Blog around the world

Church in the morning, relaxing for a bit in the afternoon along with a bit of studying for food chemistry. Long week ahead with many things to submit over a short period of time. Here’s to productivity!

I went hiking with some of my relatives and my classmates this morning! It was one of my classmate’s first time hiking, so that was a unique experience for her. While this trip wasn’t as long (only two hours or so), it had some difficulty because of the many narrow stairs and the path was a lot steeper. Still, it was quite refreshing and tiring to do so in the morning.

Afterwards, we went to have dim sum at Kowloon Bay. I would say it was my classmates’ first time having a really good dim sum meal as well as to better understand Hong Kong culture (and I had a chance to learn from my relatives too!).

Since we were at Kowloon Bay, we decided to go to the Megabox (a huge mall) to help my classmate buy a pan. After about 10-20 minutes, we wound up not buying one, but at least we knew there was an area that we could buy a lot more variety of stuff (and probably for a more reasonable price) than Festival Walk.

By the time we finished walking around Megabox, my friends and I had to go our separate ways. I went to Tai Wai (大圍) to have barbeque at another friend’s place. We wound up having barbeque until around 11. The amount of food was quite overwhelming, but we somehow managed to finish it all… The view there was really amazing; it was really nice to get a chance to see some stars at night, and the sunset was something to behold.

I had a tutorial today for analytical chem and then studied for my food chemistry exam. It felt refreshing being in a cafe-like setting for studying: not too noisy, not too quiet. There’s a whole lot of material to cover… but I hope that things would go well!

Prior to attending my Chinese class, I decided to stop by the Korean culture event again. This time I had a chance to have some kimchi fried rice, which tasted pretty good. I then had a chance to try on an outfit called hanbok, which is used for formal occasions.

After my second class ended, I went back home and said goodbye to my cousin, who is off for England to take classes. Hope things go well for him too!

Other than that, nothing particular occurred. Starting to immerse myself in Chinese dramas in hopes of improving my Chinese.

After a relatively short lab with analytical chemistry (gas chromatography to be exact), I went with my classmate to check out this event called the Mega Sale. They sold various things, from electronics to food and practically everything else in between. I then went to my friend’s dorm to hang out with some classmates. She came back from Taiwan and had some snacks for us to eat!

After relaxing for a bit, my friend and I went to a Korean culture event, which had some cool things there, including learning how to write your name in Korean (based on the Chinese name, which works, since Korean is based off of Chinese from what I know, but correct me if I’m wrong), eating Korean snacks, and playing games such as jegichagi (제기차기) and ddaki chigi (probably the wrong spelling because I cannot find the characters). I thought this was really cool to experience Korean culture firsthand; I haven’t had this experience while in the US.

I was really tired by the time I left the Korean culture event, so I decided to head back home and practiced writing and reading Chinese. I also had dinner with my cousin and had a good conversation. It was really refreshing considering I seldom usually get a chance to talk to him.

There’s no class today due to China National Day, so I decided to travel with some friends to go hiking through an event sponsored by the Yuen Long Kaw Kwong Church (神會召元朗錦光堂). We hiked from Yuen Long (元朗) to Tuen Mun (屯門). The travel time was about 3.5 hours. While it was extremely warm, the exercise was worth it and the scenery was really amazing! Along the way, we were given pears and drinks too, which were really refreshing, especially considering the heat and amount of walking that had to be done.

After traveling to Tuen Mun, we went back to Yuen Long via bus and ate 米線 (a type of noodle). Everyone else ordered spicy, haha. I strayed from spicy this time around…

Then, I went back home to rest for a bit before traveling around where I live to eat KFC. They had some good chicken and the other things there were quite satisfactory as well, such as the tart and fries.

Have you gone hiking before? If so, where? How long and how difficult was the walk?

Two classes today, one of which was a tutorial. I wound up late for the first class… the first class in which I arrived late this semester, whoops…

Resting up for tomorrow: hiking! It’s a day off tomorrow!! Very excited!!

It’s sure been raining a lot so far… my uncle mentioned that there shouldn’t be as much rain considering that it’s approaching fall, but so far, this prediction isn’t true… but I do know that temperatures are dropping, so there should be less rainfall as well.

Nothing particularly significant overall today other than church and working on my chemistry lab.

I’m always meeting new people at church and school, so it’s always a great opportunity to make new friends and expand my social circle. I’m starting to lose track of names though…

Yesterday I went to my friend’s dorm to cook a Korean dish! It’s called dukboki (떡볶이). It was his and my first time making it, but it wound up tasting fine (albeit super spicy for me, I really cannot tolerate that much spiciness). It was indeed a very unique lunch for us all.

Later on, I went to a Thai restaurant. I enjoyed the food there as well, notably their pineapple rice and curry!!

It’s already been a month here since I first arrived to Hong Kong, and yet it seems like there’s still so much to explore and so much to do!

… Hong Kong seems to be a lot about eating and eating… what is your favorite dish?

Korean dish made at the common room of the dorm

One class, went to the library to study, and went to a volunteer training. It is raining pretty hard today… thought it wasn’t going to rain for a while… guess not. Good day today though!