Again, expand galleries by clicking on them! Currently writing this as I drink some Pocari Sweat, or as I like to call it, the nectar of the gods. For this month, I actually spent a great deal of time editing the video compilation together, and once again, section annotations are added for you to skip around as you please, and I recommend you open in YouTube to view.
Wednesday Dec. 1st – Friday Dec. 3rd
My suspected food poisoning from the mochi has mostly worn off. In between class, I need to go to the store to buy a new Sim card since the three month one my uncle purchased for me back in September is now expired. I don’t know why I ever got that one in the first place; the SoSIM card offered by park and shop is vastly superior in every way, 50 GB per month for only $33 HKD. I grab Mediterranean food before heading to the CUHK Wind Ensemble Concert to watch Miko play the flute while meeting Sandy and Rebecca from USC waiting in line for our tickets. Following a great concert featuring some newly composed pieces, including a CUHK student composer, I got to meet more exchange students who also came to visit Miko in the concert, like Lea, in German, and Adel, from Kazakhstan. I bumped into Elizabeth Chan while going back to Lee Woo Sing, where I played some Uno flip with Jaymi, Caroline, and Stefan. We also collectively arranged our Disneyland trip for next week. During my call with my mom, I ate some more of the mochi I brought back from Cheung Chau.
Today is the final lecture of my algorithms course. for those outside of the computer science world, it is now a custom for retiring professors to give a “last lecture” in the spirit of Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon who did one before he passed from pancreatic cancer. Of course, not all of these last lectures would possibly live up to the kind that Pausch gave, but many give these lectures in the same spirit nonetheless, wanting to teach their students some life lessons as opposed to computer science topics. Combine this with the fact that I was taking this course with one of the most infamously controversial and tough professors at CUHK, and you had a recipe for a spicy final lecture. He started off by taking off his mask (at a time and place when this is highly frowned upon), saying to us: “Why do you care? Half you people wear it under your nose smugly all day anyways.” I mean, he’s not wrong though. Then, having warned us in the previous lecture, he would proceed to do this final lecture entirely in Mandarin, prefacing today’s lecture with: “在我28年的职业生涯,这是我第一次在香港用国语在教室里。在中国的土地上,为什么不能说中文?” roughly translating to: “In my 28 years of teaching, this is the first time using Mandarin to lecture in Hong Kong. Why shouldn’t we use the national language when we are on Chinese soil? If you have complaints, bring it up with administration.” As you can imagine, half the room erupted it in laughter, and at least a few students even left the classroom. After the lecture, about half of which I understood, I walked back to central campus while talking with the Professor, Wei Xuan, and Andrew (another Indonesian international student in the class) to get to know more about him, before departing ways with everyone.
I went back to LWS to get afternoon tea with my roommate, who was telling me about the time that he met his ex on a bus, while meeting one of his friends whose name was “Berry” (some people here choose the wildest English names, and it’s super cool). On my way to class, I saw Boris, one of the Swiss exchange students talking to police officers outside of the building. Initially I thought something had gone down, but he just lost his laptop and was trying to view the CCTV footage to see where it had gone. After class, I met up with Jessica, Willie, and Carrie at the MTR station to go to Lan Kwai Fong Tower for dinner this evening at Carbone, a very high end Italian restaurant with a sister location in Manhattan, with Matt meeting us there after we got our seats. We were treated to an amazing complementary bread basket as well as limoncello and cake on the house after our dinner. Along the way, I got the opportunity to practice my Mandarin with a local who stopped us to ask about a disruption on the island line. Apparently, a door had flown off of a train during transit (scary), and the line was shut down for a little bit. Everyone seemed super impressed that I could express that clearly enough for the woman to understand, but honestly, it didn’t seem that difficult ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. After seeing that most shops in Central were already closed this evening, we headed back to campus, where we met Victoria, a red haired girl on the bus back up who likes to hang out with exchange students that we all hadn’t met before, which we found surprising.
Dang, I really regret eating that mochi on Wednesday now. The stomach bug strikes again, and I am finally able to confirm that I got food poisoning from it, but it was already too late. We had booked Madame Fu’s afternoon tea bundle set far in advance, and I wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip by on a Friday. Upon arriving in Central, Corliss took us up the mid levels escalator, the longest covered escalator foot bridge in the world (my first time on it), to get to Tai Kwun, an old prison yard turned cultural center and the location of Madame Fu teahouse. We were treated to some of the most expensive looking afternoon tea sets I’d ever seen, and it included a complementary gift voucher that we could redeem at a cosmetic store nearby. We stayed in Tai Kwun for a while, observing a crowd of people that were supposedly part of a performance being very strange in the courtyard, and we also visited the attached art museum. We stopped by Bakehouse Soho, known for having some of the tastiest egg tarts and baked goods in Hong Kong (try that for a real egg tart, Ethan), but I was in no mood for food at that point due to being full and the nausea from my food poisoning. By coincidence, Matt just happened to bump into a teacher he met when teaching English to some local schools in Hong Kong. We drop by the International Finance Center (IFC) mall to pick up our complementary cosmetics sets before venturing to “The Brass Spoon”, one of the best pho places in Hong Kong according to my roommate. It did not disappoint, and in my not so accurate opinion, would’ve thoroughly impressed Tyler, who had made fun of me in November for thinking substandard pho to be good. After dinner, I went back to sleep pretty early to rest up before a very long housing tour tomorrow.
