Cooking Class!

Syracuse Staff was kind enough to set up for us to take a cooking class! (at a small fee of course). It was a Friday night from 6:30 to 9 in Causeway Bay and their version of Times Square. We learned how to make shrimp dumplings and got to watch the instructor make fried pork spring rolls. I have a new appreciation for the detail and skill that goes into making dumplings. It was so hard to be able to roll out the dough property and fold the dumpling into the right shape. I didnt do so well, all mine ended up becoming cracked and deformed. But I was just proud that I finished all 16 and didn't give anyone food poisoning! Here are some pictures from that class:

The pretty kitchen! Who knew it would be this nice!

Our instructor
Making Spring Rolls - watching in awe she made it seem so easy.. it wasn't...

Serious concentration
Finally finished! Look Mom I cooked! (don't expect this when I get home...)

City U University!

So some might be wondering where I spend my days in HK. So here it is, pictures of my university and including a few shots of the incredibly clean metro!! Enjoy!

The front of CityU Student Union

How I walk to class everyday -- the entrance from the mall

The Sports Complex Building and more Academic Buildings

Pretty Gardens on CityU campus

Dorms at CityU

Flashing English maps! So you dont get lost..

absurdly long

Shek-O Beach

So of course what do we do on a Sunday?! Go to the beach!! To mix it up a bit we decided to go to another one on HK Island. Again, easy to get there. We just took the MTR and hopped on a number 9 bus. Couldn't mess that up. This beach was a little farther away (like an hour) but a bunch of the other people in our group had gone and said it was nicer. It definitely was, the water was clear and there were actual waves. We laid out for a bit and then decided that it had gotten to crowded. So we headed off to go find the restaurant that our seminar professor has recommended. We found the Thai/Chinese restaurant with no problems and I ordered Baked Rice in a Pineapple, yes a Pineapple! It was amazing, especially because of the serving bowl. It was a great relaxing way to get outta the humidity and heat that is Hong Kong. We will be going back soon!

The beach!

My pineapple rice

The Touristy Things in Hong Kong!

So we are trying to hit most of touristy thing in HK, i think that this post will be an on-going updated one.
We headed off to Soho for dinner at a mexican resturant one night! But to get to Soho, you have to take the longest covered outdoor escalator in the world! It really didn't seem that high but was pretty cool because all of the shops below put up their advertisement and you would just get off when you saw the right sign. Here are some pictures of us riding it, i think we were kind of obnoxious because this is some people's daily commute.
The mexican was amazing, tasted like a was back in Syracuse at a resturant called Syrajuice. Who ever doubted that we couldn't find Mexican in Hong Kong was wrong... Italian is next! Then California Pizza Kitchen (yes they have it like 2 blocks from our housing!)


The next have to do thing was the light show! It is a 16 minute long event in which all the building get lite up to music. We watched it from the Kowloon side in an area called TST. It was really cool looking, pictures don't do it justice! I would have loved to be on one of the cruise boats in the middle of the bay during the show. After the show, we headed off for some much needed food and stumbled upon a Sushi Restaurant. It had the conveyer belt serving style that I remember from Japan many years ago! They did the same type of plate color calculations as well. I am sure it was better in Japan, but this place was pretty great. Dad, you would have loved it, but i still don't think we would have been able to eat as but as they did in Japan!

Tried to capture it, but i guess you just have to see it for yourselves!

School School School

So we have been living here for about two weeks now! Classes have started and they aren't too bad. Many of the professor are very interesting. It kind of sucks that we only take classes with our SU program and live only with our SU program. So its hard to meet all the other international students at CityU and in Hong Kong, and there are so many here. I wish we either took classes with them or lived closer to the dormitory so we could get a little more integration with what life for a Hong Kong student is really like. Plus, there is only 39 of us so honestly its like you see the same people every single day (good thing everyone is pretty cool..) Maybe there is another way for us to meet more people.
My classes are interesting. I am taking three including Mandarin 101. That is going to be hard. Not only do you have to learn how to speak with these crazy tones, but the writing is so different too. Our first quiz is Wednesday so I know what I will be doing for the next 3 days.. memorizing strokes of the characters. What fun!!
My Hong Kong in the World Political Economy professor is very knowledgeable and is Chinese scholar. Then my Southeast Asia in the World Political Economy professor is from New Zealand! Great accent, I swear he could make everything sound cool. But he will definitely be helpful when I am trying to put together my independent research project in November.

Repulse Bay!

