Orientation

View from the gym Parte uno

"So... Don't touch any birds."

I started off the day by trying out the gym that was inside my hostel. I had been told it was small by some of the student ambassadors and it definitely was. With about two treadmills, two elliptials, two bikes, a few other machines and a free weight rack, it definitely serves its purpose. There were only about two other people in there with me at this time (8 a.m.) so there was plenty of room for everyone to do their own thing. Oh, did I mention the great view?

View from the gym Parte dos

My second day was all about orientation for the CUHK International Summer School (ISS) students. We all bused down to Yasumoto International Academic Park (YIA) where the orientation for the 400+ ISS students was held. At 11 a.m., Louis Wong, our Regional Program Officer, began our orientation. The first thing I noticed was how great his English was. Unlike our Vice Chancellor, who later spoke, Louis barely had a Chinese accent, and even had a bit of a British one. His inflection was on point and his jokes were actually understandable (and quite funny). From what my fifteen year old cousin told me (she grew up in Hangzhou and I just saw her a few days ago. I've seen her pretty much every other year when I went back to China with my family), students in China learn British English and when they speak out loud, it's very slowly with great emphasize on each syllable.

The large lecture hall we had orientation
was just to the right on the inside. All the ISS
students have their classes just up those stairs
in Wu Ho Man Yuen Building

This combined with the heavy Chinese accent, slightly weird British accent, and oddball inflections made it pretty hard to understand the Vice Chancellor (My roommate is the same way. I have to get her to spell out the English words she's trying to say sometimes... So we usually just stick to speaking Putonghua).

Louis Wong's presentation was titled "Surviving in Hong Kong". He went over some important things like how to use the subway rail in Hong Kong, and not to get on the wrong way or you'll end up at Lo Wu (where I crossed the border from Shenzhen to Hong Kong) and without a visa you'll be arrested, transportation on campus and others.

So apparently it rains a lot in Hong Kong. Got that. However he warned us if a typhoon comes our way, classes will be canceled. Louis then showed us a clip from the Hong Kong news of what a category 8 storm looks like (basically people were flying around on the sidewalks and getting hit by trashcans). He told us, "if you don't want to end up on the news, stay indoors." Louis also taught us a few Cantonese words to help us. I'm still pretty sure I'm mispronouncing all of these but so far I've only used Nei Ho (pronounced 'Nay Ho') which means 'Hello' and Mm Goi (pronounced 'Mm Guy') which means 'Thank You'.

My roommate and I at orientation!

Some other notable quotes are:

"We are on a very big hill." ... Yeah, got that, too. There's basically no flat ground on campus-only uphill or downhill. I'm still pretty lost on campus so I don't really know how to walk from my hostel to this first part of campus (Yasumoto International Academic Park and Wu Ho Man Yuen Building are very close to the subway station I first came into) so I always take the bus. Our very big hill (small mountain), is big enough that my ears pop a little bit when we go up and down campus. Still, the view is GORGEOUS.

EVERYONE RUN.

"So... don't touch any birds." Pretty much the funniest thing I heard the entire day. Louis was telling us about the different University Health Services on campus and warned us about the spread of influenza. One of the ways to catch it is from birds. Maybe it was because of how serious he sounded but everyone in the auditorium was laughing. We might actually die though.

At the end, we took a massive group picture with all of the International Summer School students. I'm in the sixth row pretty much right in the middle. Louis told us all to do the 'Asian pose'. It was great.

After a light lunch at one of the many cafeterias (they call them canteens) on campus, my roommate and I returned to Lee Woo Sing to relax a little before the next part of our orientation began. CUHK was taking us all to a Super Star Seafood Restaurant for dinner. They pretty much reserved the entire restaurant for all of us. After loading us all into buses, it was about a 20-30 minute ride to the restaurant which was past the Shatkin Plaza/New Town Plaza that I was at the day before.

Air conditioned bus (THANK GOD)

Street outside the restaurant 

Hordes of ISS students in front of the restaurant

The inside of the restaurant was gorgeous. It had beautiful chandeliers, red flowery decorations, and enough room to fit us all.

There's about another half to the left that I couldn't get in the picture. 

The menu for our 9 course meal. YUM.

We learned that the black chopsticks were for getting food
on the table into our own plates and the white chopsticks
were for eating. 

There were about ten others that I shared a table with from all over, including Denmark, China, England, Australia and another American! (I've only met around five so far so it's always exciting) There were cans of Sprite and Coca Cola on the table for us to drink (and when we didn't start drinking them immediately, our waiter kept coming over and telling us to take it. A little stressful but I think he was trying to make room on the Lazy Susan. Even later, after we'd mostly finish one dish, our waiter would come back and try to pawn off the rest to everyone sitting at the table, like he was trying to make room for the next dish (even though there was plenty of room on the table for more than one dish... I'm still confused. All the dishes were previously ordered by the CUHK program and every table was served the same meal. 

Assorted Barbecue Platter. In the middle is black mu er
(pronounced 'moo err') which literally translates to
'Wood Ear'. It's a type of mushroom that grows on trees.
My mom always cooks this at home.

Sweet Corn and Tofu Soup. This was definitely my favorite.
I believe there was egg, tofu, corn, pork, and green onions in it. Very light :)

Deep Fried Scallop Salad Roll. This was also one of my
favorites. The entire roll was actually incredibly soft and
easy to bite into.  Inside was scallop and pineapple
(so it was sweet) and outside was something
along the lines of deep fried noodles. Omnomnom.

Deep fried Grouper filet with Sweet Corn Sauce. I
wasn't able to snap a picture before we all started
eating, but this was also very good. The deep
fried part was softer (because of the sweet corn sauce).
SO GOOD.

Sweet and Sour Pork with Pineapple. I think this dish was
the one I was most disappointed in. Although it was
good, it was just too typical American (not real) Chinese food.
(Kind of like Sesame Chicken, General Tso's Chicken, etc.)

Mushrooms with Chinese Broccoli. YAY SOME
VEGETABLES!

Roasted Crispy Chicken. I think this was the most controversial dish of the meal. In Chinese culture, it's pretty much the norm to eat the head/feet/other parts so all the Chinese people at the table were pretty unfazed. The other half of the table was absolutely horrified by the head and even more horrified when one of the Chinese members at our table ate it. I think we may have scarred them for life.

Deep Fried Taro Fish. So guess what... Not real
fish! We didn't know what 'taro' was and assumed it
was a type of fish (Logical right? Taro fish?) Nope.
This is made up of Taro Corms. I never really
cared for it before and frying it didn't make it taste
that much better, unfortunately. 

Jelly Cake. It didn't have too strong of a flavor to it, and I
think the consistency threw off some people at our table. 

Cotton Candy Rabbit. I'm not sure where they
got the Cotton Candy part because these are basically
marshmallows in shapes of rabbits covered in coconut
shavings. They were almost too cute to eat!

After the meal, we carried ourselves out of the restaurant and back into the buses waiting to take us back to campus. The rest of the night was pretty quiet and eventually, my roommate and I went to bed.