Saturday Dec. 4th: HK Housing Tour
The office of academic links (OAL) often sponsors guided events for the exchange students, and this was to be their biggest one yet. 11 students piled on to a chartered mini bus that would take us across Hong Kong to view the various types of housing one could find in the city. We started off at Liu Seng Chun, a Tong Lau near Prince Edward station. The shop underneath was still very much active, selling traditional Chinese medicines and herbals. We then went to the Mei Ho House Public Estates in Shek Kip Mei, the last remaining example of the first public housing estates ever built in Hong Kong. They were built as a response to the 1953 fire in Shek Kip Mei as immediate housing needs for those whose homes were lost, and unknowingly, the beginning of public housing in Hong Kong as a policy, with over 50% of all residents in Hong Kong being part of one. We then visited Nam Shan estate, another public housing estate with a local restaurant we planned for lunch. One of the Germans, Felix in particular, was being somewhat adversarial, questioning our tour guides about some valid points such as why the Hong Kong government keeps housing prices artificially high through policy, while other times making insensitive comments like “Where is the beauty? Why is it only concrete?” I bought some “cola gummies” at the estate, reminding me of a time I forgot once existed with a familiar but foreign taste (I probably had these as a kid but forgot). We then moved on to Tsang Tai Uk, a walled village in Sha Tin “across the river”, whose purpose was to defend the citizens of Hong Kong back when pirate attacks were commonplace. We finished the tour by visiting the rooftop of one last public estate in Fo Tan, and it was definitely the tallest building I’d visited in HK up to this point, even beating out my uncle’s apartment, being able to see the majority of the Sha Tin area as well as CUHK Campus.
We finally returned to campus after this, only for me to hop right on the MTR to head to Mei Foo station to meet my roommate and his family. When I met him, he also taught me that you can identify the kind of housing complex (public or private) based on the last character of the complex name. He gave me a small tour of his own public housing complex before bringing me into his family’s apartment. Of course, coming right off of the housing tour I just did today, I should have expected what I would see, but I was wholly unprepared to see just how small the flat was. For someone like myself, who was coming from $10,000 USD per month rent at my uncles private apartment, I guess I just wasn’t used to the more standard living areas that most people could expect to see in Hong Kong. I believe the entire living room may have been smaller than my one room double with him in Lee Woo Sing hostel. At least there were still three bedrooms, one bath, and a kitchen along with the flat. When I got there, his dad was still cooking dinner for us, but because he was actually a real restaurant chef, I could stand to wait just a little longer to see the full home-cooked meal he had prepared for us. Besides Stephen and his divorced dad, his older sister and his dad’s new partner were also at the dinner with us. His dad had actually immigrated to Hong Kong from the mainland over 20 years ago, so his Mandarin was still on par and he asked me a lot about what life was like in the US. We had some drinks during the evening as well, and he and I had a lively discussion about politics during the time. Stephen felt kind of embarrassed, but I enjoyed the whole thing and talking to my roommate’s family. I also got to see Stephen‘s homemade violin (he literally carved it and built it himself with the help of a violin shop, and it was even still unpainted), and to my amateur string ears, it sounded just as good as any other I’d played before. Stephen walked me back to the MTR station afterwards, and along the way, taught me more about Hong Kong history, including the recent protests. Students often like to put up posters educating people about what happened during those in our hostel elevator, and one time, he walked in on a mainland student tearing them down from the board. That must’ve been a very awkward elevator ride.
Sunday Dec. 5th – Tuesday Dec. 7th: Reading Period Begins
I start off my Sunday by heading to Sha Tin for some shake shack and a haircut. Then, I head off to Central again for a dinner to meet Willie’s cousin at “Ask for Alonzo”, the same restaurant that the Dartmouth alums brought us to after our hike. It was cool to ask her about her job at Bloomberg in Hong Kong, her post graduation life. We hit up Messina Gelato afterwards, sharing a variety of flavors amongst the group: fig, milk tea, pandan, and coconut.
