August 20th
Our first morning waking up was refreshing, and we didn't really suffer too badly from jet lag at all. We got up at 7:30ish believe it or not and played with the dogs for a while before leaving to the computer market to pick up some plug adapters. We hopped on the MTR at Tai Wai headed to Wan Chai and had to make a couple transfers because we were heading really far south onto Hong Kong Island. The trains were extremely clean with glass walls separating the trains and the passenger lines, and arrows telling where to line up to enter and exit the trains, and people actually line up where they are instructed. The trains run advertisements and TV shows on televisions in the trains themselves, and run extremely smoothly and fast.
When we reached Wan Chai station we were immediately greeted by the Wan Chai Computer Center, which is really just multiple stories of strictly computer stores, probably housing around 80 or 90 stores. You can barter for the electronics and many were fairly to extremely cheap. The shops are so crowded and an absolute maze with no windows and winding, narrow hallways that you lose yourself in easily. We kept happening back into the same stores we had been at earlier and finally got what we came for after a while of just being overwhelmed. Many of the stores in Hong Kong are based around collections of similar stores, the computer stores are an example, but also if there is a coffee shop there will be competing coffee shops right next door, or candy stores, etc.
We had our first street food after wandering around and not understanding any of the signs, we were roped in by some nice people on the sidewalk who pointed for us to sit down. Being foreign and naive we followed their direction and when the man said noodles, we said yes, when he said pork, we said yes, and vegetables, another yes. It was right after that we found out these were the only english words he knew, but we were brought out our dish of noodles, pork, and vegetables and we both enjoyed it, some to lesser degrees. Below is the menu we had to choose from.
Following our meal, which we were very thankful didn't send us running to the bathroom right after we headed to PolyU to check out the school we will be studying at for the next 4 months. We struggled a LOT trying to find out how to get to PolyU from the train station, we could see it but couldn't seem to cross anywhere because the walkways are very specific and there is never anywhere where you can just cross a street many times. Walking through the campus there were groups of kids all over, some of whom would spontaneously scream and then run around for little to no reason. We visited the design school and met the chairman of the Industrial Design department, and our first impression is that it is impressive, much more so off the bat than Ohio State.
Next we ended up visiting the Hong Kong Museum of History which was $10, and we asked for a discount with our Student cards and got it for $5. Then we realized we were talking Hong Kong dollars, and HK$5 is about $0.75. We are cheap, and we love it. The museum was impressive and afterwards we headed to the Kowloon Harbor for the light show that happens every night at 8. It's free and you watch from the harbor as the buildings on the Hong Kong Island light up and strobe to music (cheap tacky 64bit videogame music). It was not as impressive as we would have hoped, but it was crowded and it was great mixing in with the crowds. This was a long post, but it was a long day for us, and we fit a lot into it. We will update fairly often and keep you posted on our... adventures?
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