1/26-28/15 - A Taste of Chinese Martial Arts

I've been doing martial arts for more than half my life, but in the last year or so  I haven't really been able to train as much as I'd like to. This isn't necessarily a HUGE problem as I've got other things going for me, but every now and then when I watch an action movie with cool fight scenes or something, I do get itching to get back in a uniform and on the mats.

The international student office here offered a three-night set of "Introduction to Chinese Martial Arts" classes, so of course I immediately signed up. We'd be learning Tai Chi, Kung Fu, and basic acupressure and breathing techniques, none of which I'd tried before and so was totally looking forward to. 

Our instructor for all three nights was a man named William. HE IS THE CUTEST MAN EVER. He had to be 80 years old at the youngest, and I'm almost positive that he stood no taller than 5 feet maximum. William had the coolest accent and sweetest voice, and it was instantly clear that he'd been instructing for a very very long time.

This is William. Come ON, look how adorable he is. 

Each day we learned a new pattern, which was challenging to pick up but mostly because the choreography was set up differently from that of Taekwondo (it's not a symmetrical pattern like the ones I'm used to learning). Forms and patterns however are my favourite part of martial arts - to me it's like learning a super cool dance that also totally kicks ass. 

Taekwondo's aesthetics emphasize fluid movements accentuated by a sharp snapping of your technique as you execute it, so it's smooth but precise. Kung Fu had some different stances that you wouldn't see in Taekwondo, but also has a similar aesthetic basis. Tai Chi though, is SUPER different! It's still fluid, but moves aren't punctuated with sharpness and so each technique melds into the other and turns the whole pattern into one constant, flowing movement. This was a lot harder for me to pick up than expected, but I could feel it getting easier to do as the class progressed. Improvement is improvement, right? 

More than anything, the best part of these classes was the way it reminded me of just how much I really do love martial arts (apparently of any kind!). It's a workout unlike any other, and strikes this unique balance between beauty and ferocity that I haven't been able to find in any other physical activity. There's something so reassuring about knowing that you can make your body do beautiful, powerful things that demand strength and flexibility, but also a certain sense of focus and discipline that's hard to impart in other ways. I definitely think that everybody should try out martial arts even if for a little bit, because it really is unlike anything else. 

Today's Little Thing, Happy Thing: Is literally a little, happy thing. William Ng has completely made my week and sent me home every night with a huge dumb smile on my face as I wave my arms around loosely practicing the patterns I'd have just learned. 

I'm all gross and sweaty, but LOOK AT HIS SMILE :D

1/24/15 - Monkeys, Monkeys, Everywhere!

If semi-weekly hikes are going to become a thing while I'm here on exchange, you won't be hearing any complaints from me! This week, one of the local girls in my suite offered to take us on a hike to go see some monkeys, so we set out Saturday morning. A small group of us took the MTR to Tsuen Wan to meet up with Eugenia, and all together we hopped on a bus toward the park! Here are some of my favourite pictures from the day:

Heads up: There are a LOT of pictures in this post, prepare to scroll! 

You could see monkeys as soon as you got off the bus - this one was sitting on the handrail of the entrance stairs!  

Overseeing the visitors entering their neighbourhood

On the trail around the Kowloon Reservoir we found a cool little cove-thing that just had to be explored.

Inside the cove. Although it was kind of cloudy today, the skies and horizons were still stunning.

Naturally I found rocks by the water's edge and had to climb all over them like a 7 year-old. In some ways I really haven't changed at all, I just have a camera now.

What's the fastest way to get Ana to explore a desolate trench? 

Turns out the trenches were a set of tunnels and bunkers that were constructed to protect important trade routes from northern attacks. Now that the threat of attack is gone, the tunnels have been abandoned. The top of these doorways were no more than 3.5 feet off the ground so you really had to crouch to get in. 

You could see a lot of these kinds of posters plastered into the walls of some of the bunkers. We clearly weren't the first ones here.

The monkeys were really comfortable having people around, but if you got too close and didn't have food they'd start to get nervous. If you got close and DID have food around, the good luck to you because they'd be all over you... but not in a cute cuddly way.

If you thought I wasn't going to take a selfie with a monkey then you are poorly poorly mistaken. 

I'm so in love with the hillside textures here, and they definitely aren't hard to come by.

Probably my favourite shot of the day. His little one was so comfortable doing his own thing and he actually let me get pretty close. 

As it turns out, Saturday afternoons are a great time to relax for all of the animal kingdom.