I played tennis with Ivan Tuesday afternoon. It felt so strange to be back on court hitting with someone after so long without a racket at Dartmouth (I still whooped his butt tho). I also find out he’s leaving quite early to go to Thailand before returning to the states, as are many of his European friends. I grab dinner with Matt, Fendi, Jaymi, Ega, and Thais, who is ethnically Chinese but grew up in Brazil before attending high school in mainland China and then came to CUHK. I also find out that my 外婆 grandma is returning on Dec. 9th. I concluded the evening by finishing the last algorithms pset of the semester with Wei Xuan and Andrew in the library. It was absolutely packed with people due to finals week coming up.
Another grueling Wednesday up ahead with 5 hours of sleep. I met with Matt, Kelly, Willie, and Jessica to embark on an adventure to M+, the newest art museum that opened at West Kowloon Cultural District. Before that, we grabbed some “Dim Dim Sum” after arriving at the station, and we walked over afterwards to admire the very new artistic exhibits at the museum. We stopped by the museum cafe before walking out to the promenade area, where one could take in the Hong Kong Island skyline from another angle, as well as the part of the Kowloon skyline you could see from the boardwalk. Christmas decorations were already going up at this point, and we stopped by the Christmas themed area to take a lot of photos. After departing the cultural district, we split up and Jessica and Matt and I figured out a bus to go to Mong Kok to both run some errands and grab some street food in the Argyle center, a dense shopping mall right in the heart of MK. Stephen would eventually bring me back to the same place sometime later to grab some fried chicken. Finally, we hopped back on the MTR to meet Willie‘s roommates for dinner at a CUHK Student favorite location in Fo Tan, 德記沙田鷄粥, one of the restaurants at the cooked food market there. A lot of students would come here to this outdoor dining spot for night food after orientation, but it was rumored to be closing down soon. All of Willie’s roommates (Jade, Alice, and Ukari) thought my Chinese accent was northern when I talk to them, so thanks Chinese 4, I guess?
Wednesday Dec. 8th: Disneyland Hong Kong!
In 2019, due to the protests, many of the exchange students were evacuated in the middle of the term. For the five Dartmouth students there, that took the form of staying at the Disneyland resort hotel the night before they departed on the return flight. In an ironic twist of fate, none of them had visited Disneyland before then, so the only time they actually did was during the panicked state they were in when evacuating. They did, however, get to blow the rest of the unrecoverable money on their octopus cards on the endless buffet at the resorts, so it wasn’t all bad. However, luckily for us, we were able to experience Disneyland in full, getting the whole MTR line Disney themed trains, even getting to have the esteemed Dole whip only found at their resorts. I had only gone to Florida’s Epcot before this, and that was quite some time ago, so almost everything in the park was a novel experience for me. Plus, all the Christmas decorations and special events were being set up at the time, creating an even more magical experience than it would have been. I spent most of the day with Jaymi, Caroline, and Stefan, while Jessica who was originally in our group went with the larger group of Matt, Willie, Carrie, Kelly, Corliss, and Tyler. Afterwards, I joined the larger group to get Genki Sushi in Tsing Yi and bought a pair of super comfortable slippers before retiring for the day at UC Ampitheatre.
Thursday Dec. 9th – Sunday Dec. 12th: Early Farewells
I start the day off with a lunch at Pici, an Italian restaurant, with Charlotte Cheung, one of the students I met at the human library to get to know her better. She shows me one of the sustainability shops in the mall, where you can bring your own container to buy grains and other environmentally friendly items. After returning home and doing homework for the rest of the evening, my roommate burst back into our room with two monsters and two 5-hour energies in hand to tell me that he just came back from basketball and had a final at 9 AM the next day. We ate some Indomie together and talked about some of the funny stuff that happened during his freshman year at Lee Woo Sing, like how the entire sixth floor had flooded for a time, and how some of the dorms are actually quads but within the same floor area as a double which was already pretty small, only with bunk beds instead of our normal single tier beds, and how he was in one for his freshman year.
On Friday, I immediately meet with Stephen with two of his friends and MTR to Hung Hom to go to Sushiro in Whampoa after he bombed his all nighter final (Sushiro is another fancier conveyor belt sushi place). He also had another essay due this day, so he spent the afternoon finishing that while I explored the Whampoa area, a district I hadn’t been to before. After he finished his essay, he took me to Hong Kong island again, this time, to visit the PmQ design expo. There was a fun little challenge where if you could hang on to a pull up bar for 100 seconds, you get a useless coupon for a gym membership. I’ll have you know that I succeeded the challenge, but probably not without some muscle damage or something. Once the afternoon has passed, I say goodbye to Stephen and his friends and MTR to Ma On Shan for a final farewell dinner for Caroline at the Mou Mou Club shabu shabu all you can eat Japanese hot pot. On the return ride to CU campus, however, half of us ended up taking the wrong mini bus direction and ended up going farther away. So, we got off and called an Uber back. Unfortunately, Caroline unknowingly dropped her wallet on the mini bus, which included her octopus card and CU cards needed to enter both the campus and the hostel. It helped that she was still leaving tomorrow though, but we had to try to explain to the front desk attendant who only spoke Cantonese about the situation. Once we got back, we played some more unstable unicorns before we finally called it a night on the last evening of everyone being together.
