Belated Birthday Post

Wow, I have not been doing a good job lately. I've missed keeping things up-to-date for ~2.5 weeks now, specifically two weekends already.

This past Sunday I played frisbee outside on a nice, cloudy day. Someone casually mentioned that the UV-index was at 10 despite the clouds; not knowing what this meant, I decided to try to evade the Hong Kong humidity by playing on the 'Skins' team in Ultimate. I later found out that the UV-index is a index for the severity of UV radiation from the sun, and it's measured OUT OF 11, which I can only assume is a pretty sick Spinal Tap reference . Still, I sun-roasted my pale, delicate skin for three hours, and this past week I've been recovering. I've mostly been avoiding wearing clothes on my burns. It's not the worst burn I've ever gotten, but it's certainly the worst after-effects I've ever had - the past two nights I probably got a collective of ~7 hours of sleep.
Not that this is a real excuse to you or myself for the two weekends before this, but I'm just saying that this past week I have felt generally ill.

So anyways, I'll do a quick post about my birthday, which will mostly contain pictures!

Starting with August 31st through July 2 (including my birthday!), and then also July 8th to July 10th, I've definitely missed updating the general population on the very important information of the past two weekends worth of my adventures.

Last Friday, it was my birthday, and luckily it also happened to be "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day", or the rough equivalent of Independence day (from Britain). As we didn't have work,  I joined a group of eight (which later became four) people who were going to Lamma Island, a Hong Kong Island with a population of 6,000 people.

Lamma island told through a few pictures:

The Journey Begins

Reminds me of Tanzania

I made a whole post about spiders, but didn't post it, but now I know a decent amount of facts about spiders. This is a Golden Orb Spider. Their webs stay up for years at a time, and sometime catch small birds.
Spiders don't eat birds, so it's bad for both parties.

Panoramaaaaaa

Lamma Island Powerplant

C'est la plage

me_irl

We saw a secluded beach from a higher vantage point, and I wanted to go, so we fought our way through a lot of large spiders in the jungle-y area to get to the beach. But we had 2 hours to spend on our own private beach, so it was a pretty good birthday.

The crew

Part of this adventure made me realize that other people are just as bad at making decisions as I am. When we saw the beach from a pitstop by the path there was a lot of dilly-dallying and delaying about what to do next. I wrongly assumed that people knew what they wanted to do, and so I didn't push people to do something else. We ended up going down to the beach, but if I realize I could have saved us a bunch of time by being more assertive with this thing that I wanted to do. 

Stray dogs eating garbage. I don't know what mange is exactly, but I'm fairly certain they had mange.

So, I'll be sure to post up, and make some real posts about what I've been doing, and thinking about. This upcoming Monday-Tuesday our group is going to Macau to give midterm presentations (read: gamble). And I'll be better by then!

Real posts are coming !!1one!!1!

Working hard, or hardly working, amirite

Mostly Spiders

One thing I've noticed about hiking in Hong Kong is that there are a lot of spiders.

A lot of big spiders

So here's a brief post about some of the few things I've researched about spiders. I will not be citing my sources - but on my honor, everything I found is from the internet! 

Ready to ruin your day (but really if you're a flying insect)

Spiders move by controlling the hydrostatic pressure in their legs - using the mechanism behind a hydraulic lift to move their legs. Spiders are able to move by : walking, running, jumping, ballooning (like in Chalotte's Web), walking on water, and tumbling/handsprings (in places like the desert).

In 2012 (I believe it may have been earlier), a group developed a spider-like robot with 4 legs, 8 motors, and some sensors to tell it's general position. They put an AI into the robot but didn't tell it what it looked like, and they watched it teach itself how to walk. Here is a video!

Fine spider silk (a protein called Gossamer) is gelatinous in their body, and upon being spun is dried of excess water and is acidified, a process which solidifies it.

I recently got fed up with this spider black magic and decided to google how spiders are able get their webs across huge expanses. The answer, was much more simple than I thought. Essentially, they just climb to a high place, as start emitting silk, to be picked up by the wind, until it floats and hits something. If the silk does not strike anything, the spider will probably eat the silk back. I am sure there is more to it than just this, because I would imagine that much more often than not, spiders would end up with webs stuck to the ground.

