Orientation Day Uno

Don't get too spoiled. I won't be updating this blog everyday once school starts. But since so much is going on and I promised everyone (and myself) that I would try to keep track of everything that is going on, I thought I'd update this again.

Today we had our orientation. Last night Shota, another student here from WAC, contacted me on facebook and asked if I wanted to go eat breakfast together. We met at 10 and wandered around until we ran into some other exchange students who showed us where we could eat. It was in a room above the Chinese restaurant on campus. I had "hotcakes" for breakfast. They were basically pancakes and were actually really good. After eating we went to the orientation speech. There are 117 exchange students this semester (54 from Mainland China and 63 from overseas). We all got name tags with the flag of our country, name of our home institution, and group numbers. After the speeches, we all ate lunch at the Chinese restaurant and had to sit with our group number assignments. I was in group 11 and sat at a table with four Chinese Mainland students, a girl from Poland, a girl from Germany, and a guy from Switzerland. It was interesting and I made friends with a girl, Jessica, from Yunan province (I think?).

Then we had yet another information session (rather boring) and went to sign up for optional tours. The lines were really long so I was late for my survival Cantonese class. Luckily another girl in the same class as me, Sophie from Korea, was also late so we went together. During the class I got to try a lemon-lime tea juice box. It was interesante. I'm not sure if I liked it. Cantonese is really hard - harder than Mandarin (Putonghua) in my opinion. I signed up to take a non-credit Cantonese course, but now I am thinking I might not do it because it might confuse me when I am trying to learn Mandarin at the same time.

After the class, we got back in our groups and went on a scavenger hunt around campus and the local area. There is a possibility that my group won and if we did then we win a HK$500 coupon to a local dessert place.

Our scavenger hunt ended at Tuen Mun Town Centre so I asked the student buddy leading the group to point me in the direction of the MTR (the subway) station. She told me which way to go and I ventured off on my own. I managed to find it and take the metro all the way into the city by myself. While on the metro (I know that's the DC way of calling it and it'll be a hard habit to break), I sat next to a young man who started talking to me. He saw me looking at my mini MTR map and asked if I needed any help. Then he started chatting with me and I discovered that he is a secondary school teacher in Tuen Mun and teaches all subjects. He was very friendly and gave me his email address in case I had any questions. At first I was a little weirded out that some stranger would start talking to me, especially since I don't have the experience in figuring out who is a creep or not, but after a while this man seemed nice enough and he never asked any personal information about me so it seemed harmless and turned into a moment that reminded me of my grandmother.

I got of the train at East Tsim Sha Tsui station and met Jerry there! It was sooo nice to see a familiar face. We walked around a bit and then stopped at the Spaghetti House for dinner. He was nice enough to choose an Italian restaurant (which is my favorite food :-) ). After the first meal in days that actually made me full, we walked to the Avenue of Stars and saw the famous view of Victoria Harbor. It was so beautiful with all the lights.

Tired, we walked back to the MTR station and Jerry took me all the way back to my dorm, even my room! What a gentleman, haha. I was really glad because I was a little nervous walking by myself after dark.
So it was a very long day and I have yet another long day tomorrow. I am going to the Peak, even though I went there last year. The other option was a trip to the Hong Kong History Museum, which would've been fine with me except more people were signing up for the Peak trip and I know I need to start making friends so I decided to do that one. I'll go to the museum some day.

Good night everyone!