Saturday started with some dim sum offered by the Lee Woo Sing canteen and some practice time. I met up with Ivan around 5:30pm to play some more tennis, this time with the court lights on since it was already getting dark. Not bothering to shower afterwords like Ivan, I hopped on the bus to go eat at Tim Ho Wan (The Michelin star dim sum restaurant in SSP) again, this time, bringing Jaymi, Stefan, and Matt along with the original Jessica and Tyler. Following a once again superstar cheap meal, we set off for IFC one last time to pregame and send off this weekend’s departures, including Ivan, seeing him for one last time before he leaves for Thailand this weekend. I also got to meet Carrie‘s quarantine buddy, Sòng, who, according to myself, looks suspiciously like Eddy from Twoset Violin. Apparently, at the airport before getting on the plane to Hong Kong, she found Carrie and just out of nowhere, asked if they could room together for quarantine due to the recent increase in quarantine days, causing her reservation to be canceled. That’s certainly one way to make a new friend! Deciding not to go on to LKF that evening, we get back on the Tuen Ma line since the East Rail line was already shut down for the night so that we could save on Uber costs at the end.
With dwindling enthusiasm in the group this Sunday afternoon, Matt, Jessica, Carrie, Willie and I head to Mong Kok to hit up a karaoke bar. And we got lunch there, having some legit Ramen delivered to our karaoke room while some of us sang American pop classics. We stop by the ladies market afterward so that I could buy some cute masks for when I return home. The rest of the group heads back to campus before our farewell dinner with Willie, while I stay and explore the K11 musea Steinway gallery once again. It’s always a nice breath of fresh air to play on real grand pianos for once, and one of the staff members, Jasmine Chan, notices my enthusiasm for playing and strikes up a conversation, even giving me a small tour of all the pianos in the gallery. I finally depart for dinner with Willie in Fo Tan at the same place where we met her roommates, and Sam took us to the zero waste shop in Sha Tin afterwards again. We grab matcha soft serve in Sha Tin before we all head back to UC amphitheatre one last time as a group, where it almost didn’t feel real that our group would not be whole again after tomorrow. Jaymi is also departing soon, and she gave me a pair of Vans that wouldn’t fit her feet (and even made them bleed), once again adding to the pile of shoes that I will have to somehow fit in my bags when I return.
Monday Dec. 13th – Thursday Dec. 16th: First Finals
Remembering that the Tsz Shan monastery that Ivan, the boys, and I biked to in October required a month’s advance booking, Stefan made a reservation for four people for today, taking both Fendi and Sam with us to the monastery that we could always see from Lee Woo Sing across the harbor. The monastery was created by some billionaire with the hope that it would not become too much of a tourist attraction, hence the strict cap on the number of people allowed in per day. We saw the Buddha statue and participated in the water offering ceremony there, and this statue had to be much taller than the one on Lantau Island. After seeing the rest of the active Buddhist monastery, we returned to campus where I had afternoon tea with Sam. In the evening, because my card was still being declined on buying tickets for the concert, I went in person to Sha Tin Townhall to buy $900 HKD worth in tickets for the rest of the group for the upcoming Rach 2 concert this weekend. I followed that up by heading to Tai Wai to get one last meal with Willie before her late evening flight departed, and I found it very interesting how she literally went to the airport to get her test before coming back into the city on the MTR, and then heading back before her flight departed. Thus is the magic of good public transportation. I finished the evening by going to the library to study with Ega before our algorithms final tomorrow.
What an interesting final it was indeed. I did just fine in my opinion, so I celebrated with some afternoon tea at LWS before finishing some control theory homework with Bene in the evening.
Having heard by happenstance back in November that one of the exchange student’s roommates was a pianist, I got in contact with this man, Jason, for lunch at the Ben Franklin coffee corner and got to know him. He indeed was a very cool pianist, and was very excited to join the group going to see Rach 2. During our conversation, I found out about a 4D movie theater experience in Mong Kok, so I suggested to my roommate afterwards if he wanted to go see Spider-Man: No Way Home in 4D later. I return to study just a bit for my geography final before taking it in the gymnasium, with the four page essay at the end absolutely destroying my hands. I grab dinner with Summer, whose life here in Hong Kong has been quite different from the rest of us exchange students, recounting her tales of babysitting for rich ex-pats and sugar daddies. I finish the last assignment for our control theory class this evening, Lab 3.
