Oct. 31st

This morning some girls in my dorm woke me up at 6AM to take a picture with them because they were leaving the Hostel that day. Last night we all stayed up late and they all welcomed me to stay at their houses in Guangzhou and in Beijing. It was fun because they taught me some mandarin pronounciations and I taught them some English:). Man is Chinese hard!

I went and wandered around today to nowhere in particular in and saw a lot cooler things than yesterday. I think I just felt more free to wander aimlessly b/c i was by myself and also not really aiming to go anywhere. I went in this Elegent pompous dress shop with 2000$ CAD dresses! I've never seen or touched any dresses that nice in my whole life.

I saw weird weird food that street vendors had. fried chicken feet, small whole octopuses on a stick, and something that looked like fish or i don't know whale intestines on a stick.

I bought a Southern Chinese newspaper and read it. I felt like a local. lol. except it was written in English. I saw a posting for a pre-school teacher in English and saw that there are really cheap tickets to Bangkok and Vietnam:)....hmmm. interesting who knows eh?

I took a star Ferry from HK Central to Kowloon later in the night. It was nice to have the ocean breeze on my face and to be on the light blue-grey water of the South China Sea. While in Kowloon I got lost and found a music store. I went in and played a YAMAHA stand up piano and then asked this guy to play me a song on the violin. He played a CAntonese song and it was Breathtakingly beautiful. In the midst of this Hectic side of HK (even more busy than HK island) I found something that really was precious to me:).

In Kowloon I bought a camera for HKD $1038 which is about $133. It came with a tripod, 2 sets of batteries, a case, a 2GB memory card and a memory Key thing. not bad. This area is notorious for all of its' new technology. It wasn't hard to run between a few stores to compare prices b/c there were so many so close by.

It was Halloween but I didn't celebrate b/c I want to try to integrate into this culture. Out of the million People that I must have seen tonight there were probably only 10 people dressed up for Halloween. It was strange, but I'm excited for Chinese New Year on Feb. 7th.-9th:).

Then I came home and had a quarter hot shower before the hostel ran out of hot water. lol.

First day in HK

SOoooooo I am quite delerious at the moment. I flew From Vancouver on a Sunday and arrived in HK and it was a Tuesday today! WHERE DID MONDAY GO???

Well, my first impression of ppl in HK is that they are really friendly and helpful. I slept in the airport last night, then took the metro system and a bus to my hostel at 5 am. Mount Davis Jockey club my hostel happens to be on the top of this small mountain. I thought, oh yeah a few minutes of hiking, but no! 30 mins later after some intense altitude climbing with my huge travellor bag stuffed with 5 months of my life...I got to the top. There were a bunch of ppl doing Tai Chi and it's jungle like atmosphere on the mountain and in HK too( where the buildings aren't there anyways...).

I haven't decided if I hate HK or like it yet. It's mysterious and busy, but there is way too much space dedicated to POwer shopping. It makes me sick. Actually i am feeling quite sick at the moment, I just caught the bus back up the mountain after a days worth of walking around with my new friend Henry who's from Malaysia and I definetely need to take it a little slower tomorrow.

I also met a girl named Sabina from Holland, Annie from Beijing, Anthony from Guangzhou and there are some Germans sitting across from me right now that I'm sure I'll talk to tomorrow. This place is full of travelers of all ages and from all places of the world.

Today me and Henry ate Dim Sung for Brunch, then we went to see a monument that China gave to HK after it was decolonized, then we went to a Buddhist inspired art gallery, went to the zoo and watched grey cranes, very small monkeys jump and play and laughed at a Fat gorilla/ape that was eating too much at once and dropping it all over. WE went up Mt. Victoria on a trolley ride, really steep. Then I ate a big disgusting hot dog, and then we went to dinner and Anthony joined us.

The sidewalks are so weird here because they're not even on the ground half the time. There are walkways everywhere connecting into buildings and on the sides of them at the 2nd and 3rd stories because they're so damn tall. The skyscrapers redeem their names here, as compared to the ones in VAncouver and tonight I went to a market on the street and bought groceries (all fruit) for breakfast tomorrow morning.

The streets are so lit up it's amazing. Too bad I was feeling queezy. It Is expensive here though. More so than in Vancouver I think. I want to give HK a chance though, and so I'll stay here a week and check out the outdoor sights too. shopping shlopping who cares? Well, tomorrow if it's nice i might go to Lantau island with Henry and if not, all of the Museums in the province are free on Wednesdays ! WOOT! Ciao for now.

bar fight...

I told dad that I wouldn't get in any fights in CHina so I guess I kept my promise. Last night at the pub crawl in Vancouver this chick was all up in Gabrielle and her friend Erins face like yelling at them and going to fight them because she got pushed. So I told her to back off and this chick went crazy. I grabbed her to keep her away from the other girls and she f-ing threw me off the stage! I was not concentrating on my stance or anything, she just went crazy out of the blue!! I can't fight girls b/c I'm never mad enough to start a fight, and then I don't want to hurt the other girl. well needless to say I have a huge bruise on my butt, but at least she never touched my friends....

Alexandra

I had a really nice dinner with my neighbour Maja. We had good conversation as usual, and I found out where Alex(her daughter) was adopted from in China. It's called Yiyang City in the Hunan province which is just above Guangzhou. Maja picked her up from Changcha as it's the capital of the province. I want to find the city and spend some time volunteering in the orphanage she was from. It'd be hard though since they probably don't speak any English.

6 days till la Chine!!

I have no idea what to pack. Its a hard job. its 35 degrees celcius in HK right now, but in northern China where Mark lives there is probably 2 feet of snow. I dont really have a plan after my first 6 days in HK staying at a hostel. Thailand is so close and i dont need a visa...Yunnan province in China will be just sitting there waiting for me as well, with its magical scenery and its mountain hikes...hmm. well i guess we ll just have to wait and see what happens eh. haha.