Today's Little Thing, Happy Thing: The Chinese-Russian guy named Ivan who owned the bar we went to on Saturday night. When you're a new customer he'll take you and your friends into his freezer to pick out whatever bottle of vodka you'd like. Turns out his freezer is covered with a mural and he knows just how to play with perspective in such a little space. When we told him that we're from Canada he took our picture and excitedly told us that "It's like [we're] back home!"

I'd have added more cool perspective photos with Nathan too, but somebody (Chris) accidentally deleted them off their phone before backing it up... oops.

If you're in Hong Kong and you'd like to check out the park, click here for more info on how to get there! 

Thoughts from English Class: Give Light

One of the three English Literature courses I'm taking this semester is ENGL 3110: Romanticism. We're covering a fair amount of Romantic texts that I've read for other English classes at Queen's, but having different professors always means that I'm presented with different interpretations of the same work, and is always so interesting.

Last class I came across a line from William's Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that has stuck with me all week. It reads:

"He whose face gives no light shall never become a star." 

I already consider myself a pretty upbeat and positive person and it's not even like I've been feeling down or anything recently, but I feel like this proverb is offering a call to action and I love it. The image of a face "giving light" suggests this immense sense of warmth and comfort - two traits I'd love to be associated with. I am lucky enough to be a naturally happy and expressive person, which means that I never really need to actively think about whether or not my face "gives light". But can you imagine the repercussions of awesome that could arise if people made conscious efforts to express positivity? 

I've been consumed by this thought for the last few days and have come up with different ways I'm going to personally try and make sure my face "gives light":

     - Actively greeting people with a genuine smile

     - Asking direct questions when making conversation so it's not just small-talk

     - Listen to music that makes me happy
     - Surround myself with people who make positive influences on my life

I'm looking forward to trying this out. How will your face give light? 

1/18/15 - Sharie and Macau Sunday

Since starting university, Sundays have always been a day of relaxation, recovery, and guilt about how academically unprepared I actually am for the upcoming week. However, my schedule and semester have been good to me here in Hong Kong, and so this Sunday was wonderfully jam-packed!

Sunday morning started with an MTR ride down to Central where I'd be meeting up with Sharie for a spin class before lunch at the Hong Kong Country Club. I'd never taken a spin class before, but I was super excited to try it out and knew that Sharie would never steer me wrong. We went to this spin studio called XYZ which was the COOLEST workout studio I've ever seen! The whole place smelled like a Lush store instead of people and sweat, and the room itself looked like a club in LKF or something because of all the blacklights.
I set myself up on a bike and our instructor Bridge came in. He put on the best workout playlist I've ever heard - it was a bunch of house-remixed pop songs and he even had us singing along while on the bikes! My personal favourite was when he started the cool-down with Semisonic's Closing Time. Bridge, you GET ME.

Sharie and I before class, when we weren't yet gross and sweaty.

After class Sharie and I took a quick cab ride to the Hong Kong Country Club. As soon as we walked through the gates I felt like I was instantly back in Manila. Everything was so clean, which was more than a couple steps up from our well-loved and well-worn CUHK campus :P There I got to meet a bunch of her lovely friends and her awesome family! Everybody was so welcoming and they instantly made me feel comfortable and at home, something for which I cannot be more grateful.

Lunch was a serious spread and was arguably one of the best lunches I've had since arriving. There were noodles, veggies, lettuce wraps, sweet & sour pork (chicken?), chicken tikka, rice, and even french fries! Everything was so delicious, and lunch was had at a very leisurely pace so we didn't even get to dessert until almost 3 o'clock.

I was too hungry and tempted by the colours and yummy smells to take a good picture - spin class will do that to a girl.

The women I got to meet are hilarious and a half, and I definitely lost count of the number of times our big long table erupted in laughter. They were open and happy to share their lives and families with me, but still made the conscious effort to ask me about myself and were genuinely interested in what I had to say. I really admire that trait in a person, and being seated at a table of them made for a spectacular afternoon. Thank you thank you thank you thank you SO MUCH!!! 

After lunch I headed back into town to meet up with the boys and head to Macau. I found out last week that my student visa wasn't stamped upon my initial arrival to Hong Kong, which needed to be done so I can legally study at CUHK. Yikes! The best way to remedy this situation is then to head to Macau and return to Hong Kong, as you need a passport to enter both. Thanks to Nathan and Chris, I had buddies to join me so we brought our cameras and decided to make an evening of wandering around and seeing some sights.

Here's a helpful way to understand where Macau is in relation to Hong Kong, and the approximate route that the TurboJet ferry took. 

The ride there was accompanied by a trio of crying babies and a seriously loud snorer, but it was the perfect opportunity for a power nap before getting to Macau. While there we mostly just took pictures of the sights - here are some of my favourites.

Bottom of the TurboJet - cool!! 