Thursday morning was spent catching up on sleep debt over this finals week, waking up at 3 PM to do laundry and grab afternoon tea with Stephen. He taught me somewhat about the high school experience and college admissions process in Hong Kong, as well as exposing some of the tragedies that happened here in LWS with suicides as well as showing me some of the craziest videos of the 2019 protests on campus. I finish the day by studying and taking the take-home exam for my environmental engineering class before giving Stephen the details of my move out plan after I finish my last final next week.
Friday Dec. 17th – Sunday Dec. 19th: Rach 2, Family, and Suicide Cliff
Oh the things I do for fun on this exchange program. With another 5.5 hours of sleep again, I wake up to go to Tai Kwun in Central for Madame Fu again, but this time, with their free flow dim sum package. Unlimited dim sum can really fill you up, that’s for sure. Matt, Stefan, and I walked around Central doing some shopping afterwards, where he showed me how to buy a $300 HKD jar of rose petal jam sold by the famous Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Before the concert, I return home for the first time in many weeks to see my 外婆 for the first time in 3.5 years. As always, the first thing anyone says to me after not meeting me for a long time is always “did you grow taller?” Following this quick return home, I zoom off to Tsim Sha Tsui again to explore the Tom Lee music store there before the concert. We had planned a dinner for that evening for all in the concert going group, but I was still so full from dim sum that I didn’t go. I began heading to the concert hall, where I met a few who were already there to hand them their tickets. Nervously waiting for Matt, who is still in his hair salon appointment, I decide to leave his ticket for will call and head into the hall before they begin. Matt actually ends up missing the first half of the concert, which is a bummer. However, the rest of us were treated to Niu Niu, this extremely tall and handsome dude, and I was treated to the very first live performance of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto of my life. The man actually came down into the audience during intermission, and being a wuss, I didn’t go up to talk to him during then. The rest of the concert, i.e. the Shostakovich symphony, was OK, and Matt seemed super bummed he didn’t get to hear the first half either. Plus, we were all super bummed because we ended up needing to buy his CDs in order to talk with Niu Niu post concert. After we got home, Stefan began packing for his flight tomorrow and gave me his ergonomic pillow to keep. After telling him about the price of rent for my uncle’s place and showing him pictures of the current living room, he apparently thought that their furnishing and interior design choices were not up to par for the price point they were living at. I see his point.
Saturday allowed me to finally sleep in for real. With 12 hours to catch up on my sleep debt, I head to dinner and plan the Spiderman movie with Stephen and Wei Xuan for next week. Tonight was going to be reserved for one last LKF run, and as a group, we pregame at Carrie’s one-week Central apartment before stumbling over to 7-11 to get the most delicious little Japanese rice wrap, Onigiri, and then onto the MTR to Space Club in LKF. It was the absolute wildest time in that crowded night club, and I’m very glad I brought earplugs, but the funniest thing was whenever someone purchased a bottle of champagne for a table, the DJs would play the Marvel Avengers theme and totally kill the vibe of the club. As we were walking out, I spotted Cédric waiting in line to enter, the guy I had planned to hike suicide cliff with tomorrow. I’d be surprised if I saw him tomorrow, but knowing him, he might just be insane enough to do it.
And insane enough he was. Planning for a sunset hike, we met at the MTR station at 2 PM, conspicuously bumping into two other CUHK student groups also doing the hike with us. We formed into one mega walking train from the MTR station to the trail head, before we each began the near vertical climb up the trail to suicide cliff. I should mention that the name, according to some people I talk to, comes not from intentional suicides, but because of dumb tourists who don’t watch their step at the top of the trail. Keeping that in mind, we don’t often look back as we approach the cliffs and the summit of the mountain, but the views we got up there were more than enough of a reward for our hard efforts of nearly a whole hour of vertical climbing. Along the way, I meet some cool European exchange students like Hidehiro, a Japanese student from Singapore studying at Sheffield University on exchange at CUHK, Jack, an Italian, Dennis, a Turkish man studying in Italy, and more. We continue the hike all the way up to a clearing near the summit, where our original smaller group of five stayed until sunset to watch the city light up as twilight approached. The serenity on top of that mountain, again, with nothing but our voices and the wind blowing up there while watching the busyness that is the streets of Hong Kong light up with an amber glow, was nothing short of heavenly magic. Around 6:30 PM, we descend the mountain with our flashlights, taking an easier route than the one we climbed up in order to get back to the MTR station. However, the night was not over for me yet, as I quickly grab some onigiri at the station before zooming off to Central to meet my American friends before we went to the peak. We grab dinner at a restaurant in IFC and trek to the bus station that would take us up to the peak (no more hiking for me, thank god). On the unnervingly fast ride on this double decker bus up, I kept thinking we would tip over and fall off the mountain, which is really a testament to the driver’s skill in nighttime navigation, but he did keep hitting low tree branches and scaring me with the sound. One could really feel the December air at this point, as when we got to the mall at the top of the peak, which was already closed, the cold wind was whipping heavily on the rooftop where we got our nighttime views. After taking a look at Hong Kong at night from the opposite mountain that I climbed in the daytime, we once again boarded the bus down the mountain, this time making me even more nauseous than the way up. As we traversed back to campus at this late hour, we discover a new path with some clever elevator usage in the Engineering building up the steep campus to our dorms.
