Bloggin HK

It's Almost Over...

2009-05-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

I realized today that I have about 25 more days in Hong Kong. When it turned May, it really started to hit home - that my time abroad is quickly coming to an end. I'm not sure if I'm sad or happy about this. On one hand, I would really like to see everyone at home and come back. But I've made a lot of close friends here and had some great memories - I'll miss Hong Kong for sure but even more the people I've met on this trip.

I know y'all have been asking, but I'm still not exactly sure when I'll be coming home. I'm planning on coming home on the 28th and staying in Little Rock for a couple of days before going up to New York for the summer. Let's just plan on this.

Anyway, I've been really busy lately exploring Hong Kong and trying to do as many things here as possible. I know it's been a while since my last update so there's a lot of things for me to talk about. I'll find time soon to let y'all know what's been going down - especially about my 18 day spring break through Southeast Asia (been getting a lot of emails about this one...)

Until then, I will leave you with a quote that really epitomizes my experience abroad:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. " - Mark Twain

I've discovered more than just Hong Kong - but also some amazing memories with some amazing people.

Exchange 2009 - Best Thing Ever.

The World's Tallest Bungy Jump

2009-03-24T07:10:00.000-07:00

March 20, 2008 - I decided to go to Macau to do the world's tallest bungy jump with some friends here at HKUST. While Macau is known for being a gambling mecca, we didn't go that day to try our luck, we went to Bungy.

Now, I've never bungy jumped before, in fact, I'm pretty terrified of heights. But after hearing about this jump and seeing videos online, I was convinced that I needed to do it.

Macau is only about an hour from Hong Kong by ferry so it is a perfect day trip. We arrived in early in the afternoon and decided to go straight to the Macau Tower. The tower is a beautiful landmark that stands at 338 meters tall, the 10th tallest in the world. The main observation deck is 223 meters up, and thats where I ultimately jumped off from.

The whole package was about $300 USD but it was definitely worth it. It was definitely one of the best experiences I've had so far - and by far the most extreme thing I've ever done. The jump is run by AJ Hackett, the inventor of bungy jumping. The whole experience was very professional and at no point did I feel it was going to be unsafe - after all they definitely tout their 100% safety history.

It wasn't until I got up to the ledge to jump, with the bungy chord pulling me down, was I ever scared. I just thought to myself: "What the heck am I doing? This is ridiculous!!!" But I didn't have time to think of much else as they imediately began the countdown... "5...4...3...2...1...Fly!!" and that was it, I jumped. And I flew 233 meters back towards the ground at 120 mph...bounced back up a few times and laughed about it over a beer with friends. It was the best thing ever...

Here's a video:

Library

2009-03-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

This is why studying at HKUST is impossible...

Oh Yeah, Classes...

2009-03-07T01:56:00.000-08:00

Well from the blog it probably seems like I'm just on a really long vacation, traveling around Asia. That's partly true, but we do also have to attend (and pass) classes. In fact, we just had our first presentation in my Financial Markets class. Did we rock it? Of course...

Parties: Open Top Bus - Hannah's 21st!

2009-03-07T01:49:00.000-08:00

One of the exchange students here turned 21 so we all decided to throw her a "bomb" party. We rented a double-decker party bus and had a 3 hour ride around Hong Kong. There was about 70 UST students on the bus as we drove through the busiest parts of town. The Locals definitely envied us as we partied along the streets of HK. At around 1AM, the bus party ended in LKF where we went to the club Cliq and had a great time celebrating the night.

Here's some pictures from the bus:

D, Tor, and Veitch

At Cliq with Malin

Singapore

2009-03-06T10:52:00.000-08:00

We left Malaysia on an overnight train to Singapore. The train right was really interesting - it was my first Night Train. We all had individual beds (top bunks of course to save $$). The ride is about 8 hours long but you had to wake up about 6 hours into it and get off the train to go through customs. It was really annoying. We actually thought we were in Singapore after customs and declined to get back on the train - but were convinced fairly easily to get back on after being told Singapore is still two hours away.

