(Not) Just Another Night at Karaoke

Since being in Hong Kong, we have had the fortune of being able to experience the phenomenon that is karaoke on multiple occasions. Yes, they do love it here. Our experiences have involved karaoke while eating lunch or dinner (called K-Lunch/Dinner), and other times while just enjoying it over some drinks at a local bar. This experience in particular was in celebration of one of our classmate's birthday. We call him Chu, but you can call him Jack.

We went along with 15 of our classmates to this local karaoke place called California Red. The only way that I can describe the interior is to say that it looks a lot like what I would imagine the inside of some sort of Amsterdam sex club to look like. Hallway after hallway of small soundproof rooms, each with their own TV screen and seating area, complete with dim lighting and glowing colorful walls. It is really a sight to see. There is even a small army of workers bustling between rooms to deliver food and clean the tables.

After we arrived, we all partook in the buffet dinner and let the festivities begin. They had quite a good English song selection, and Mark and I definitely tried our hands at some old classics like "Purple Rain" and "Desperado" and "In the Air Tonight", much to the displeasure of our local friends who had to endure our pitchless wailing until their songs could come back on. But just because their songs were in cantonese didn't mean they could keep the microphones from us, or keep us quiet. One of the highlights of the night came when the live Michael Jackson song, "Beat It", from one of his tours came on. Something went wrong, and no words showed up on the screen so that nobody could sing along...but nobody seemed to want to switch to the next song. Everyone in the room just became captured by the performance, even without much of Michael's vocal volume, just because it was that cool.

Needless to say, the night was pretty fun. We got to connect with our classmates even more, and I would say we will probably do it again before we leave.

Big Buddha and Ngong Ping

Last week we went to Lantau Island to explore, it's about an hour away by ferry from the student halls so we dragged ourselves out of bed and headed out.. tired.

We made it to a small town that was full of bicycles called Mui Wo (wanted to ride them), but didn't stay to explore and instead hopped on a bus to head to the top of the mountain to see the world's largest Buddha statue. The bus rides are almost like riding roller coasters, it is as if they took taxi drivers and just stuck them in buses, but did not tell them they were driving buses. They take these tiny winding roads at 60 or 70 km/hr, weaving between bicyclists and often trying to pass other cars all the while swerving up and down these tiny roads with cliffs on the side. Sometimes we drive straight through low hanging trees and the branches smack the bus like thunder or you go over bumps and are almost thrown from your seat.. very fun stuff. After about an hour bus ride we made it to the top and piled on out to see the big guy.

Walking up the 268 steps to the top he really is an impressive site as he just seems impossibly large. In fact, there is a museum beneath him and you can walk up stairs to reach him and walk out of his hip and get a great 360 deg view of the surrounding area. Just near the Big Buddha is a temple that we walked over to where people were burning incense outside of, and nearby a small vegetarian restaurant. We ended up having a nice meal there with some friends we met up with and just enjoyed the clean air and great weather and views.

Afterwards we decided to head to Tai O, a small fishing village on the southern tip of the island, but we stopped off in a little Chopstick Gallery first. The post on Tai O will come a little later.

Meeting new people

Back home it always seems forced when you try to strike up a conversation with a stranger. Too often there is some ulterior motive and not enough genuine interest or curiosity. In Hong Kong we have met loads of people through just strange and often very rewarding coincidences. Whether it is sitting in a coffee shop and someone walks up and joins you at the table to talk and learn more about you, or sitting in restaurants with a bunch of locals. Restaurants here do not divide up the seating based on groups of people, if there is a table that seats 4 and only 2 people are sitting there, you will join them. We've met handfuls of locals that once we are introduced and talk for a little often will volunteer walking us around or exploring the surrounding area. Everyone is extremely nice and helpful and just have an abundance of curiosity as well as pride for their city.

Meeting other westerners is strange too, often because their seems to be an unconscious assumption that you should already know them because they are a westerner in HK. All too often we meet new exchange students simply by waiting for an elevator or eating in a restaurant. At one point during someone will turn and in fewer words say, "You don't look like you are from here, what's your name, where are you from, we should hang out some time." And we usually agree, especially if they are girls (what?).