Monday, Dec. 20th – Wednesday, Dec. 22nd: Finishing Finals
And so concludes my academic semester at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. I complete my control theory final this afternoon and begin packing to move back to my aunt’s apartment for this last week here. The remaining members of the group head to Sha Tin for one final sendoff dinner for Carrie, heading to Steak Lab for some good old Texas beef. We spend the evening at LWS trying “magic berries”, scientifically known as Synsepalum dulcificum, which turns any sour foods you eat into the sweetest things imaginable. We purchased a variety of sour food items in Sha Tin, such as lemons, strawberries, sour patch kids, kiwi, and more. It was absolutely magical when I bit on a lemon slice and thought I was eating candy. We finish off the evening at the UC Amphitheatre one last time before heading to Matt’s room to play some garticphone and the Gary Wang guessing game.
I wake up the morning of the 21st and head to Mong Kok to eat at a Japanese rice place with Stephen and Wei Xuan before the movie. Spiderman: No Way Home was quite the interesting watch in 4D, With our seats literally being rocking roller coasters and having various unknown substances and air sprayed at us throughout the movie, I found it quite distracting and honestly would’ve preferred the normal 2-D or 3-D version of the movie, but it was definitely a unique experience and I’m glad I tried it. Stephen takes me around to explore the rest of Langham Place, the shopping mall that the theater is in, as well as returning to Argyle center to get me some fried chicken at the street stall inside the mall. I head back to CUHK this evening because some of my family is still sick, and we grab one last UC Canteen Budae Jjigae to send off Jessica and Tyler this evening. We chill out at Morningside College waiting for the hour to call the taxi that would take them to the airport. It was definitely a very emotional farewell. I walked back to my dorm at 2:30 AM, once again experiencing the peace and quiet of night time on campus.
With a little else to do this Wednesday besides contemplate life, I spent the afternoon packing everything in my dorm to take to my uncle’s place, doing my last load of laundry, and grabbing my last LWS canteen dinner.
Thursday Dec. 23rd – Sunday Dec. 26th: Christmas in Hong Kong
I finish packing this morning and call a taxi. Once again, my suitcases balance precariously in the trunk with a half open lid (Hong Kong style) as I go over to my uncle’s place in To Kwa Wan to drop off my bags. Afterwards, I immediately head to the MTR station to zoom off to Lantau Island, this time to meet Sam Bell and her friend, Sara, as I attempt once again to hike Sunset Peak. With Sam under estimating the time it would take to arrive, we begin the hike around 4 PM, which was worrying, as we passed through two cloud layers, each one bringing us to a weirder scene than the last. It’s like we had ascended the steps of heaven, with one cloud layer below us and nothing but a forested trail leading into another cloud layer, and again, no sound but that of our voices and footsteps and the occasional bird. However, we were mere minutes away from reaching the summit when the cloud layers began ascending and dropping rain on the already darkening mountaintop, preventing us from ever seeing the sunset. Again, with nothing but our voices and the sound of raindrops falling, it was dead silent on that trail as we rested at the top with some snacks before beginning our descent in the dark rainy night with our flashlights, and needless to say, we were all terrified out of our minds. It was even more so when we finally reached the base of the mountain and began our trek back to the city, when we heard barking in the forest bordering the road. Suddenly, what was seemingly a rabid dog stepped out onto the road behind us, stumbling and limping slowly towards us. I stupidly try to shine my flashlight at it to try and throw it off, but it only seem to encourage it to walk closer to us, at which point I pointed it away and we began a brisk jog away from it, which seemed to make it leave our trail and back into the woods. Following that ordeal, we finally made it back to the MTR station and traveled to Sham Shui Po in search of dinner. We stumbled across a noodle restaurant called Tomato C Hing, allowing us to order a vegetarian dish for Sara and finally find some reprieve after that terrifyingly beautiful hike.