The hotels and casinos here were beautifully illuminated all night long.

We passed by a bunch of seafood restaurants with live fish - I loved the colours in these shrimp's tails.

In between all of the tall, extravagant buildings we found this cool little park/walkway. The trees look like they've been here for a loooong time and were so awesome to walk along. 

The extravagant ceiling at an entrance to the Wynn hotel and casino - each wedge is a portion of the Chinese Zodiac. The BEST part though was that the ceiling opened like a camera aperture to reveal another ceiling of LED lights, that opened AGAIN to reveal a gigantic crystal chandelier that dropped down from above. 

This is the ceiling of the lobby of the Grand Lisboa hotel. I have a thing for beautiful ceilings, and this one has definitely been added to my list of favourites. 

In the same way that Hong Kong used to be a British colony, Macau used to be part of the Portuguese colonies. The impact of this history is still super evident around the city which offers an awesome blend of both Chinese and European architectural influences. Often we'd be walking down a street completely indiscernible from one in downtown Hong Kong only to turn the corner and see a building like this one. It was awesome! 

Once again, this was an awesome day doing awesome stuff with awesome people :) 

Today's Little Thing, Happy Thing: Realizing your "6 degrees of separation" with a complete stranger. When you're Filipino you're more likely to only get to maybe 3 degrees max, but it's always still hilarious to see how interconnected the world can be!

Take Audrey (left) for example: We both met through Sharie, but she's also friends with my Tita Ven, who's married to one of my dad's best friends from high school, who also happens to be my godfather. Also, Tita Ven and her brother lived down the street from my mom and her sisters when they were growing up, and we're all still in contact.
Confused yet? Mind blown? Welcome to the life of a Filipina. 

1/12/15 - Rainy Monday

Somebody remind me to check the weather every day, okay?

This morning I forgot to, only to be greeted with pouring rain after my first class and no hood on my Queen's jacket to speak of. It often takes more than a little rain to get me down, but by the end of the day I had been rained on like four times and felt a cold coming on, so I was ready for some dry clothes and my warm bed. 

Here's a list of what I do to make myself feel better when I'm feeling almost-sick and don't want to deal with the world:

- Instant noodles/soup of any kind

- Tea 

- Orange Juice

- Chocolate

- Netflix and my headphones

- A comfy sweater with a hood. (Thanks DEVS DSC!) 

Not the most exciting Monday, but who promised every day would be super exciting? I'm comfy, so I'm not complaining :) 

Today's Little Thing, Happy Thing: My friend Christian. Christian's this lovely Dutch boy who lives in the residence next to me, so we often run into each other at bus stops on the way to and from campus. I've never seen this kid without a smile on his face and something happy to talk about - it's like he's a living ray of sunshine. Thanks for brightening my otherwise wet and rainy day!! 

Have to do laundry tomorrow. Wish me luck. 

1/10/15 Sunset Peak

Even though it's "winter" here in Hong Kong, the 20 degree weather has been perfect for spending time outside. My friends and I had been chatting all week about hiking somewhere on Lantau Island, which is geographically separate from Hong Kong Island and the New Territories, but still only a short train ride away. (Bless the MTR)

We decided on Sunset Peak, and all 7 of us rolled out to Lantau just after lunch. Naturally, the plan was to catch the sunset from the mountain top, so we didn't want to get there too-too early but also DEFINITELY couldn't have been too late and missed it!

The hike itself was long and a real challenge for a novice like me, but Hong Kong has a lot of hiking trails to explore so I'm determined to work up my strength :) Here are a bunch of pictures from the journey up, and of us at the top!

Our starting point! We had to take a bus from the MTR station to here, and it was so packed in there we were sharing seats and squishing really close. Thankfully that was before we got all gross and sweaty.

Off we go!

After about 20 minutes on the trail the trees cleared to reveal a first glimpse of the view we'd be enjoying from the top. Ocean, islands, and skies abounding. 

Taking photos was a great excuse to catch a breath... and fix your hair.
Mmmmm, yeah, work the camera. 

The trail looked pretty much like this the entire way, and the huge stones mostly served as stairs. Thousands of stairs. Making the path must have taken forever.

Pictures of people taking pictures - it's all very meta.

More than once I caught my friends whistling songs from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. But with paths like this, you really can't blame them. 

Almost at the peak, when suddenly rock outcroppings started appearing. When it came to climbing those, the spirit was willing but the legs were protesting. We settled for pictures instead.

About 5 more minutes to the actual peak by this point, and the sky started turning the most beautiful of colours. 

Finally at the top! 869 m above sea level, and it was WINDY up here! 

Smile Chris! 