Singapore was pretty cool, but it was very much like Hong Kong. It's really clean and there were some crazy fines for laws. If you had chewing gum you were fined $500. If you had fireworks (and I don't mean The Missile from Puerto Galera, I mean, like a bottle rocket) you got CANED.

During our 12 hour stay, we visited China town, the financial district (found

the Merrill building), government buildings, Singapore Flyer, the Fullerton Hotel, the Esplanade, and so much more.

THE RAFFLES HOTEL

One of the highlights was going to the Famous Raffles Hotel where the Singapore Sling, the signature cocktail of the country, was invented. The same recipe has been used for 98 years and at $23 USD they made sure tourists paid for a taste of it. I didn't get a picture with the drink, but here is Alyssa enjoying every minute of it. I couldn't say Sally did the same...

We had dinner at Clark Quay before catching an overnight train

back to Malaysia to spend one last day in KL. Singapore was quite the day trip but thats about what it is...a day trip. I couldn't imagine spending any longer there.

We were really happy to be back in Hong Kong. Some were a lot happier than others when we landed at HK International...

More Pictures

Singapore Flyer

Loving the AC in the Esplanade

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2009-03-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, 8 of us from UST took a four day trip to Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. We landed in this capital city at around midnight in a hot, torrential downpour. I know this because the plan decided to taxi around and stop about 100 yards outside the airport and made us walk. Luckily my sweet new backpack has a water proof cover built in and kept everything dry.

We took a taxi from the airport to our hostel, right in the heart of KL. The trip was about over an hour long, but we were all still wide awake and ready to party. The plane ride was very fun. When we got to the hostel, we found out that we actually didn't have rooms booked, but the people were nice enough to let us stay there in extra beds.

KL was VERY hot. The temperature was (logical guess), about 150 degrees every day. You couldn't go outside without sweating immediately. We went to the beach club at night to stay hydrated so we wouldn't die.

The next day, we took a trip to the Batu Caves, probably the best part of this trip. These caves were like 1013 years old and completely natural. Outside was a huge golden statue of a woman. The Caves were awesome, we had to climb about 277 stairs just to get into the cave formation. There were also wild monkeys everywhere, and one even attacked me to steal my popsicle. Word on the street is that they are trained by gypsies to steal people's wallets too...so I should have punched that monkey

Instead, I gave him my only method of staying cool (did I mention it was about 150 degrees outside?). I also held a snake and didn't freak out like Indiana Jones - first time for everything right?

That afternoon, we went and saw the Patronus Towers, which are some of the coolest looking building I've ever seen. The architecture has a great mix between modern and organic. The round spires almost look like temples in the skyline - definitely something worth seeing in real life. Also, these were featured in the film Entrapment.

At night, we went to hydrate ourselves after a long hot day at the beach club. Temperatures had dropped to about 100 by now, so it was a little cooler. The beach club was really sketchy, and full of old people and locals. Girls even had to pay to get in (which is very unusual in Asia). Someone told me that this was the #1 club in Asia...I want to see what were the basis of the ranking. If it was based on sketchiness, and amount of House Techno played...it might be plausible.

The next day, we went to the KL Towers, the 5th or 7th tallest telecommunication tower in the world. We took a trip up to the observation deck and got a 360 degree view of KL. It was really cool since the Patronus Towers were really close by. After the visit to the KL Towers, me and Dustin decided to go and check out the National Mosque. Muslim is the official religion of Malaysia (This could be false, I'm not really sure) so there were mosques everywhere. To get in, we had to wear purple robes - forget how hot they were, they were purple...

For dinner, we ate at the Soloma Resturant, which is a must-go place in KL. For about $30 USD we enjoyed a fantastic buffet style dinner, feature the many cultural cuisines of Malaysia. We also got to enjoy a show of local dances and I even got to go on stage to show off my moves.

More Pictures:

Beach Club

Snake Around MY NECK

Should Have Punched It...

