but it turns out it would be about a 15-25 minute walk if you went the easy way through the park.

On Tuesday I booked my tickets for going to Taiwan on March 10-14. I thought I had missed my chance to book the cheap flight (the cost had gone up 500 HKD), but I refreshed the page and one spot had opened up at the cheap price!. So that is super exciting.

Classes over the past few weeks have been going well. My microbiology lab is cool, our most recent lab included culturing samples taken from swabs of our ear. mouth and hand which was kind of gross. My political history class is interesting every week but I am glad I am auditing because the amount of work required for the real class would be way too hard.

Pictures Update

Lantau and Parade

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072114&id=1594620218&l=0cb9a5e839

Events Before and After Fireworks

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072116&id=1594620218&l=97bd216848

Happy Valley Racetrack

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072113&id=1594620218&l=a85fec1746

Flower Market and Giant Mall

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072115&id=1594620218&l=3bdd36792c

Macau

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072112&id=1594620218&l=47e5318b44

Fireworks Video

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1547255133364&saved

Excursion Planning and Mong Kok

Sunday was spent with studying and going to meetings to plan excursions. Currently I am planning on going to Taipei, Taiwan for 4 days in March. We plan on seeing lots of things including Taipei 101 the second tallest building in the world. We will leave on Thursday after our classes are done and fly from Hong Kong to Taipei then stay in a hostel in Taipei. Then we will come back on Monday. The other excursion I am planning is a trip to the Philippines in 2 weeks. We are flying to Cebu and staying at a hotel on an island. It has a beach and snorkeling and scuba diving. I am excited for both.

On Monday, I went by myself to Mong Kok to go to the ladies market to buy a Green Bay Packers jersey. I knew someone else who had got one there so I decided to try it. I found a place that had lots of soccer and football jerseys but no Packers jersey. I could have bought like five Favre Vikings Jerseys, which I don’t want. I will go back sometime and search again. While I was at the market I bought a case for my ipod which I had been looking for, and a bowtie for cheap.

While I was at the market I also got called a “Gwailo” by one person I was bargaining with. Gwailo literally means “White Ghost” but it is essentially saying cracker. I don’t know if the person who called me it knew I knew what it meant. I was bargaining over something and he said it was of high quality and I said it wasn’t.  Overall I really like going to street markets and buying stuff for cheap. I like bargaining with people and being able to walk away when don’t want the price they give me. Usually I can get the prices down by half and sometimes more than that. For example the Vibram Five Fingers I bought started at 700 HKD but I paid 200 for them.

Classes

These are my classes:

Sociology (Monday and Wednesday 12:00 to 13:20)

Microbiology (Tuesday and Thursday 9: 00 to 10:20)

Microbiology Lab (Monday and Thursday 1:30 to 2:20, Wednesday 14:00 to 16:50)

Mandarin I (Tuesday and Thursday 12:00 to 13:20)

Contemporary Chinese Politics (Thursday 15:00 to 17:50)

So far my classes seem to be going well. I have very few tests and only one final during finals period. All of my classes are interesting, and I am glad that I am able to learn some Chinese while in china. The contemporary Chinese Politics class is very interesting but I think it will be a lot of work; I am considering either dropping or auditing the course so I don’t have to spend too much time on it. One of the things we learned about was why the Chinese Communist Party survived a handover, while the USSR did not. It was basically because the people in China weren’t intelligent and organized enough to plan an entire country, while in Russia they were. Therefore when the power transitioned in the USSR no one outside the federal government knew how to run the country, where as in China people did know how. We also talked about how South Korea sent people to the United States to steal our technology and then invested all their money some a few of their own companies such as LG.

All of the classes are also nice in that most of the lecture material is online so if I miss lecture I can catch up. 

Green Hornet, Shenzhen, Super Bowl

This weekend was the last weekend of break, and I wanted to get a little more exploring in before my classes started.

Saturday I woke up late, and then eventually headed to a giant mall called MegaBox. It is basically the equivalent of Mall of America in Hong Kong, and I think may actually be the largest mall in Asia. It has an IMAX theater an ice skating rink, and a lot of stores and restaurants including Ikea.