Impromptu photo-shoot while we still had sunlight. 

Remember the Waterloo Engineers that we love? We love them. Here's one.

And here's the other! Yay for fellow Canadians :D :D 

Instead of taking photos of the sunset itself and watching it through a viewfinder, I decided to put the camera down and take in the moment just for myself. I did however take this shot a minute afterwards, as the clouds looked too beautiful to ignore.

It was definitely dark by the time we got back to the bottom, and we even had to use out phone flashlights to make sure we didn't trip down the last few flights of stairs. After a dinner of bibimbap and a MTR ride home, I was ready for a hot shower and a good night's sleep. What an amazing day!!

Today's Little Thing, Happy Thing: Hong Kong's foliage. Coming from Ontario, I'm used to greenery, but the flora and fauna on this side of the globe is so different from Canada's that I'm constantly in awe of the plants growing everywhere, big and small. The trees have wider, glossier, more rounded leaves than you'd usually see on an oak or maple, so they shine in the sunlight and make me smile.

1/8/15 "This is really my syllabus?" & Pub Crawl Thursday

My main class on Thursdays is GLBS 3301: Global Issues Through Movies. Walking into the room I was already expecting an interesting class with cool discussion topics, but this syllabus is nothing like I could have hoped for. The courses' discussions will touch on everything from interpretations of country identities and debates surrounding globalization, to UN peacekeeping and drug trafficking. We're looking at different portrayals of global issues through the medium of films, but my professor really did surprise me with some of his movie selections.
Here's what I'll be watching as part of my homework (!!!):
- Wag the Dog (1997)
- Watchmen (2009)
- Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
- Black Hawk Down (2002)
- Team America World Police (2004)
- No Man's Land (2001)
- The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012)
- Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
- Inside Job (2010)
- Tropic Thunder (2008)
- Lord of War (2005)
- One Tree, Three Lives (2012)

I've not seen a lot of these movies, so I'm really looking forward to seeing them under this context for an actual CLASS! If you ever hear me say that I don't like what I'm studying, swiftly remind me that I'm lying.

Thursday was also a Pub Crawl night down in LKF, which was a great time all around. I thought better than to take my big camera this evening though, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures. The cab didn't get back to campus until 3:30 so I was more than ready for bed once back in my room :)

Today's Little Thing Happy Thing: The sidewalks and walkways in Hong Kong. There are so many different textures on the pavements here, and they feel fun to walk on. It makes being a pedestrian is so much more of an interactive experience!

1/7/15 Mr. Wong's and Wan Chai

Mr. Wong is somewhat of a legend amongst the exchange kids at CUHK. He owns a restaurant in busy Mong Kok, and has a special deal that's apparently available only to foreign students. $60HKD for all-you-can-eat-and-drink? Yes please!

To get to this Magical Place of Food and Beer, you have to enter into Mr. Wong's real restaurant, walk past all the actual patrons and into this open-air alley area that's got a really long picnic table and a styrofoam cooler full of beer. We clearly weren't paying for ambiance but that's really half the fun of it.

I headed out with maybe 20-30 people which we thought was a good sized group, only to find another 20-30 people already waiting for us upon arrival. Then 10 minutes after we arrived ANOTHER group of 20-30 people showed up. Within 2 hours, at least 100 exchange students from CUHK had arrived at Mr. Wong's and the back of his restaurant was so packed that he actually shooed away his real-people customers to make room for everybody to sit down! The beer just kept on coming, and who are a bunch of university kids to say no?

Here are a bunch of pictures from the night. Everyone was super packed in, but we're quickly turning into a big family here at CUHK so nobody minded :)

I sat at the middle-ish of this looooong table, here are all my friends sitting to the left of me.

Everybody to the right of me. The table didn't end though, it curved over to the left as well to seat another ~15 people! Everybody in the background? All CUHK exchange kids too. 

Beer and food, mid-dinner.

Trusted only the best with safeguarding our bottomless beer. Drinking on the job was thoroughly encouraged. 

Eventually, everyone's consensus was to head further downtown in search of some nightlife, and so we all mobilized to Wan Chai. It was "Ladies Night" in that particular club district which means that girls got free cover AND free drinks at some bars! Took a few fun pictures here as well, though you'll never see me in a club district again with a clunky camera. No sir.

Who needs a selfie stick when your friend's arm is longer anyway? 

Definitely the best Wednesday night in a very long time. Everybody wave to David there in the back!

Today's Little Thing, Happy Thing: King's Beer. It's probably the Busch Beer of the San Miguel family, and it's not the tastiest thing I've had in the world, but it was a good time and the can it such a brilliant blue colour. No complaints from me!