This One Didn't Attack Me

Largest (Lamest) Firework Ever

2009-03-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

So, night 2 in the Philippines, some UST students ran across one of the largest fireworks I have ever seen. Immediately everyone gets super pumped about the prospects of lighting this beast up and seeing it rocket around the shore and hit some innocent dive shop....at least that was what my imagination (and everyone else's) was telling us.

The Missile (as we shall call it) was about $1200 pesos, which is like how much it costs to build a school, feed the students, and pay the teachers for a month in the Philippines (mild exaggeration). We quickly ran around town to round up the exchange students and secure the funding (investment banking style) and negotiated a price. I was VERY pumped about this firework as you can see...

The locals even gathered up around us (mostly laughing because we just got ripped off so badly) as we lit the missile. We were all so pumped as the fuse lit and the firework shot up in the sky...only to deliver the effects of a $25 mortar you can buy at the local firework stand.

WE GOT HOSED

Kayaking In The Philippines

2009-03-06T09:37:00.001-08:00

I mentioned that we did some kayaking in Puerto Galera in a previous post. I've finally gotten my hands on some pictures, although we weren't brave enough to take the camera out to sea with us.

Here's a picture of me, Sally (UVa), and Alyssa (Wisconsin Madison). We decided to stay for an extra day since we didn't have class until Tuesday.

Kayaking was a lot of fun, at first they told us that one kayak fit four people...well after seeing them, we decided to get two. The girls shared one and we spent about 2 hours kayaking along the coast until we got to a bay and hung out in the water.

Not to call anyone out, but some people had trouble navigating on the way back. Let's just say one kayak went in circles for about 15 minutes. It was fun to watch.

Retroblog: Chinese New Years in Hong Kong

2009-03-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

This starts a series of posts about things that I haven't had time to blog about. The first one is Chinese New Years (CNY).

The Chinese New Year celebration in HK is touted as the largest, most extravagant celebration in the world. At first, I was kind of suspicious about this claim...but when ONE BILLION PEOPLE take a week off to celebrate this...I was dumb to think otherwise.

CNY this year was January 26, four days after I landed in HK. Immediately, you could see that

the city was ready to celebrate this event. The skyline was lit up with new years celebrations and there were red lanterns in malls and throughout every street in HK.

There are two main celebratory events: the parade and the fireworks. I missed the parade since I was visiting my grandparents but the fireworks were insaaaaane. This makes the 4th of July show at the Country Club look like amateur.

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the streets of HK to watch the fireworks. People camped out for spots by the water since the morning. They actually closed off TST (downtown HK) so people could watch the show.

Me and a few friends got to the site at around 6, hours before the show began. We found a nice spot by the water and joined the crowd. About 30 minutes before the show began, the entire crowd began to push towards the water to get a better view. I mean, this was the most dangerous thing EVERRRR. I can't imagine how many little babies died during the push. We were literally being squeezed forward.

Anyway, the show lasted about 20 minutes of continuous awesomeness. The fireworks were synchronized with music so it was pretty sweet. The Locals even sang along with some of the songs. The pictures I took with my camera and phone did no justice so here's a professional photo.

Guangzhou, China

2009-03-06T08:52:00.000-08:00

Outside the East Train Station

Hey, since everyone at UST decided to go on trips this weekend(Guilin, Taiwan, Etc...), I'm taking time off to visit my grandparents in Guangzhou, China. It's nickname is the "City of Flowers" as every skyscraper is surrounded by grass fields and flower beds. It's pretty cool...

Guangzhou is a short, two hour train ride from Hong Kong. It's a lot like Hong Kong but with a lot more people. Here's a picture of Yung Ling Street. As you can see, it is absolutely packed at night...like Mong Kok x10. There are plenty of shops and restaurants on this street - quite possibly the busiest street in Asia. The decoration is very traditionally chinese with red lanterns all up and down the street and side streets.

I'm going to spend a lot of time here catching up on reading and updating y'all on the last few trips I've gone on.

