So on rolls the weekend and Hannah's there working like a bawse to get her Chemistry homework done when BAM in comes Liz with plans to go to Mong Kok and stop by the camera shop on the way home. We rounded up some peeps in the form of welsh Paloma, french Quentin and american James (I really don't know why, but nationalities are always necessary nowadays) and set off on the MTR to have ourselves some fun inner city HK times. However, after about 50 minutes of travelling there and emerging into the busy city, Liz finally twigged that the camera shop she wanted was actually way back in Kowloon Tong. So after slagging her for a wee bit we all headed to the mega shopping centre (they're fairly popular in HK I'll tell ya something, Dundrum ain't got nuttin on Mong Kok!) for a bite to eat. This was directly translated into STARBUCKS TIIIIIIME! Now I personally had never experienced Starbucks before and meh, seriously you goys this globalization craic is fairly pricey. But still. I had the routine Starbucks newbie photo taken and I stole some sugar packets for the collection. After losing the boys in the metropolis that is the public toilets we headed on back to campus for....
INDIAN DINNER TIME! A quite substantial group of nearly 30 of us banted on down to Chungking Mansions which is now one of my favourite places in the world (srsly, read that wiki, sure 20% of all mobile phones in Africa have passed through that place). We went up some dodgay dodgay stairs to the Taj Mahal Club (which may or may not double as a human trafficking enterprise) for amazing amazing food of which I ate a lot. Also, mango lassis like no other. After that we met up with other Li Po Chun - ers and walked to see the fireworks as it was the Chinese national day. Now I'm a big fan of fireworks and these were like holyjaysus! I gave up taking crap pictures of them after a few minutes though and just gawped instead.
Dinner @ the Taj Mahal Club
As part of a huge logistical operation by the second years we were shepherded to Lang Kwai on the MTR (Hong Kong's answer to Kilkenny's John Street). Schandal occurred and fun times were had but twas back in bed for 1 because someone (yup, that'd be me) had a boat to catch sa maidin.
*Cue epic adventure music*
Bang on (LPC) time - aka 25 minutes late, 11 enthusiastic adventurers set off to the ferry port led by Norwegian Oda (see, the nationalities thing does kinda add to the story, no?) and laden with bananas. With little hassle other than the offputting fact that the ferry port was over a bridge through a park into a hotel down an escalator through a mall of restaurants and down another escalator, we made it through passport control and onto the ferry, buying an uber tube of malteasers for Mia's younger sisters.
Zhu Hai with Mia was great. It's amazing how different Hong Kong and Mainland are we all went to this place called the underground which was like a shopping centre with about 600 tiny tiny shops it was like some kind of a maze! For we had an argentinian barbeque which was unbelievable. Vegetarians, I just do not understand you sometimes. Nomnom steak and suchlike. As an aside I also think I had about 8 different kinds of cake while I was there. Heads up to Mia's mammy for that one.
Some of the fine goods available in the underground
On the Monday we went to a real life takeshi's castle. I kid you not. Like literally crazy asian assault course over water. Although I don't think I've ever had so many pictures taken of me in my entire life but it's clearly cause my body's too bootilicious. Besides Mia did be speaking the aul mandarin like a bawse at this guy taking photos of us and saying "we're not animals!" but the sight of an argentinian/american speaking chinese was too much so he decided to video instead. We ended up playing volleyball against a group of chinese people which was mega. My skills are unrivalled.
Bikini clad westerners taking on the world, one Chinese province at a time
Then came the chinese massage. I swear I was being personally victimised by that woman. An hour of pure bone breaking agony. Brit Leila and I were so unbelievably sore. I swear that within a few more minutes my woman would have killed me with her bare hands.
Unaware of the torture that was to come
We also went "clubbing". Lolololol. This mega club with all the lasers and strobe lights and fog machines and really really loud music and the like and packed full of completely silent unmoving chinese. We were dancing like mad yokes to make the most of our time there cause we reckoned we'd be thrown out for not buying anything. This plan worked exceptionally well cause we ended up being ushered onto the stage so all 14 of us were dancing and singing and going crazy to this unresponsive audience. Yes, there are videos.
Us (and the drunkest of the drunk)
The next morning we headed to the Underground again, bought some
Conked out that night to wake up 5.15 on the dot, trudge over to the A-block and set myself up for another nice aul skype convo to catch up on the goss from home. That Wednesday was full of hard core study I ain't gonna lie. Chem labs to write up and the likes but I honestly just felt a bit nauseous even typing "chem lab" so praps I should move on from that.
Thursday sure school sure. Had a maths test which went graaaaaaaaand, had a geo quiz which went graaaaaaaaand. Went to Art for Non Artists afterwards which was fun too, I had to draw something representing Jason Kwok. Aka completely insane Jason whose favourite colour is grey. Thursday night is block meeting night, so all the block 2ers hang around in the day room while our head of house (jaysus sounds a bit like hogwarts), Wendy, gives out about how we're unhygienic and the boys bitch about how the other boys can't aim at the toilet seat.
Friday I awoke to a short but sweet e-mail to say that there had been room checks the night before. This means that the teachers go all mission impossible and sneak into our rooms at 3.30am to make sure we're in our rooms. You have no idea how weird it is to think about someone watching you sleep. Let me tell y'all, it's pretty weird. Had school, twas all fine and dandy, I even went to the 7.30 class knowing that our teacher was in the US. My she'd be mighty proud of us all showing up to work like she'd asked. I think we kinda surprised ourselves actually. Gots me a letter in the post which is always insanely nice.Tar eis an scoil I skyped the rentals for a little bit, catching Dad before he went to work and Mum after being rudely awoken by dad as he left for work. Imagine having to get up 45 minutes earlier to skype your own daughter eh? Doesn't bear thinking about! Then by invitation from my bro (american James), I watched Get Him To The Greek with him, Trevor and a slow but steady stream of others before winding up here at 8.30 and wondering where my day has gone.
Got some scuba diving training tomorrow and rehearsals for my uber top secret play on sunday. Bring it.
Until next week, ta ra for now, Hannah x
The two times that Mum and I were in Hong Kong we stayed in little guest houses somewhere in Chungking Mansions. I seem to remember that it was condemned to demolition even then....and that was 1989.
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