Our intention for going there was to see the Green Hornet in Imax 3D. I enjoyed the movie, although I don’t think that it was absolutely necessary to see it in Imax 3D, but oh well. The movie was a good mix of action and humor. After the movie we got something to eat. I tried a Mos Burger, which was very good. It is basically a burger with some chili on it, and a giant slice of tomato. The restaurant is a chain restaurant kind of similar to culvers, in price and atmosphere.

As good as this burger was though, I would rather that instead of Mos burgers there would be Taco/Burrito places. That seems to be very lacking here. I don’t need to eat Chinese/other Asian food for every meal, and most options are limited to that and burgers with the occasional pasta or pizza place. It is one of my goals to find some more restaurants to vary my food intake.

On Sunday, myself and a few other people took the train to Shenzhen, which is directly across the border into mainland China. The total trip cost less than 10 USD round trip.

One thing that I really like about living here is the reach of the public transit system especially the MTR (subway). I think it was very cool that I could take public transport to a different country (not really a separate country, but pretty much). With the MTR plus mini-busses you can get anywhere you want in all of Hong Kong, and for a lot cheaper than in the US. The MTR is fairly well used and I think that the majority of people use it to get to work.

On a related note, something that I have noticed is the overwhelming amount of luxury vehicles compared to the number of non-luxury vehicles. On the road you will pretty much only see taxis, buses, industrial vehicles, and luxury vehicles. No one is driving around in the equivalent of a 1995 Ford Taurus. Instead they are all in BMW’s and Porsches. I think this is for two reasons. 1) the MTR is good enough you don’t need a car 2) It turns out that in Hong Kong they have a 100% tax on buying a car, so I think you only buy a car if you are very wealthy and then you buy a nice car.

Back to my trip. The MTR stops at the immigration point between Hong Kong and China. You first depart Hong Kong, then you walk on a bridge across the “moat” that creates the boundary at the border. This was my first time walking across a national border, so that was cool. Then you enter China immigration. Some of the people in our group did not have visas, but because they were non-american citizens they were allowed to get special 5 day visas to visit only Shenzhen. The US and many countries are in a fight over border restrictions. The US has strict rules for other countries so those countries do the same towards only US citizens.

After immigration we headed out of the train station to a giant shopping center. This center (Lo Wu) is designed similar to the Silk Market in Beijing. It is a collection of individual vendors within a large building. This gave me some practice with my bargaining. For the day I got some Vibram 5 Fingers (stolen or fake but they fit my feet and as long as they don’t fall apart they will be good), a green laser pointer, a screen protector for my iPod, and what I thought was a 128 GB flash drive. When I bought the flash drive I had the merchant plug it in to show me the capacity and it showed 124 GB. I figured that this drive would be unstable but for the price (50 Yuan) it would be worth it to put things like my downloaded movies that I don’t care if I lose on. It turns out however that when I got home the real capacity is only .7 GB. The capacity showed up as 124 GB on my computer but only .7 fit on it, I didn’t realize it was possible to trick a computer about the size of a drive like that.

 After shopping we all shared a meal at a good restaurant on the top floor of the mall. We got about 7 dishes and split them amongst ourselves. Highlights of this meal include Jellyfish (tastes both crunchy and jellylike), and eel (very good). After dinner we  headed  back to the border and took the train back to campus.

The next morning was the first day of class but more importantly it was SUPER BOWL MONDAY Packers vs. Steelers. Kick off was at 7:30 am local time, and some Green Bay fans and I headed toward an Irish Pub in Tsim Sha Tsui. Besides showing the game, the pub also had an all you can eat breakfast buffet. It was a little expensive (200 HKD) but it was worth it. The only bad thing was that it was the Asian Sports Network feed, which meant no commercials, and bad announcers. Another exciting thing was that former Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova was there, which was odd. A Czech tennis player, in an Irish bar in Hong Kong. The game was excellent, but a little nerve racking in the end, but the Packers emerged victorious. As soon as the game was done though, I had to leave to go to class. 

Happy Valley Racetrack, LKF, Bowling

On Wednesday a bunch of exchange students went to Happy Valley Racetrack on Hong Kong Island to watch the horse races. Some of the students, including me, took advantage of a deal where for a higher cost we were allowed to go into the Member’s only area if we showed our passport, as a tourist deal. Being in the Member’s enclosure was cool because that was where all of the more wealthy people were, but not the extremely wealthy because they have boxes. I was out of place though because I had a back pack and was wearing some gym shorts. The next time I go I will dress nicer. The coolest part was that we got to go right by the finish line and the winners circle to watch the race.