For Christmas Eve, I take it easy. I head to Tsim Sha Tsui for a haircut, egg tarts, and some pan fried dumplings to take home to share. I stop by the Steinway gallery in K11 one last time to soak it all in and record the piece I’d been learning all semester before I return to middle-of-nowhere, New Hampshire, with no access to a good Steinway except in my dreams. Today’s air quality was definitely the worst I’ve ever seen it though, as I could see car headlamps making an outline in the air, and could barely see the other side of the harbor when looking from the waterfront. I guess we have been blessed with very good air quality in the recent weeks, given that this kind of weather is average for Hong Kong in December. For dinner, I join my family at home with a good old fashion home cooked Christmas Eve meal, and we watch some old Christmas movie to entertain my younger cousin of 10.
Ironically enough, we did not get the chance to open all our presents together on the morning of Christmas Day, instead, choosing to wait until everyone was available to do so. For lunch, we went to a Chinese seafood restaurant near Sung Wong Toi courtesy of my uncle, where I got to try fish gizzards and okra. The remaining exchangees of Matt, Kelly, Corliss, Chai (another one of the 17 USC students staying the whole year), and Matt’s girlfriend (Nayoung?) spontaneously told me they would be visiting Lamma island this afternoon, asking me to meet them in Central near the ferries. My family was fine with it so I happily obliged to spending Christmas evening on the beach with them. One fast ferry ride later, we were stepping off on the third largest of Hong Kong’s islands (the other two being Lantau and Hong Kong Island, so really the largest non-city island). We beelined to the bike rental shop on the island, grabbing a pair for everyone for about $100 HKD for three hours, and began our trek across the island (well, at least the flat parts). We stayed along the coast lines, visiting the Lamma Island Power Station beach as well as some of the inner, less developed settlement complexes. After returning our bikes, we returned to one of those beaches to grab some island food from the shops nearby and stayed to watch the sunset. We meandered through the island town for a while before returning to the ferry back to Central, where we went to Bêp Vietnamese Kitchen, a spot on Tyler‘s wishlist but one he didn’t get to go to before departing.
Every morning I’ve woken up this week, the reality of my departure date becomes clearer, and I become sadder. This Monday morning, the family and I go to Kowloon City for a Thai restaurant brunch. We followed that up by returning home and finally unwrapping our Christmas gifts for each other, one day after we should have. In the afternoon, I grab a light meal in Harbor City with Michael Chan, a Dartmouth ‘23 who, despite the continued three week quarantine for Americans, came home to visit his family for winterim. I have definitely seen him on campus before, but never got the chance to talk to him until now, a time when he is the only Hong Kong student I am aware of who is in the city at the time. I go back to the apartment to hang out and talk with my grandma, learning some family history, before once again departing for Central to meet Matt, Kelly, Sam, and Corliss at Ho Lan Jeng, a Cantonese fusion restaurant. Opting to live life more on the edge, I return to campus again instead of the apartment to learn how to play mahjong with the squad using Matt’s newly purchased mahjong set. Sam brought baked goods from Bakehouse Soho with her, meaning I finally got to try the best egg tarts in Hong Kong three days before I leave. Surprisingly, I won one of the few games we played, owing it more to beginner’s luck than any of the mathematical skill you need to be good. I stayed the night in Matt’s room, taking the bed of his local roommate who had gone home to his family for break, and that was probably the 2nd worst night of sleep I ever got in Hong Kong, being right behind the night we stayed on Ham Tin beach. Hong Kong was only 11°C that evening, And in a city that does not use heating devices, I had nothing except the clothes on me as a blanket, meaning I would wake up every 30 minutes to shiver, only getting maybe four hours of real sleep.
Monday Dec. 27th – Wednesday Dec. 29th: Departure
Upon waking up and feeling like crap, I immediately hopped on the bus back to the MTR station, bumping into Jin, a local student from the Human Library who was soon departing for her own exchange in the Netherlands. In search of food, I ultimately stopped at Tai Wai for my last McDonald’s meal before continuing home to rest from the night before. My aunt purchased the Christmas dinner package from Pizza Hut this evening, but I have to say, the Hong Kong style pizzas I had here did not live up to my American standards, but were still unique in flavor nonetheless. In my call with my grandparents still in Shanghai, they freaked out when I told them I was up playing mahjong last night. They thought, given how mahjong playing is usually taken in mainland China, that I had been gambling away my life savings, not realizing that I was literally learning the game with my friends. This evening was by far the coldest it’s been, dropping another degree to 10°C, and even under heavy blankets at the apartment, I still felt the cold temps.