- Pete

Back In Class

2009-03-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

After my awesome trip to Malaysia and Singapore, it REALLY sucks to be back in the classroom. Updates about the trip to come soon...

- Pete

Getting Ready For Malaysia and Singapore

2009-02-25T04:48:00.001-08:00

So I'm heading to Malaysia tomorrow afternoon. We're going to be there until Saturday, then we're taking an overnight sleeper-train to Singapore for the weekend, and finally returning to KL on Monday to come back to Hong Kong.

I realized after the Philappines that my NorthFace pack wasn't nearly big enough to carry things for a 5 day trip, so today I went and bought a 60Litre Lafuma backpack. I got this thing all packed up and ready for my trip. I like this pack a lot...

More updates to come after landing in KL.

- Pete

Nice Weather

2009-02-25T00:27:00.000-08:00

After almost a week of rain, mist, and fog the weather finally cleared up. It reminded me again how awesome this campus is. I don't think we've had this kind of visibility of Clearwater Bay since I've been here. Here's a picture from my iPhone.

Wednesday Means The Races

2009-02-23T04:20:00.001-08:00

So for the past couple of Wednesdays, I've been going to the horse races in WanChai. So many people in HK gather here to see about 12 races and gamble. I can't say my gambling skills have improved at all since I've been here but it's always been a blast. Hundreds of thousands of people show up for the races here - horse racing is like a religion. There are also great races on Sundays at Happy Valley.

The HK Jockey Club runs many promotions at its races. February was based a fashion promotion titled: Race In The City. They would have themes (Bling, Animal Print, Prince & Princess) and you could get your picture taken and receive free drinks. It's a lot of fun, and a perfect (and cheap) pre-game before the usual Wednesday night craziness in Wan Chai.

Under The Sea...in Puerto Galera, Philippines (Updated 3/7/09)

2009-02-23T03:42:00.000-08:00

Last week, we took a four day trip to Puerto Galera in the Philippines. The flight was only about $80USD and we stayed at a really nice resort for only $15 a night. Talk about cheap... The food there was awful and the nightlife was very sketch but we made the best out of it.

To get to Puerto Galera, we had to first fly to the capital city Manila. There, we took a 3 hour bus ride to the port city of Batangas, and then hired a private boat to get to Puerto Galera, Batangas Beach. We arrived in Batangas at around midnight, so the fare was hiked up and had to take the sketchiest boat ever. To even get to the boat, we had to be escorted by the police who oversaw the payment and sailing so that we wouldn't get "hijacked..."

A huge group of UST students went so we just hit up the one

dance club and also hung out at the many bars around town. We also got massages that rivaled that of the Queen Spa for only $8 USD. If you want to hang out on beaches, rent out private boats, and live like kings...go to the Philippines. It's dirty, sketchy, but it's paradise.

Things I did in the Philippines:

- Kayaked

- Scuba Dived

- Rented a Private Boat for a day

- Massages on the beach

- Met awesome Philippino children.

- Ate lots of Tequitos

- Mastered the Red Horse

The Scuba Diving was excellent. The coral laden beaches were perfect for seeing exotic fish and plants and we didn't even have to go far off the coast to catch a glimpse of this beautiful underwater world.

Here's a video below of me and Dustin diving in Sabang:

Queen Spa, Shenzhen, China

2009-02-23T03:29:00.000-08:00

The Queen Spa is a fantastic weekend trip to take if you just want to relax and do some shopping. Located in Shenzhen it's a 1 hour MTR trip from HKUST. Shenzhen is across the Chinese border so you will need a Chinese visa to enter - which is not hard to get.

I took a trip with a few buddies of mine two weekends ago for the first time. We arrived by MTR and immediately began to browse through the shopping mall outside the station. This isn't your typical mall, it's filled with small booths selling designer fakes for anything you can imagine. DVDs, Prada, Chanel, Rolex, you can get just about anything replicated here. We knew a tailor who sold custom suits for students at UST for about $80 USD so we went there right away. We were given catalogues for Canali and D&G and were told to pick a style. This past week, we received our suits and they are awesome. I'm definitely going back to get a few more suits and tailored shirts.

