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!).

8 Days Later

This week's post took a little bit of time to start

One week later, my group and I have figured out what our engineering problem is, and as we continue to work we break the problem down more and more. The problem is to come up with a method for communicating wirelessly underwater (the most common method people choose generally is to do so acoustically, but I’m sure if we were clever enough to come up with another method, they would accept it). This seems like such an open-ended problem that it’s unclear what they want, and what the expectations are; however, this seems like this is a purposeful part of the project – their goal seems to be to give 4 undergraduates an open-ended problem, 9 weeks, and loose guidelines. It’s almost like they’re just kind of curious to see what will happen.

 I don’t know, man, I guess we’ll do a good job.

It’s been fun, though; it’s a rare thing, I imagine, to be given the opportunity to choose what you will care about for a couple of months, and an external incentive to do a good job.

Teams, hard at work.

As for the rest of Hong Kong, I’ve been able to leave the campus a few times, and investigate this new place. After having left the HKUST campus a few times, I haven’t really felt that I’m in such a new place. Largely, if I don’t stop and think about it, I feel as if I am back at home in NYC – tall buildings, underground metro systems, and swarms of people are nothing all that new. Though, I will admit there are more Asian people here.

 

A lot of similar looking buildings

It’s the little things that catch my attention far more: the way that people naturally walk on the left-side of the sidewalk, mimicking the Hong Kong right-of-way for cars, hasn’t failed to cause problems for me.

The way that inside the subway cars there are no doors from car to car, and you can move up and down the entire length of the subway is pretty new to me – though, to be honest I could do a whole post on the Hong Kong Subway system (called the MTR). I’ve always loved the NYC subway system, and I really do think it’s an amazing piece of human ingenuity to get so many people in, out, and around a city, but the MTR does all the same things, and some. For one, big thing, is that the railway is covered by glass panels that have glass doors that open, only when the subway has arrived – this is a great system for preventing railway fires, accidental deaths, and (***house of cards spoiler alert***) KEVIN SPACEY KILLING YOU.

Hong Kong itself is seperated into a few parts, with Hong Kong Central actually as island adrift from the the rest of Hong Kong; I was told that until 1974 there were no bridges to Hong Kong Central, and until 1972 there were no tunnels to Hong Kong Central - meaning that the only way to get into the city, was by ferry.

Pictured: not a ferry, just a boat.

            Largely, throughout my stay in Hong Kong, I’ve felt that I am looking into a fish bowl, and that no real interactions have happened. I think this has something to do with the international nature of Hong Kong – being Caucasian isn’t anything that special, and I don’t speak the language, so for all intents and purposes I’m just a slightly old-looking, pale 4 year-old trying to find his way around a city. 

People seem to just let me/us be, it's probably easier to not even bother with the loud americans.

I don't know what their plan was here, though

Coming soon: more posts

Bear With Me for a little while

Bear with me for a little while as I try to figure out how to upload photos from my Iphone to Blogger (I thought I was better than this).

Update: I got it to work
Here is a photo as proof

If the whole science thing doesn't work out, I can always go into the Rickshaw business

My First Day in Asia

After having a brief panic about losing both my passports, I was able to find everything I need to travel, and I left the US at 1:30 am on June 10^th, sat in a middle seat for 15 hours, and have since arrived in Hong Kong at 4:30 am, June 11^th. To me, this still seems a little like time travel.

            I arrived in Hong Kong, and was quickly able to navigate the airport to find a my way to a red taxi, which would take me to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), where I will be staying this Summer until August 13th. On the way over I tried to take a number of pictures, but was unable to due to the car shaking, and the rain pouring on the window. But the views and general structure of Hong Kong were pretty amazing. One thing I noticed is that there are a lot of tall buildings that stand together that all have the same design – I was later told that this just the way it is in Hong Kong, and that a single estate owner will generally build a bunch (it looks like ~4 to ~10) of identical skyscrapers right next to one another. On that note, despite living in NYC, I’ve never liked the word ‘skyscraper’ very much, I’ve always felt like the tall high-rises I’ve seen are not accurately portrayed by the word – but here in Hong Kong the word seems to be so much more appropriate. Driving through urban regions of Hong Kong during a storm, sparsely located groups of identical buildings appear to huddle together to weather out the storm. The few buildings that stand alone, stand tall against the low forming clouds and fog, and to me seem to aggressively defy the storm, scraping the cloudy ceiling.