The most common spider I have found in Hong Kong is called the Golden Orb spider, and the internet is filled with admiration for their webs. Apparently, their webs, which are designed to catch large flying insects, are strong enough that small birds can get caught in them; spiders can't eat birds. So to prevent birds from ruining their webs, the spiders supposedly leave a string of dead insects near the edges of the webs like a warning strip on glass doors, for birds.

Not all spiders hunt by stringing up their nets in places were bugs that are smaller than them will fly/jump into them. The Gladiator Spider hunts by carrying it's net on its front legs, and jumping on its prey with it. Enjoy this gif!

Crazy!

Anyways, this week has already gone by so quickly! I'll post again soon.

I know I posted this image before - But some recently told me "crabs are like the spiders of the sea",
So look at this sea spider

Hong Kong: An Efficient and Rule-Abiding Place

I haven't been able to post in the past few days, so maybe I'll try to put out a few this week. I would add that as an excuse - I've recently tried to change the way I type to be more efficient (because right now my right index finger is doing most of the work), so my typing speed has plummeted to excruciatingly low typing speeds.

Reflecting on the past three weeks, I find that, strangely enough, I often don't feel that out of place. The blend of western cultures that are present in cities like NYC and are present in Hong Kong are not so different. The Eastern connection, as well as the presence of nature, I find here is clearly much stronger, and unique to Hong Kong.

When it comes down to it, I find that the cultural differences of Hong Kong that stand out to me the most, in their own subtle ways are: 1- the whole region often seems to be very well thought-out, and efficiently designed; and 2- when interacting with people who are doing their job, they will follow every rule to the letter. This is vague, so I'll explain...

Starting with efficiency:

Upon entering Hong Kong, you are essentially required to buy what is known as an Octopus card, which for all intents and purposes is a public goods card. You can deposit cash onto it at any location that takes it, which includes: Convenience stores (like 7-11, which is really common here), 'Fast Food' locations (which doesn't simply mean unhealthy food, but more just means that you pay first, eat later), the MTR (subway system), as well as a large assortment of miscellaneous things like parking, horse racing, and vending machines.

This is such a clearly thought-out system, that just makes everything easier. I understand why many places don't have it, as it seems like the kind of thing you have to introduce at the inception of a major city, very consciously, but I am very glad that Hong Kong has Octopus cards.

I've said this before, but the subway system here is amazing. In the past two years I've grown to really appreciate public transportation, so perhaps this only interests me, but maybe I can convey what a feat they've accomplished here.

An MTR Map

Here's a quick list of MTR characteristics that I've noticed:

• At most transfers, when you get off the train, they have designed the railways so that the train you will be getting on is literally across from you. Moreover, they time their trains so that when you are transferring off of a train, the train you are most likely getting on arrives 30 seconds to 1 minute after the train you're getting off of, to minimize time standing around. Now, I don't know exactly how they do this, as it really always seems to work; but I imagine they ran a lot of simulations based on where people will most likely be coming from, and going to.
• The subway never takes longer than 7 minutes to arrive (or at least it hasn't yet).
• The subway railway is behind glass, so you can't hurt yourself. 
• This also means that the subway aligns itself with the doorways, accurate to a few inches (which is amazing).

• Everything is very clean - this is likely as a result of strict enforcement of no-eating-or-drinking rules (you can get charged $5000 HKD ~ $620 USD) 
• Unlike NYC subway systems where you pay to enter and can travel anywhere, you tap your Octopus card to enter and to leave - so it charges you for the exact location that you are traveling to (like the DC metro). 

I don't know if this interests you, but the prices are pretty cheap to go basically anywhere

• Every train appears to be identical, and they all have maps on them every few 5 yards that have LEDs marking where you are, and which direction you are traveling.
• Everyone on the train observes train etiquette pretty strictly - being fairly quiet, keeping to themselves, offering their seat to anyone who needs it, and just being generally mindful.

People on the train

• One thing to note, is that Hong Kong is much more spread out than places like NYC (though likely comparable to DC's metro system). So while some places are exceptionally crowded, it generally is not very densely packed.
• Like NYC, while the subway system is largely very efficient, the bus system in Hong Kong is not quite up to the same standard. Here they have mini-buses, which simply because of the size of rural Hong Kong are unable to keep up the level of effective travel as the subways.

