So I’ve now officially been living in Hong Kong for a month. What a strange thing to say; but the strangest part of this is that although I’ve been at City U(niversity of Hong Kong for the uninitiated) for longer than the Greco-Turkish War and Britney’s marriage to Jason Alexander – no, not that Jason Alexander – combined (30 days and 55 hours, respectively) and I’ve had the opportunity to have some amazing experiences already, it still feels as though I’ve just gotten here and that I haven’t really done anything at all. So in the interest of (relative) brevity, here’s a snapshot of my first month abroad:
Week 1
I arrived August 24 after a grueling 18 hour flight which I do not recommend – the flight is so long that I got over my jet lag before I even landed in HK.
First week of exchange: Characterized by continually meeting and re-meeting the hundreds of Europeans (I’m one of maybe a dozen Americans) who have descended upon CityU (not to mention the thousands elsewhere) in various bars almost every night; more on the bar scene in another post, I think. Since school hasn’t started yet we can just explore the city and meet other students, which has been the best part so far and made adjusting to life here really easy. When you have hundreds of people your age experiencing the same thing, it gets exponentially more bearable. We made a school-organized group trip to IKEA and all of the Swedes got a little bit homesick – no, I’m not kidding. I picked up a couple pillows for myself after having slept on a pair of sweatpants over a towel the first night, well on my way to being a college student in a real dorm for the first time.
My third day in Hong Kong, I finally get a cell phone plan and then take a spontaneous trip to Macau – yes, that Macau – to activate some fellow students’ visas and spend the day walking around the small island country.
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