Another enjoyable part about going to the racetrack was betting on the horses. Bets start at 10 HKD a bet. Each race I bet for 2 horses to place in the top 3. I put in 160 HKD total and only lost 80. Overall it wasn’t much money lost and it was enjoyable to have my own personal stake in the race.

On Thursday and Friday nights I went to LKF to hang out at some bars and clubs with other exchange students, which was a good time. On Friday I also got some Sushi at a restaurant near Happy Valley. Our orginal intention had been to go to a nearby restaurant that had half off sushi, but the line was very long and the other people didn’t want to wait, but I will be sure to come back.

On Saturday, I met up with a student who goes to school here full time, but is from Germany. He invited me to go bowling with him and some other people later and I accepted. Before going however I had to go to Apliu Street in Sham Shui Po to pick up a converter and some adapters, because I had been using only one adapter and had to share it among devices, I also picked up a cool tripod that was only 8 HKD, so that I can take pictures of things at night or so that I can have a way to take pictures of a group.

After the market I headed to Causeway Bay to go bowling. It turned out that we were going Bowling at the equivalent of a Golf Club, but nicer. It is called the Hong Kong Football Club. It is attached to Happy Valley Race Track and has bowling alleys and some indoor lawn ball courts, and a nice restaurant on the roof with a pool. The people we met up with were mostly local students whose families are from other countries, and they all went to the international school in Hong Kong. Because of this they all speak with American accents when they speak English, which is odd. I couldn’t take any pictures of the club because there is fine for having cell phones/cameras out of 200 HKD.

After eating dinner at the Football club, we went to LKF to watch the Manchester United versus Manchester City Soccer Match on TV. I didn’t really care about it, but most of the foreign people did. The game was pretty exciting and included an awesome goal where the attacker kicked the ball from over his head into the goal. After the game we went to a Club that was playing Dubstep music.

From this experience, I don’t like Dubstep it was very repetitive and loud, and it gave me a headache.  The music is basically just really heavy bass constantly. Oh well though. 

Macau, Orientation, Chinese New Year and Exploring

On Sunday, while grocery shopping, I ran into someone I had met before leaving for Beijing. He informed me that there was a Facebook group for HKUST exchange students, and that there was a planned trip to Macau the next day. I checked out the Facebook group and found out that people were planning on leaving the next day at 1 to take the ferry to Macau.

The next day we met at 1 and then took the MTR to the ferry port, and after picking up the tickets we had bought online we boarded the ferry. We had got there just in time (5 minutes before the ferry left), and thankfully immigration wasn’t too difficult, so we didn’t miss the ferry. Our ferry ride was uneventful, the view of the harbor while we were leaving was good, but other than that we just saw a lot of water.

About an hour later we landed in Macau, went through immigration, then waited around at the Ferry station for a bit for some people that were coming on the next ferry. After they arrived we took a free shuttle to the Wynn casino. We looked around there for awhile and then got some food. The restaurant we went to had terrible service and took about 2 hours, but eventually we finished and headed toward the MGM casino.

The first thing we found out is that Casinos in Macau only accept Hong Kong Dollars as payment. They have exchange counters, but for some reason they don’t accept their own currency, which was annoying because some of had withdrawn or exchanged to Pataca (their currency) in order to save on exchange fees at the casino, but ended up paying them anyway. The MGM was a lot bigger than the only other Casino I have visited, Mystic Lake in Minnesota. Baccarat had the most number of tables, and there were some roulette and blackjack tables, as well as some poker tables. The did not have texas holdem poker though, which is the only type I know how to play so I didn’t end up playing poker. I sat down at the lowest minimum bet blackjack table I could find, which was still 100 HK. I was expecting to lose 500 HK at the casino over the night. I ended up losing the first 4 hands I played by one each time, and was then 400 down in less than 5 minutes. Everyone else wasn’t done though, so I just watched for the rest of the night, except for playing a little bit of roulette where I was able to bet 10 at a time instead of 100. In the end I lost the 500 I was expecting to.

After the casino we went and walked around the streets of Macau and found a bar that was playing music that we went to for a while. One advantage of having like 25 people is that anywhere you go you can make a happening place. From there we moved on to the Playboy club in the Sands Casino. That club was awesome. We were pretty much the only people there, but the club was on the 44^th floor of the casino, and had an awesome view of the city.