There are some other examples of efficiency that I could bring up, but largely it just seems to be a mindset of the engineers who designed the city. It's something that is very cool to see, and something that I think can only happen in a city like Hong Kong which emerged so rapidly.

Hong Kong 1970s vs Now (Image Source: AsianUrbanEpicentres)

But really, you notice the little things. For example, when waiting in line for our matcha (from the previous post), we were given a receipt with a QR code (seen below), which you could go and see how many people were in front of you (so you could leave and come back).

The future is now. Bwaaaaaaaaaaamp

On the flip side, the other cultural thing of note is the way that workers follow directions. Now, I'll preface this by saying that my experience has only been interacting with older work staff and that perhaps this is a generational thing. However, what I've found is that every worker who I have interacted with (typically either guards or food workers) are very rule-abiding, with little to no ability to bend the rules.
For example, when attempting to use the ferry, I needed to get exchange bills for coins; when I went to the stand where this could be done I asked if I could exchange two bills, so that I would have cash for the ferry back as well - they said no, their job was to exchange one bill for its equivalent coin value.
I won't belabor the point (for one reason, that this is a much more subtle note, with fewer explicit examples), but there are of course still a few examples of other situations like this : for example,
when I accidentally locked myself out, despite the fact that we were never issued an ID card, the guard required that I show them an ID card. I ended up getting around this by showing a picture of a local friend's ID card that I took on my phone - which if I may add, is a ridiculous solution.

There a few reasons why this kind of cultural rule-abiding may take place, but to me it seems that the local people feel the presence of a western culture in their businesses, a culture that they perhaps don't fully understand, the same way westerners struggle to understand eastern ideals. To combat with the foreign, perhaps capitalistic culture that has clearly permeated it's way into their jobs, they have decided to combat this lack of understanding of the rules by following the rules to the letter - that way, there could be no question that they did nothing wrong.

All in all, the country is exciting, and I aim to interact with more locals now. Perhaps I will be able to get more meaningful insights if I leave my bubble of largely-American internationals.

You made it so far! Enjoy some hiking pictures from last week:

"I am a Helicopter"

"Those are some good butts"

help, help, я не шучу

This guy seriously has got to stop photobombing the scenery

Matcha, Mustangs, and Mountains

I think that as I post more and more, I begin to better identify why I am writing at all. For one thing, it's helpful for me, to spend the time to make my journal entries readable for an audience, and not just myself. Alternatively, I think that by posting my experiences as they happen I can provide a more honest opinion of the summer (for those who are interested), as opinions always get so distorted over time. I also think that I can use this blog to express my own opinions on various aspects of my experience here. My posts will likely fall into two categories (or I guess somewhere in the middle): posts about experiences, and thoughts about experiences.

This post itself (as I think most of the ones so far have been), is largely a post about my experiences (plus pictures) of the past week.
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The 8 of us took 4 lessons in survival cantonese - this entailed learning basic grammar, tones, numbers, and simple verbs. But really, now I know how to make Hong Kongers laugh by attempting counting to ten (it really gets them every time).

We got Cantonese Class Attendance Certificates (Picture Credits: Prof. Ming Lee)

I don't know if this occurs every Wednesday, but on Wednesdays there is horse racing in the Happy Valley race track. I went with 2 friends to the race track, thinking that at the very least it would be something new.

Well, you know the scene in My Fair Lady where Audrey Hepburn gets too excited at the horse racing and starts shouting at the horses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r86BJkLZp9w , for those who don't keep up with the classics) - that's essentially what the horse races in Hong Kong are like, except there are a thousand or so Hong Kongers milling around you and shouting. I really thought that the horse races weren't going to be that exciting but I realized my folly as soon as the first horses started coming round the bend of the first race. The first thing that happens in the race is you feel everyone start to get alert and ready, then you start to hear the thunderous pounding from the horses and the lightning-like cracking of whips from the jockey. The horses come up to the straight-away where you're standing and the crowd around you explodes shouting numbers in languages you don't understand. And then it's over.
You wait 25 minutes, and it starts all over again.
It was pretty exciting, and I would post a video of the race, but I am pretty embarrassed about the quality of my own commentary, and also my phone ran out of memory just as the horses got to where we were (I know... ridiculous.)