The whole area seems straight out of movie to me, something that belongs in a scene of Avatar, more than it does under my feet. The way there are all these small island structures everywhere you look, it seems like the whole area is just on the backs of a series of very large turtles and very large lizards – although I have never traveled to Japan, and I am sure Japan is different, I feel like I understand where the idea for Godzilla came from.

As the day has progressed, my confusion with the time of day has only grown, as, the time difference between NYC and HK is exactly 12 hours, and it has been raining since I arrived so it’s has been hard to tell the time of day, as I keep forgetting if it is morning or evening.

            I wandered around the campus for a little while, before Ryan, a local Hong Kong-er and fellow HK RIPS participant met me, and we dropped my stuff off at his room. Since then we have managed to do a good number of things, including (but not limited to):

            Get breakfast

            Get trapped in an elevator

            Teach Ryan to play a little Frisbee

            Get cash and an Octopus Card (a public transportation card)

The currency here is the Hong Kong Dollar, which is roughly valued at 7.8 HKD to 1 USD.

      

            Find a big, dead bug.

I was able to explore the campus a little bit. It seems like there are a few things that Ryan (who I appointed myself to be my guide) does not even seem to notice that seem relatively odd to me. For one, the university reaches all the way to the water; and the university is on a relatively steep grade, that probably rises ~360 feet in under half a mile (according to Google maps). Additionally, there appear to be no points on campus where you can’t walk 40 feet and see water, boats, and tree-covered islands. The last thing that surprised me is that it that we have to pay for our AC, by tapping a card that you put money on.

As of right now, I am sitting in a HKUST common room, overlooking (to my count) 4 islands, waiting to be let into my dorm room.

This has been Roy, reporting live to you on ‘What’s the Matter with Roy’. Tune in next time to find the important questions of “What does the rest of Hong Kong look like?”, “What will Roy be able to accomplish this summer (if anything)”, and “Will it ever stop raining?”

An Introduction

If you’re reading this blog, then you must be asking your self the relatively open-ended question of ‘What’s the matter with Roy?'.

Realistically, I don’t think that I will be able to answer that question. However, throughout this blog, I will attempt to answer the simpler questions of: ‘Where is Roy, currently?’, ‘How did he get there?’,  ‘What is he eating there?’, ‘ What is Roy doing?’, and ‘Why did he think that was a good idea?’

I didn’t want to post these things on Facebook, but if you’re interested, feel free to follow along with me during the summer. I hope to post once a week.

This summer I will be working with a company called EPropulsion through a partnership with UCLA and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). The program I am a part of is called Research in Industrial Projects for Students (RIPS-HK), which has a sister program in LA at UCLA ( http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/student-research-programs/research-in-industrial-projects-for-students-rips-hong-kong-2016/ ).

I don’t intend to have this blog be about the math I learn this summer, though who knows – as the an old Asian man once told my Math teacher, “No one can predict future”. But just as a brief synopsis about what I will be doing this summer : I will be working with 3 other students (2 Chinese students, and 1 other American) to create an underwater acoustic communication protocol, essentially using sonar to communicate with other people underwater. There are a number of issues that arise with acoustic underwater communication, but I think I will make that its own blog post when I know more about the project, and can comment of that in-depth (heh heh). From what I understand right now, the idea is to communicate with specific individuals underwater using acoustic waves to encode information.
There are few steps in this process, but generally we plan to investigate how one can use a field of mathematics called 'Random Matrix Theory' in order to send and recover information in a robust way, such that you minimize information loss. If anyone reading this has any insights on this, feel free to send me a message (at this point, I will be honest, I know relatively little on the matter)!