St Patrick’s Day was an interesting experience in Hong Kong. I wore green during the day, and my celebration started at 2 pm by going to the bar on campus to have a beer with some 100% Irish people from actual Ireland. Unlike in the US where people just talk about their Irish ancestors these people were actually Irish, so my small fraction of irish wasn’t very impressive.
After all of my classes were done I met up with some other people and painted my face green in preperation for going out. After some Irish singing in one of the residence halls we eventually left for Wan Chai to go to Delaney’s Irish Pub. On our trip on the MTR we got lots of weird looks because we were a bunch of non-Asians in all green with green face paint, and green wigs, and the occasional Irish song being sung. It was pretty entertaining.
When we arrived in Wan Chai it was interesting that the closer we got to the bar the more green we saw, and when we finally arrived the place was packed with all expats in green drinking Guinness. It was fun being able to celebrate in an Irish Pub, especially because it was odd that this Irish celebration was taking place in a former British Colony in China.
Two days later, on Saturday, Peter Lofgren and I participated in a geocaching even on Lantau Island. I had found it through the HK Geocaching Facebook group. We met at the MTR station on Lantau Island and then took the bus to the fishing village of Tai-O. From that point we set out on a hike back to our meeting point at the MTR. There were around 20 geocaches along the trail and all of them were very close to the trail. It was fun to meet a group of local geocachers and share stories. The trail was very scenic, but a relatively easy hike. It ran right along the water and the side of a mountain. Sadly it was cloudy/rainy so it wasn’t as scenic as it might be on a sunny day. It was very interesting to talk to the locals about their careers and life in Hong Kong. I got to see a cool former British fort and add a number of caches to my count. Peter and I were getting tired though so we left the group and came back to campus a bit earlier than the group was finished.
Outside of adventures the past few weeks I have spent a lot of time just chilling on campus and hanging out with other exchange students. I have had a number of Midterms that all went well, but they are all over now. I am really enjoying my Chinese Political History class, it is giving me a good perspective on how good a job the CCP does at staying in power. They are very smart and deliberate in their actions. My microbiology lab class is interesting right now because we are doing an unknown project where we are given three unknown species and then through a series of chemical tests we determine what species they are from a list of options. Our group finished a week early so I will get a week off from that class before our two test that we have. Something annoying about that class right now is that the professor accused all of us of cheating (which I didn’t) on a lab report and gave us all zeros and will be making the final harder. He told this to the class in a 10 minute discussion that he thought was “too important to say in English” though so I really don’t know what happened, beyond what my lab partner summarized for me. Its annoying but oh well, since I am pass/fail it really doesn’t matter.
I am sad that I am more than half way done with my exchange. It has been an amazing experience so far. Meeting people from all over the world and getting to travel to many exciting places and experiencing Hong Kong. One thing I want to focus on in my remaining time is more of the natural aspect of the places I go. I have spent a lot of time in the human made parts of Asia, modern cities and ancient architecture in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong. I want to experience more of the aspects that are not human made. I accomplished some of this exploration this weekend but I will describe that in a later post after I describe my trip to Shanghai.
Future plans for the semester:
Homestay in a Mainland Chinese student’s home
Trip to Kuala Lampur, Singapore and possibly Indonesia
Trip to Guilin/Beijing/Bangkok with my mom at the end of May.
Exploring more of Hong Kong
Museums, hiking trails, boat trip, Lamma Island, Monkey Hill, back to Repulse bay
Ocean Park/Disneyland
Where I have been map: Red is places I have lived, Green is places I want, Blue is places I have been.
Zoom in on China area for better detail, the rest of the world isn't really relevant.
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