Today we headed off to the other side of Hong Kong Island to the beaches. It was actually really easy to get there! We just took the MTR to Central and then caught a bus that was going to Repulse Bay. It was a double decker bus, so of course we jumped on and headed for the second story top seats! It was the crazy ride, we were bouncing all around the whole ride. I would never want to learn how to drive those buses because they are HUGE and have to move so fast!! We got to the beach and it was really beautiful. I could not believe how fast it was to get there, I have never lived so close to a beach! I am not sure how long we can go there for, but I have heard its nice enough to can go til late November!

Beautiful Beaches!!

The buildings looking over the beach, I wanna live there!!

Back In Hong Kong!

So we came back to Hong Kong and honestly i was so excited to get back here! It was fun traveling around mainland but it just made more happy that i decided to study in Hong Kong. When we first got back we went and got bedding at IKEA (yes, it was the exact same as the one in the states!!). It was really nice to be able to make somewhere feel like home! Vanessa and I unpacked and made our room look not half bad! picture will be put up soon!
But instead, i am going to put up picture of our trip to The Peak overlooking all of Hong Kong. Now personally, I think this skyline is more impressive than Shanghai....But you be the judge!

Gotta love this view!

The floating Dim Sum resturant we went to

Boat that takes you out to the resturant

Some Scary Stuff in Mongkok

So there was another acid attack yesterday in one of the busiest places in Hong Kong called Mongkok. This is the 4th time this year and tts only 5 minutes down the street from where I live so we are all worried and just trying to avoid that area. I hope it was an isolated problem and wont continue to occur while we are here...
Here are a few articles I have found:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/06/09/hong.kong.acid.attack/index.html
http://www.eturbonews.com/9723/mongkok-edge-after-another-acid-attack

SHANGHAI: Massive Update Part 3!

SHANGHAI:
We woke up at 7 AM the next morning in Shanghai!! Shanghai was beautiful and there were building everywhere. There were restaurants on top of Restaurants in buildings, and colorful signs and people everywhere. There were full glass skyscrapers. We got to our hotel, and napped because the train wasn’t that great of a night’s sleep. In the afternoon, we visited the Shanghai Museum, and Shanghai Urban Planning Museum. My favorite was the Urban Planning Models, there were so interesting and showed the massive size of the city and its buildings. Many of the exhibits showed a streets or areas progression through the years, it was very interesting to see how much everything changed. There was also a huge exhibit on the 2010 Shanghai Expo, which is basically Shanghai trying to show up Beijing from all their press coverage on the Olympics. There are building 4 new permanent structures and then each country will have a pavilion for “culture activities”. I am still not sure exactly what it is, but the Shanghai people are very proud of their city and want to show it off! There is also major construction on the Bund, which is the riverfront with 1920s and 1930s buildings. The whole highway is going underneath the ground so that it is going to be a pedestrian walkway. Then we went over and took a great picture of the skyline! Maybe I am partial but I like Hong Kong’s skyline better!!

The Massive Models!

Pictures from the Urban Planning Museum

View from across the river!

DAY 2 IN SHANGHAI:

For our lecture today, we headed to Asia Management Consultants for an interesting talk on the differences between business in the US, China and Japan. It was very intriguing to get their opinions on the future of manufacturing and business in Asia. After we headed an hour outside the city to small fishing village called Zhu Jia Jiao. Fun fast that this was where Tom Cruise filmed Mission Impossible 3 (I haven’t actually seen it so I wasn’t really able to pick out anything…). It was raining though and the one-day I forgot to bring my rain jacket, I actually needed it. Typical. But it was cute and quaint, great pictures! There were canals between the streets that carried the water for everything including bathing, drinking and fishing. The water did look really dirty though because of pollution and algae growth. The locals called the village “Venice of China.” We visited a typical Chinese Garden and post office. We arrived back in Shanghai city and had dinner at a typical Chinese restaurant, which was very good! It had hot plates on the table to keep the food warm while you ate it.

the pollution in the river!! i wouldn't want to drink that!

A pretty house we toured

That is one big Buddha!

DAY 3 IN SHANGHAI:

This morning we left earlier than usual to head to the US Consulate for a briefing in Business of US Companies on Chinese Soil. Our speaker was really great because he was interesting and cracked jokes during his lecture. He also convinced us all that we should join the State Department or other Government positions because he explained his travel benefits, housing and other perks to the job! Our professor joked that they should just give out applications now! Then we went to a Shanghai Jewish Museum on the Jewish immigrants who arrived during World War II. 300,000 Jews came to Shanghai because it was one of the only places during WWII that they did not need a visa. We had an amazing American lunch at California Pizza Kitchen in the Consulate building. It tasted just like home!! Then headed back to the hotel for lectures all afternoon on the history of Shanghai as a city and economic capital.