Now, about the Queen Spa (which is the original topic of this post). The Queen Spa is a 24hr spa with a large set of amenities. About $30USD gets you a 90 min massage (any style) and a overnight stay in the spa. There are recliners with TVs or sleeper pods you can sleep in when you get tired. Also, there are free drinks, fruits, as well as icecream and other

snacks. Well worth the $30USD you spend and much cheaper than a hotel. It was a great experience.

Since Shenzhen is so close, I can imagine I will be taking many trips to this fabled city.

FOOD!

2009-02-23T01:00:00.001-08:00

The food here in HK is actually quite good but you really have to have an open mind. Food here is oftentimes cooked in weird ways. For example, chicken is cooked with the skin on and bones, and chicken feet is a local delicacy. Fish is never filleted and you have to pick the bones out, but some of the fish dishes I've had had been absolutely delicious.

We have about 4 or 5 places to eat on campus, and the styles range from western (McDonald's has been VERY crucial), to Chinese, to Indian food. Food is also VERY cheap, $4 gets you an entire meal.

My favorites so far has been DimSum, Sushi, and Hot Pot. Also, Hong Kong's mix of Eastern and Western Culture really allows you to enjoy anything you crave - but you have to pay for it. Soho has many restaurants you can menu shop - including Mexican, Italian, American, etc.

NO EAST TUNNEL!!!

2009-02-23T00:47:00.000-08:00

Another simple way of getting around Hong Kong is by taxi of course (the MTR closes at midnight). Fortunately, we met a freelance cab driver named Dennis Cabman with special fares for UST students. But if you don't have the time to wait for one of Dennis's guys, you'll have to take one of the many taxis in Hong Kong. The number of taxis here easily rival NYC or other large cities. $120HKD - $140HKD usually get us from HKUST to downtown quite easily.

But always remember the #1 rule of HK Taxis.....NO EAST TUNNEL!!!!!! Or you are in for an extra $40HKD and a long, swearing-filled, argument with a "non-english" speaking taxi driver. An argument you will NOT win.

HKUST

2009-02-23T00:02:00.000-08:00

I'm studying at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. It's located right on the beautiful Clearwater Bay on Kowloon Island. From almost everywhere on campus (or Grounds?) you can have a clear view of the Sea. It's absolutely gorgeous. The campus is about 30 minutes away from downtown (or Central) Hong Kong. It's really cool because the city can be quite crowded at times so it's nice to get back to Campus where it's peaceful and quiet.

Even if you don't want to take the 30 minute MTR ride into Central (LKF or WanChai are prime nightlife areas), you can always hang out at the UniBar on Campus. Here you can find a good selection of drinks (at reasonable prices) and the best food on campus. Also, the dart board is always a great way to start the night out. The UniBar is a prime meeting spot for exchange students before going out as well.

Hong Kong

2009-02-22T23:22:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong is an international business center. An exotic, cosmopolitan, world city. These are the two faces of Hong Kong. From its rugged peaks and gleaming skyscrapers surrounding its iconic and bustling harbour, Hong Kong is one of the most exciting and vibrant cities in the world. With its heart and mind dedicated to business, the soul of Hong Kong extends from the trading floor and boardrooms to the bustling shopping malls, street markets and 24-hour nightlife.You can find out more about this amazing city here.

Getting around Hong Kong is simple with the Mass Transit Rail (MTR) system. As you can see from the map, HK is separated into four main islands: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, New Territories, and Lantau. HKUST is located on Kowloon island (More about my University in a later post). It can take 20 - 30 minutes to get from school to the nightlife, food, or shopping.

So...

2009-02-22T23:05:00.001-08:00

...I made a blog. Don't laugh, it's going to be awesome and you're going to read it everyday. I'll try to update this as much as possible to fill you in with everything that goes down during this semester abroad. Stay tuned for more!

- Peter