At 2:30 they decided to close (probably because we weren’t buying many drinks) and we left to walk back to the ferry. We took the 4 am ferry back to Hong Kong. By the time I got back to my room and went to bed it was 7:30 in the morning, so I got to enjoy the sunrise. I went to sleep and didn’t wake up until 3 pm.

The next day (Tuesday) was pretty chill, I stayed on campus all day. I got some food and then at night some of the exchange students went down and made a fire in a fire ring down by the ocean.

Wednesday was orientation, this meant I had to wake up at the early hour of 8 am, which was 3 or 4 hours earlier than I had been getting up. Waking up this early will forever have an effect of me because I had to take my student ID picture and I look terrible. I look half asleep and I didn’t shave or do anything to make my hair look like I didn’t just get out of bed.

Orientation overall was pretty boring. It was a lot of stuff I already knew from reading my manual, and we spent a lot of time talking about how to register for classes which I have already done. One interesting thing I did learn is that the median monthly wage is 11,000 HK. That explains how food is so cheap. Lunch was free and tasted good, they gave us more western food then we were used to. After lunch we had a meeting with a guy from the US consulate. The main gist of the talk was that the US can’t protect us if we decide to be morons in Hong Kong. He told us many times that he doesn’t like visiting people in jail and not being able to do anything for them. He also gave us the number for the Marines if we have a big problem that we need some help with.

After orientation, we went to downtown to go the Flower Market. The flower market is a tradition for Chinese New Years. It is basically I giant street market that only has flowers. If I had my own house and/or someone to buy flowers for while here it would have been a perfect place, but since I have neither it was only really cool to see so many flowers at the same time.

After seeing the market, and buying some tacky Chinese New Years decorations, we went and got something to eat. Luckily the place we went to had an English menu, and I decided to be adventurous and tried some goose intestines. Basically, they tasted like regular meat but with a texture of chewy fat.

Thursday I woke up early to go to Lantau Island. The school had organized a trip, that I didn’t find out about until I got to campus, but luckily I was able to sign up for it the morning of. We got on a bus and drove to Lantau Island. At the top of the island is a giant statue of a sitting Buddha and a monastery. The most exciting way to get to the top is a gondola. The gondola passes over a bay and then along a mountain side up to the Monastery, and had a very awesome view. At the top there is a touristy street with lots of shop. We passed through this area, and went to the Monastery part, where we had a vegetarian meal. After the meal I walked up to the pedestal with the giant Buddha. I took some pictures and then wasted time until the bus left.

The bus took us to a fishing village. When we got there we took a speed boat out to look for dolphins, but we didn’t see anything. Then we walked around the fishing village. The village was made up of lots of shacks that were built on stilts over the water. The shacks were made out of what looked like pieces of sheet metal and garbage pieced together. Something that was odd though was that a lot of these shacks had satellites and large flat screen TV’s. It almost seems as if they are only living like that to keep being a tourist attraction, but they really aren’t that poor. We all left the village and briefly stopped to look at two giant bridges that are right next to each other and going over the bay. Then the bus dropped us off at the MTR so that we could go to New Years Parade.

 The parade was really busy, but I was actually pretty disappointed by it. There were large breaks between floats, and even then the floats were mostly big advertisements without much exciting stuff. After the parade I went with another exchange student and got some pizza. My pizza was more expensive than other meals (102 HK), but it was worth it.

Friday was a slow starting day, but eventually we headed down to Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) in Kowloon to watch the fireworks. The bay was completely packed, but we eventually found a place where we could see the fireworks and the skyline of Hong Kong. We had one building in the way, but the spot was still pretty good. When the fireworks started it was 27 minutes of the best fireworks I have ever seen. There were lots of them. They had fireworks that made rabbits (it is now the year of the rabbit), smiley faces and what I though was coolest is they had fireworks that spelled out I YHK across the sky. I had never seen fireworks spell anything. The letters were slightly messed, but still awesome. The grand finale was the most fireworks I had ever seen at one time. And the noise of the explosions was constant and very loud. I have a video that is around 10 minutes long of a lot of the fireworks, that I will post eventually. After the fireworks we took the ferry across the bay to go to LKF to go to a club. The ferry had a very cool view of the skyline of both Kowloon and Hong Kong.