DAY 4 IN SHANGHAI:
This was our last full day of our China seminar! It was so unreal that we were actually almost done traveling and heading back to Hong Kong. We had our wrap up lecture in the morning with Professor Bruce in which he gave us all the tips and tricks of Hong Kong. He lived and worked there for many years so he was able to give us some good restaurants and what beaches to go. I hope we can use his advice soon because I looked up the weather in Hong Kong and it is like 101!! We had the afternoon free so many of us went to go to the economic district called Pudong on the east side of the river. We went up the TV Tower and go to look at the vast city below us. Amazing is the only word to describe the view. Then in one of the “bubbles” there was a rollercoaster! We got to ride the highest built rollercoaster in the world! It was such a baby coaster and was over in less than 2 minutes but totally worth it!! Next we went back across the river in a underground lighted tunnel. Its really hard to explain but it was a cross between a amusement park ride and a metro car. Only the Chinese would think of something like that!

The TV Tower!

Had to pose for a picture at the top!

Holy crap look at this skyline!

View from the top! Looking across the river!

the crazy tunnel!

yes, we rode in this!

After we got back across the river, we FINALLY took advantage of the amazing shopping Shanghai has to offer. I just wish we had more time! There were so many opinions and places to go it was overwhelming. Maybe I can convince some people to come back during the semester… At 6, we went to our Farewell dinner at Green Wave Restaurant in Shanghai Old Town. It was so beautiful with the lights and another great area of shopping, but we had to go back to the hotel on the bus.

View of the TV Tower at night!

DAY 5: Today we headed back to Hong Kong and I am happy to finally be able to settle in to somewhere! Our living situation is not the greatest, but I am sure I won’t be spending much time in anyways! The rooms aren’t that small, but are quite plain, not the cleanest. Hopefully, we can get new bedding and other essentials for the semester. Classes start Monday! I will post a full Hong Kong post before that. I think for right now I have done enough!

Massive Update Part 2: BEJING

We arrived in Beijing and we didn’t waste anytime getting started on the sights! We arrived into the hotel at 1130, got lunch and put down our stuff then headed off to see the Forbidden City and Tian An Men Square. Tian An Men Square is HUGE, I have seen many pictures from the news but nothing shows you the vast amount of space that it actually is!! We walked around and then headed into the Forbidden City. It sucks that they were actually doing a lot of construction on the front, so all my pictures have scaffolding in them, kind of losing the effect of how big it is but that’s alright. We walked through the WHOLE THING. It was so massive, like really it just kept going. At one point, our guide had to bribe our group with ice cream to keep going. They even have a starbucks inside the Forbidden City!! Its crazy! It was quite beautiful and had so many rooms, you could have gotten lost for days! Beijing traffic is insane; it took us an hour to get back to our hotel and it was only like 2 miles at the most. I will never complain about DC traffic again after sitting in that..

General Mao picture with reconstruction panels up, kind of ruined a pictures

Our group in from of the Forbidden CityThe huge square!

Inside the Forbidden City

The river outside the city walls

But finally we arrived home and we quickly changed for dinner at Quan Ju De Peking Restaurant. We had the famous roast duck that is cut into exactly 160 pieces! I wasn’t such a big fan, but they gave you many other opinions so I just ate those. We ate duck at this really cute place on a lake with a bunch of other restaurants as well. Apparently it is an area that during the winter, locals go out and skate on the man made lake!
DAY 2 IN BEIJING:
We woke up this morning and headed to the lovely area of Shi Sha Hai Hutong, which is the oldest part of Beijing. It has no high-rise apartments just Hutong houses, which are the original housing in Beijing. We got to take a rickshaw ride around the area and visited Beijing alleys, a drum tower and teahouse. The Drum tower had a great view of the city, but it was too smoggy to even see any of the buildings.

All the rickshawscrazy stairs to drum tower
view from the top! See the smog!

I was shocked at the amount of smog in Beijing. They have the worst pollution I have even seen, it is so horrible, visibility sucks and so does the air quality. Every time when I walk around, you just feel dirty when you come back inside. There was insane smog our first two days, and I felt like I was back in Syracuse. For lunch, we ate in an original Hutong house with a family. It was probably the best meal I had yet. She set up tables in her small living room and was so friendly. She tried to speak English to us and kept making us eat more. So we ended up leaving the Hutong area with a full stomach and a great idea about what it is like for families to live in there.

streets of the area!
Our cook!

Then all afternoon we had lectures from prominent people in Beijing including the Architect for the Shanghai Convention Center and a Professor from Peking University on US and China relations. Both speakers were very interesting, but the highlight was the restaurant we went for dinner, which was called Grandma’s Kitchen and had all the favorites from home. I had a salad, which I missed so much. I need to find somewhere like that in HK when we return!

