HK - China Trip (Part 2)

Oh, I forgot to mention that I've gotten myself a new phone in Malaysia before I went for CSP8. It's a brown K800i. Was kinda turned off when the salesperson told me she only had brown left but I realised it actually looks sleek so I bought it (or rather, my mom bought it). And this is the camera phone that I've taken all my CSP8 photos with.

Now, on with the HK - China trip...
**** **** **** ****
Day 1

Went downstairs at 9 plus to meet Ping Gee but saw another girl instead. Anyway after Ping Gee came down, I realised that she was the Malaysian girl who was supposed to meet us yesterday, Jing Pei.

Someone suggested to Jing Pei that we should register first so we decided to do that, so that we could come back later. As the queue was rather long, we had time to get acquainted to other people. My worst nightmare came true… they gave us freakin’ PURPLE blazers! Ahhhhh!!! Oh well, nevermind, nothing I can do about it anyway. I was just hoping that it could be a more usual colour so that I could probably use it for other occasions next time.

After settling the registration and placing the stuff back, I met Ping Gee and Jing Pei and we met with 2 Canadians (Alena and Stacey, both from Toronto) and an American (Phillip from Florida). Did the initial intro and chit chat and then we decided to go to "Wong Tai Sin" (黄大仙) to pray.

(l-r) Stacey and Alena, in front of the entrance to the temple

It was drizzling and really really windy! Unbelievable. Anyway, we bought some joss sticks and stuff to pray… the incense smoke was really choking and making us teary-eyed. Anyway, we also had other stuff that we bought that was supposed to be burnt, but apparently there was no place to do that and somebody there told us just to throw it into a bin which I supposed is just a rubbish bin.

After that we decided to "see our fate" by doing the....whachacallit... where you kneel, pray, ask a question and shake this cylindrical can filled with sticks until one stick drops to the floor. A number is stated on top, and we can bring this to the many shops near there that will decipher the answer to your question.

Anyway, realised that this new bunch of people really liked to take photos… Went to Tai Ka Lok (大家乐) to eat lunch.

Fooling around in the MTR train... 7 hands on the bar representing the 7 of us...

Lunch at 大家乐 - Quite a lot for a relatively cheap price!

Later met with Jing Pei again, this time with her roommate, Kay, from Canada as well. After that we went to Mong Kok (旺角), specifically Ladies' Market (女人街 / also known as 通菜街). Lots of stalls there that kinda reminded me of Petaling Street. Seems like a lot of pirated stuff around too… saw this pair of Onitzuka Tiger (well, actually “AsicsTigers” was written on the shoe) but it felt that it was fake one when I held it in my hand. After walking for some time it started raining, and when it rains it is really havoc everywhere. In the midst of this mess we managed to buy an umbrella for Alena and we made our way back to the residence.

Me and Phillip...

...a view down 女人街

Came back, realised I had a roommate liao. Jan from Deutschland. Sehr interessant! There were only 2 delegates from Germany and one happens to be my roommate. Maybe it’s because I stated in my application that I had basic German skills? Anyway, after drying up and some chit chatting we all had to gather in a hall.

CSP8 Starts!

We went into our respective groups and my group is 1A. Had some brief introduction and simple chit chat with the other people in my group. We then went to a lecture theater at CityU to listen to some briefings about the trip. It was about some basic stuff like things to take note, and the general itinerary of the programme. After that we went to watch some performances by some university clubs… 2 band performances (horrigible. I was thinking if they were tone deaf. I was also thinking of William Hung) and a magic performance.

I'm not kidding... they really zao yam (走音) quite bad...

After that we finally could eat our buffet dinner. The food was so-so. Met up with a few more Malaysians. Think my Cantonese is improving! =)

Day 2

Had an early wake up call.

Went to Pao Ma Dei (跑马地) to attend the HKSAR 10th Anniversary celebration activities. Nothing much… some parachuters came down which became boring after some time. Also saw a performance a la 女子十二乐坊, and also a performance by the military. Didn’t get to see the other performances, and it started raining.

A view of the venue...

Me and 家宏, my best Taiwan friend

Army performance...

Parachuters, carrying the flags of China, HKSAR and... forgot what le

For the “be a HK citizen” part, all the groups split up. The group that I joined went to Tsim Sha Tsui (尖沙咀), looked around, took a ferry back...

A view of the bustling city, so uniquely HK. (just like HK dramas eh?)

Poor Phillip who got sick on the ferry...

We had dinner on a cruise ship. It was buffet style and there was a lot of nice food. Unfortunately my slight seasickness caused a lack of appetite. Every group had to perform in front once. I was called by one of the senior organizers, as well as another girl Monica, as we were chosen to represent the delegation to receive a medal during the commissioning ceremony which was to take part the next day.

We got to see the fireworks on the cruise ship. Sounds really interesting but it was very disappointing. There were 2 reasons: one, there wasn’t an open deck where we could glance directly to the sky; and two, we were too far away from the “action”, and this made the whole thing rather lacklustre.

A view from our ferry

I didn’t join my group mates in playing games at night, and I went to sleep as soon as I could.

Day 3

We had breakfast an then we went to listen to some talks at City University by 2 speakers, one who is a former secretary of justice of Hong Kong, and the other the president of HKUST. The talks felt... somewhat motive-laden. Haha. Coz the speakers kept praising HK's return to China and the success of 一国两制 (one nation two systems), and also some other subtle things. Dunno lar, maybe I think too much.

Our first talk. Even so, people were starting to doze off...

Had lunch on-the-go (a sandwich, an apple and a packet of juice). We arrived at HK uni, wearing our total formal dressing. There was some (cai3 pai2) for quite some time. I got to meet up with the other 4 people that were chosen to go on stage. Me and Monica were to wear the medals, 2 were asked to hold up a flag (the Chinese type, always given as an appreciation for someone who graces an event etc.) and 2 were asked to give a souvenir.

So I got my first taste of going on stage in such a huge event. Oh well, it was fine. We were ushered into a room afterwards where reporters were supposed to interview us. In the end only the print media people came and no one interviewed me. I guess that was probably because there’s not really anything interesting about Singapore and also because I can’t speak Cantonese well.

Too bad I had to return the medal afterward... sheesh...

We had dinner at HK uni and it wasn’t enough for most of us. But there wasn’t anymore food left and we had to make our way to The Peak. The view was OK but I couldn’t really capture the essence in my camera phone. It was nice and breezy up there too. The mall there looked exactly like what was drawn in McDull. It is definitely a must-visit in HK. Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to walk around.

The shopping centre atop Victoria Peak / The Peak

A view of Hong Kong city from The Peak

Later that night we went out to Lam Kwai Fong （蘭桂坊), which is a popular club/bar area in Hong Kong, also known to Hong Kongers as "Lou Lan". The first bar we went to kinda like chased us out coz me and Jia Hong couldn’t produce proof that we were above 18. So we went to another bar nearby and we kinda could bluff our way to drink alcoholic drinks.

I ended up drinking this non-alcoholic cocktail (mocktail) though

Part 3, coming soon!