- Breakfast at Courtyard Mariott w/ Mom
- Got on the wrong train at Tai Wai station and headed AWAY from the University stop rather than towards it.
Hong Kong MTR Map, today I was on the light blue line:
- Switched trains at the next station, crisis averted.
- Arrive at school and check campus map. My building's only around the corner, I can walk it.
- Realize halfway up the huge hill that maps are 2-D and campus is not. End up climbing a small mountain.
CUHK Campus map. It looks decently complicated, but throw it on a mountain and suddenly you're hiking to class
- GLBS 3405: International Relations in Southeast Asia. Sitting next to Finnish girls, all super nice and studying Human Rights back at their home universities - who knew that was a PROGRAM? (brb, moving to Finland)
- Professor turns out to be super young, probably a PhD candidate. This is the first time this course runs, so it'll be interesting to see how the semester pans out. NO FINAL EXAM THOUGH!
- Hmm there are a lot of international students here, where are the locals? Found out later that local students often spend week 1 still with their families, as classes during the first week just go over the syllabi and aren't 'important'. Oh well, I'm going to them anyway.
- Meet some of the lovely international students! Spanish, Mexican, American, Finnish, and Peruvian classmates? Score.
- Head to academic admin building to finally get my student card with new Peruvian friend. Turns out she was born in Mainland China, moved to Peru as a kid, lived in NYC for two years, and goes to university in Virginia. She speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Spanish and a little bit of French.
- This girl rocks, we shall be friends.
- Whilst waiting for my student card to print, a lost-looking, beautiful German guy enters. We help him out and hang in the building for a little bit. Bam, friends.
- Lunch with new friends! Heading down to a canteen on campus with Peruvian Girl, German Guy, Mexican Girl and Spanish Guy. (I'm hesitant to use their names as of yet, this might change in the future)
- Sitting at a table having lunch of stir-fried noodles with chicken and shrimp, when American Guy friend comes to join. Chatting about classes, and potential travel plans. Mexican, Peruvian, and Spanish friends offer to help me practice my Spanish - thanks guys!
- Eventually head back to dorm where I chill with roommate #1. She's super quiet, so by "chill", I mean we sat in our room together and did our own things on our respective laptop. Oh well.
- Leave dorm and head back to campus for ENGE 4100. Go one stop too far and definitely pass the intended building, so have to walk back up the big hill to my building. Looked the wrong way while crossing the street (again) and had to dodge a motorbike.
- ENGE 4100: Major Authors. This prof is focusing on Modernist and Post-Modernist periods wherein writers essentially question everything, which is definitely my literary jam. DEVS-style critical-thinking applied to literature makes Ana a happy little keener.
- Sit next to a very nice American Guy from Texas. There's an international student dinner tonight after class so we decide to walk over together. Sharing life stories while killing time and wandering around campus was awesome, we'll have to do it again sometime.
- International Student's Dinner. 9-course meal with a bunch of traditional celebratory Chinese dishes makes for a fun dinner if you've got an adventurous palette, but may have been challenging for picky eaters. It was fun to see some people be scared off by something as inoffensive as mushrooms, but hey, to each their own.
- Potato-quality photo of the evening's Menu:
- As it turns out, the "Roasted Crispy Chicken (Frozen Chicken)" is chicken cooked similarly to duck. It was yummy, and not icy in the slightest!
- After dinner ~100 international students decided to head to the campus grocery store to grab some beers before hanging out on the steps/concrete bleachers beside the (closed for "winter") pool. San Miguel and Heinekens were had.
- Walked back to dorm with Canadian Girl and two Waterloo Engineering Students. We love the Waterloo Engineering students, and apparently I'm very good at making friends with Engineers :)
- Return to my room at ~12:30 PM, both roommates are asleep. Ooop, sorry guys!
- Quietly creep into bed and call it a night. No class tomorrow, that'll be fun!
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