Also, I know those aren't mustangs, it was just the only horse-related word I could come up with that began with M).

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On Friday June 24th, we explored Sai Kung region. It was pretty interesting, but nothing out of the ordinary for Hong Kong. Although, we did go to a Michelin Restaurant:

It just said Michelin.

Honestly, the big thing about Sai Kung is the various sea animals they had.

Arrrrrg

<\Insert phrase that could apply to both fish or Roy\>; and on the right we have a big fish

Additionally, I now have a Chinese name: Ngoh Haih Dia Hung (I am Big Bear).


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Saturday, June 25th, at 9 am I rolled out of bed and went to a place called Mira Mall with 2 friends from my program. At the mall we passed one 2-Michelin star restaurant and one 1-Michelin star restaurant, so I guess it is interesting that in Hong Kong such restaurants have a place in a relatively regular Mall.

At ~11:30, we went to this famous Matcha-themed restaurant that opened at noon to find that there was already a line of around 20 people ahead of us (Matcha is a kind of green tea powder). After we finally got into the restaurant, we ordered a bunch of Matcha things.
I only add this part in because when the menu came, the server asked us if we want Matcha Mochi (glutinous rice), telling us that they only make 16 orders of them a day.

Parfait

"No thank you" - us-
"we only make 16 of these a day." - server-
"Okay, we will have one" -us-

(RIPS Official Matcha Photography Photo Credits: Nancy Ho)

Kowloon Peak

I don't know how much was planned, and how much was really ad-libbed, but for one reason or another a group of 4 people (including myself) converged at a very peaceful garden by a nunnery: Picture.

You can't really hear the traditional Chinese music, but let me tell you - it was playing. That being established, I think this was essentially the implementation of any stereotypes of Asia that I had. Meticulous care of a zen-ful garden, while traditional music is played, and gardeners wear asian conical hats.

After meeting at the garden, we in essence looked around, pointed to the highest thing we could see, and proceeded to walk towards it until we reached the peak. When I left home in the morning, I had no expectations to climb/hike anything, I even debated wearing flip flops. There isn't too much to say here; except maybe to say, "look at these crazy views", or "look at this crazy bug", or "We should have packed more water".

Crazy bug battle going on over here

Panoramaaaaaaaa

One of the first clearings - the views only got better

I don't know how this guy got in the shot

This is probably the most characteristic difference between Hong Kong and any other city I've been in, specifically NYC - that regardless of the city life, roads, and general civilization, Hong Kong is on an island. There are peaks everywhere, and you can find wildlife everywhere. We really did just start walking out of the city, and we got to a mountain top; I was at a mall less than 2 hours before these shots.

Closer to the Peak 

Hong Kong is this hot, humid place that has unapologetically thrown itself at both Eastern and Western cultures. There are many parts of Hong Kong that feel just as hectic and city-like as European/American cities that I have visited, but I think the big difference is that there are frequent places in Hong Kong that you feel completely unstressed, and calm (at least I do). I think that in its integration with the West, Hong Kong has remained without a doubt an eastern city- perhaps because it was under British control for so long, and not under Chinese control, the city's inhabitants were allowed to keep many parts of their culture in their own kind of bubble. On the other hand, I've done no real research on the intricate balance of British and Chinese influences on Hong Kong.




I actually didn't take that many photos, cause I only brought my Iphone, but I will post the photos that other people took as I get them, so this post will be updated with more photos.

Weekend Warriors

Friday night, we explored the nightlife.
Saturday day, we explored the wildlife.
Sunday, I fell off a waterfall.

This will be a relatively long post, so I'll try to post pictures to keep everyone entertained. This post will be more of a factual, what-I-did post, than really anything else.

On Friday (June 17), after work, the gang and I decided to leave the safety of our campus and venture into the city. We left the our campus at around 7:30, and were able to easily navigate the MTR (subway system) to find our way to a region of Hong Kong known for its bars. Not too surprisingly, it was a very touristy area, with more caucasians than another ethnicity. I won't really dwindle too long on this night as it was largely relatively standard, pseudo-westernized region. There were about 3 blocks that were sectioned off from cars (only during the night, I believe), filled with bars, promoters, and tourists.