DAY 3 IN BJ:
Today was the first sunny day that we have had in Beijing and we had to sit in lectures for the morning. Our first lecture was on the mass media in China, it was very interesting to hear a Chinese professors thought on the subject of how media works in China. I am not sure if I quite agreed with him on many issues but he did make very good points. Then we talked to three of his students that he had brought with him. It was good to get a student-to-student perspective on stuff like censoring of Transformers and other major movies and how that affects their view on the world. After another great American style lunch, we headed off to visit the Water Cube and Bird’s Nest. They were amazing, and I was so surprised to see the many tourists there. Seeing the site really made me wish I had been there. The buildings architecturally were just so interesting and I didn’t realize how big the site actually was! We didn’t have enough time to go in which sucked. I really wanted to go inside the Water Cube! But I guess I got to see it, which was still awesome.

The Olympic Tower

The Water Cube!

DAY 4 IN BEIJING:
This was the day that we had all been dreading because it was a full lecture day. As much as this trip has been very interesting, it also has to be academic! The lectures were actually all very interesting; every speaker was interesting, fast-paced and engaging. My favorite was an American journalist living in Beijing, she had some great stories and not to mention was a great speaker. I really thought it was interesting the difference in what she said compared to what the Chinese professor had said days earlier on Chinese censorship in media. After that long day of lectures, we headed for some much needed shopping therapy at the famous Silk Road Market. It was only a five-minute walk from our hotel so it was so easy! It is a huge warehouse of everything you can imagine from fake coach bags to camera parts, traditional Chinese gifts (I think you get the point). They would just bargain with you, which I thought was fun! It was funny for them to laugh at your starting price and to see what words in English they actually new. My favorite line was “You Crazy!” which they would repeat over and over again at your offers.
DAY 5 IN BEIJING:
The Great Wall of China is the main reason that tourists actually travel to mainland China, so as you can imagine we all were super excited to be able to see it! We drove an hour outside the city to the Mu Tian Yu section, which is touristy but not too bad that you can still get some great pictures. We had to climb up to it, which definitely reminded me of the stairs up to Machu Picchu this summer! There were so many stairs and not many of us had taken the warning very seriously about the strenuous climb up to the wall. So we kept getting to another set of stairs and wishing they were over!! But the view at the top was amazing; I couldn’t even believe that I was actually standing on the Great Wall of China!! It was so much more amazing that I had ever thought it would be and was actually quite beautiful. Our professor even noted that he had never been there on such a beautiful day before! So of course being the tourist we are we just started climbing or running all in one direction! Then after 20 minutes of pure picture taking bliss, we realized that the way we were suppose to get down was the opposite direction of the way we went… so we turned around and started hiking back the other way.. and the hiking started to lose its appeal. I didn’t realize how hilly the Great Wall actually was. For some reason in my mind was though it was just going to be a nice flat wall. The way that we got down was a toboggan slide from the top! It was so hilarious and slightly dangerous.. but we slide down for a good 10 minutes into the center of the town! There was people stationed around every corned to make you slow down but they would yell at you in Chinese so I had no idea what they were saying or pretended to so I could go faster! When we arrived back in the city we headed over to the other famous market, the Pearl Market. Historically, it was the place to get cheap pearls but now they just are as expensive in the states. Now, it is just everything like the Silk Market. I liked this one better because the vendors were a little less aggressive and forcing but still it was overwhelming. I was glad I got to see the famous markets!

Beautiful!!

It was so steep!

Donkey on the Great Wall!

Riding down from the great wall!

DAY 6 IN BEIJING:
Today was our last day in Beijing so we woke up early and went to the Temple of Heaven. This is one of the many places in Beijing where the older people wake up and come do their morning exercises. There were so many of them! Everyone was doing something and every inch of the park was covered in activities, who knew so much was going on at 7 AM?!?! We got to take a Taji lesson with a “Master” who was really good. Us students were just plain bad. It was actually really difficult and took a lot of muscle concentration and mental stamina. In the afternoon, we went to a paper cutting and Chinese calligraphy class. Again, not as easy as it looks. But calligraphy was kind of like drawing instead of writing, which was fun. We got brush and ink, they even taught us how to hold the brush! It was quite a Chinese artsy day, which was nice to get away from the distinctly touristy attractions for a little bit. Paper cutting was fun because the lady who taught us was so good. She would go up and down the aisle while we worked and cute away these beautiful things without trying! Then we got cheap awesome massages and just walked around in the great weather. After a lovely afternoon in Beijing, we headed off for the overnight train to Shanghai. The train station was insanity, apparently it hosts half a million people a day. There was nowhere to sit and wait for the train and it was so dirty. The train on the other hand was great! Very clean, kind of cramped but better than I expected.

The Temple of Heaven

Men playing some game on the grounds

Us all trying to follow the master

The daily workouts

The temple of heaven! it was huge!