With US entry requirements, I woke up this Tuesday morning and went to the community testing center for my covid test. I zoom down over to Prince Edward station to meet Matt, Corliss, Fendi, and Andrew the Indonesian international student at “Meokbang” to have real Korean BBQ for the second time in my life (both times being in 2021, actually). Following terrible service and great food, we browse around Mong Kok and the ladies market for more cheap goods that I could bring back to the states, even finding a large pack of colorful masks for myself. I take one last trip to campus with Matt and Andrew to take care of departure logistics with CUHK, even taking the time to go visit the New Asia reflecting pool for my first and last time, saying my goodbyes to Matt and Andrew there. After departing, I go directly to the restaurant my family is at, the same seafood restaurant from last week, but for dinner this time, and also pick up some egg tarts and McDonald’s with my cousin along the walk home. After getting back, I decided to flex my one day of mahjong playing by playing with my family, unfortunately not winning any rounds this time. While packing to get ready for my flight tomorrow, I also noticed that I gained 10 pounds over the course of the semester, in line with the other few times in the summer I’ve gone back to visit family.
Today’s my very last day in Hong Kong. In the spirit of exploration, I just had to go to Central one last time to buy gifts to bring back to my family and the states, including some more rose petal jam as well as egg tarts from Bakehouse Soho to share with my family in the afternoon. One ride on the “ding ding!” and MTR later, I was back in Sham Shui Po with my roommate for one last time, getting brunch with my roommate at an real Cha Chaan Teng, or a Hong Kong diner, for the first and only time during my stay (regret 😢). We visit the Dragon Centre afterwards, the largest shopping mall in SSP, and there’s even a roller coaster inside (but no longer operational). I donate the remainder of my Hong Kong coins to a charity inside, before buying some milk tea powder to bring home. I say goodbye to a CUHK friend for the last time before returning home for dumplings with my family. Afterwards, my younger cousin needed to go to basketball, so I say goodbye to him and my uncle first. I finish packing my stuff before going down to the store below the apartment to grab some snacks and use up the rest of the money on my octopus card. I actually purposefully overspent and went into debt on that card knowing that I probably wouldn’t be able to come back in the near future (hehe, don’t tell the officials 🤫). I go upstairs a final time to share the egg tarts and have some snacks with my remaining family before we go back down with my bags and hail the taxi just to have my bags put in the back “Hong Kong style” one more time. I had no tears this time when departing my family, only feeling the ever-present nostalgia that would stay with me for the rest of the year already building within my heart as I watched the sun set one last time on this politically precarious but positively prodigious island city.
On the cab ride to the airport, I get the chance to talk to the driver, who expressed concern about me going back into a sea of omicron in the US (millions of cases per day at this time). As we pull into the airport terminal, I notice how we were the only taxi there at the time, a true testament to how covid had silenced this once bustling hub of Southeast Asia (hopefully temporarily). The check-in process was so seamless, putting the rest of the world to shame with its facial recognition security checkpoints, amazingly huge terminals, and distinctly vibrant Hong Kong style architecture, one I did not get to see four months ago while being ushered through during my check in process. I stopped for dinner at another more modern Cha Chaan Teng within the airport, grabbing my final meal of 兩送飯 (rice with 2 sides) within Hong Kong. As I walk towards my gate, another wave of nostalgia hits, and I couldn’t help but think how much life will have changed after getting back for the winter, unable to see some of my closest friends as they are off campus for the coming Dartmouth term. Friendships and associations grow and change whether you like it or not, and by participating in this exchange term, it’s like I essentially put my life back in the states on pause for four months while abroad, and then immediately hit resume once I’ve returned. It’s a strange feeling that I don’t know if I could ever get used to. I noticed at my gate that there are significantly more people waiting for this flight to the states than my one coming in, though still not enough to fill even half the plane, leaving me with an entire empty few rows to myself once again to do with as I please, leaving me in peace as I rewatched Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2 and other shenanigans. With another late night departure time as well as a nighttime arrival, I would essentially be following the darkness of night as the earth rotated through its day, allowing me to get time lapses of the lit up skylines of both Hong Kong and Boston on departure and arrival, respectively.
Stepping off the plane, I follow the crowd through the winding tunnels of Boston Logan international terminal to the border patrol agents awaiting us at the crossing. Feeling all high and mighty with my US passport now, I stepped in with a few other families in line at the US citizen and permanent resident section of check-in, while the majority of the other passengers went to the foreigners section. The funniest hog moment went down with the family in front of me. Officer: “So, how long were you in China?” Mother and father with two children: “about 8 months.” Officer: “What for?” Mother: “We went back to visit family and to avoid the pandemic.” Officer: “Really, you wanted to avoid the pandemic? There’s no covid in China?” Mother: “It’s controlled quite well there, no need to worry about catching it.” *Long pause* Officer: “I’m gonna let you pass, but I’m not really buying your story here. People don’t just leave the US to avoid covid, that’s just ridiculous.” Keep in mind that this coming week would be the peak of reported US covid cases due to omicron, coming close to an average of a million people positive per day the first week of the year, while China (and Hong Kong at the time) were still in zero-covid bubbles. Luckily, I didn’t have such a tough time explaining my time abroad to the officer, passing through with relative ease.
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