A good example of the randomness of meeting people was the other week when we were out during some festivities in the city with our swedish roommates. As is the custom I believe in all international friendships you first learn each others foul language and then move on to the more, I don't want to say useful... but maybe appropriate language. Anyway, we had just learned 'Visa tuttarna' or 'show me your boobs' in swedish and believed it to be hilarious. So of course we needed to practice saying it aloud or else we have a hard time remembering it and much to our surprise after saying it we saw some heads turn. There was a group of westerners sitting on some steps having some drinks and I walked over apprehensively, pointed and said, "....Swedish?" They nodded and everyone laughed realizing the situation and we ended up talking for a while and giving them suggestions for travel around Hong Kong, they were just visiting for a few days seeing the sights.

Hong Kong has been great, we are meeting fantastic and interesting people who love meeting new people, trying new foods and activities, and being in a new or old place.

Multicultural or "Multi-Culti" Night

Our hall does a very good job at planning events every week for the residents. There are posters in the elevators advertising beach BBQ trips, hotpot dinners, tea receptions, etc - none of which we have ever had time to attend.

However, one of the most popular events each semester is Multicultural night. This is when all the exchange students from each country are invited to set up a booth and bring some native food to share with the visitors. There is a competition for the best booth, and after the food tasting is somewhat of a "talent show" where each country can perform something for the audience.

Some of the highlights were...
Meatballs and Absolut Vodka at the Swedish booth
Homemade apple pies and a Jeopardy game at the USA booth
Homemade Sangria served out of a giant tub for Spain
The French had crepes and wine (of course)

Mark and I had no affiliation with the USA booth, and really didn't even know who was organizing it. So much for staying involved with the homeland.

Birthday BBQ

The other week, Mark and I were invited to a Hong Kong BBQ for one of our classmate’s birthday. This is a little different than the BBQ’s back home as you might imagine. We started the day meeting a lot of the students at the local train station and heading out to the New Territories. When we arrived we helped out with some of the grocery shopping at the local Wellcome store (no, that was not a typo) to pick up some drinks and snacks. We then took some taxis out to a gated community where one of our classmates lived. There were roughly 20 of us and we arrived to quite a nice house that included an entertainment room, complete with an unreal karaoke system. After playing a few games of Pictionary (it was more fun than its sounds), Wii, and some Karaoke, we headed to the roof for some food. There was a buffet of raw lamb, ribs, chicken wings, fishballs, and vegetables for us to choose from. In the center of the terrace was a brick fire pit lit with charcoal, and everyone just grabs whatever they want to cook and uses skewers to cook it.

The food was delicious, and it was great to get to know our classmates more. When we finally got around to celebrating the birthday, some of the other students had created some interesting birthday gifts to give. I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Yes, that is what you think it is.

A Day Off, and the Mid-Autumn Festival

Well, our day off school wasn't exactly a day off as we still had to go in and do work... BUT it meant there were lots of celebrations later on. It was China's birthday so that meant... FIREWORKS, and lots of em. It was a 23 minute fireworks display with some 32,000 rockets I believe and 400,000 people there to watch it was reported. They shot the fireworks off over the harbor and we watched from the Kowloon side, slightly behind a building or two.

The next day we joined some classmates of ours to head down to Hong Kong Island and in the Tin Hau district watched the 110th anniversary dance of the Fire Dragon. It was extremely crowded when we arrived and there was lots of little festivities going on around us, but when the main attraction came everyone paid attention. It was a 210 ft 'dragon' that had thousands of Joss sticks (incense) stuck in its back as it weaved and danced through the streets to some traditional music. Very impressive and extremely fun to see this traditional festivity with some locals who we collected some joss sticks with afterwards for good fortune (you want 3 of them).

The dragon dance would last for a few hours, but in between there were other attractions, one of which was...

bagpipes?

Beside the Fire Dragon dance was a lantern festival in Victoria Park which we stopped in to walk around. It was a fun festival weekend and we got to see a lot of the local celebrations as well as have lots of moon cakes, the official desert of the holiday. It is traditionally made with an egg inside an extremely rich, filling, bread desert. They now make them in a bunch of flavors of ice cream as well.