Just a quick pic

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June 18

On Saturday, a friend of mine in my group went exploring along the shore of the university. After hiking/climbing around for some distance we decided that we would turn around... just after the next turn...
Okay, maybe the next turn after that
I just want to see what's around that bend.

10 minutes walking along the shore

This went on for a little while, until finally we saw a beach along the shore, and decided that we would just go forward, and take a taxi back. (oh how naive we were)

We found these guys -
one was in the boat, and the other was free-diving underwater for clams, oysters, and sea urchins (I believe).

Long story short, we kept walking for a while, thinking that we would find the bus stop back to our HKUST (where we live), but Hong Kong being the beautiful place that it is, we kept seeing new places we wanted to go. We ventured on some slopes, that we definitely were not supposed to go on (which we should have figured out, based on how difficult it was to get onto to them).

Hong Kong is covered in these faux-cement slopes - I believe they are to prevent serious erosion problems, as Hong Kong is such a steep region. It seems like a lot of work goes into maintaining these slopes.

just Hong Kong views

Eventually, we thought we found a beach. Then we took a few wrong turns, debated whether or not hopping a fence was allowed, hopped a fence and then actually found a beach.

Although we were already soaked from the heat and humidity, we gladly jumped in the 80 degree Fahrenheit temperature water, abandoning our things on the beach with nothing more than our good faith in the Hong Kong community. The water was extremely refreshing and we were very happy to be there.

As far as beaches go, it was a beach. It was everything we could have wanted it to be.

We found this afterwards - though, we weren't part of the lucky 1%

Afterwards, we walked home. Repeatedly just missing the bus that would take us home. At one point,  we sprinted after a taxi, but to no avail.

This may come as a surprise, but we made it home.

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June 19, 2016
Sunday was a pretty long day, I started off with a different friend from the program, exploring the opposite direction along the shoreline. I don't know if we're allowed to, but that can be our secret for now - there is definitely evidence of people, and I've seen people there before, so I don't know.

We got up to this point without any real problem.

Now, I would like to pre-empt what I did, by saying it was very stupid. I climbed up to a relatively high point, to where I saw this view:

Look at how arrogant this guy looks. What a dummy.

At which point, my friend (logically) decided to turn back. I decided to continue forward, without her, and very quickly fell in the water, and soaked myself. I was lucky, and didn't do any more harm that a few bruises on my arm; but still, don't climb on wet rocks, that's really stupid. Aside from feeling foolish, it was a strange feeling to fall in the water because of the humidity & sweat I didn't feel any wetter than before.

The scene of the crime - I was being overdramatic earlier, I didn't fall off a waterfall, only near a waterfall; but honestly, I'm surprised you read this far. 
I thought about not putting in this photo, because I think it looks more dangerous than it really was, but on the other hand there isn't anything you can do about it (sorry!), and I promise to be honest with you guys about my adventures.

what a beach

After which, I found my way to a path, which started so innocently as a staircase going to a road - and proceeded to never end. I think I climbed roughly 50 floors of stairs, or about a million, it's hard to tell. Additionally, there were a good number of really big insects and spiders that had it out for me, which really just meant that I had to (sporadically) sprint my way up.

I don't know if you can tell how big a spider that is. But it was really big.

I eventually made it up, along a path that I had no idea where it led. I thought I was incredibly lost, and asked a person standing by the top of the trail where the university was... The guy laughed, and point to the right. As it turned out, the path had somewhat unbelievably led me to the front gate of the university, and had I taken another 3 steps, I would have seen the sign.


This post is getting to be a little too long I think, so I'll abridge the rest of the day.
I went to go play frisbee through a group I found on Facebook. I used the MTR to get there, and fell even more in love with the subway system (I think I will make a separate post about the public transport system). I got off, bought a hat, and played pick-up for 3 hours.

Putting on my cleats for the first time in a month was truly a rejuvenating experience, though I cannot deny that I have gotten worse since the season ended (for shame!).

Afterwards, I ended up getting dinner with some local players, and 2 Americans (one from Princeton, and one from Columbia- so, all from the metro-east region). Did you know, that you're supposed to eat the entire chicken foot? The cartilage and everything! Well, maybe they were messing with me... but they all did it so casually, and that's commitment to the bit. It was a unique experience to have such a casual experience with locals.

Later we got dessert, and used the MTR again (what a treat!).