Bangkok!

We arrive in Bangkok around 7 AM, just in time for the floating market, but unfortunately the floating market in Bangkok isn't much of a floating market. The real one was too far away though considering we only had a day in the capital. Since that wasn't that interesting, we headed straight for the temples and palaces. I have to admit that I don't know the names of the temples or the palaces that we saw. That's embarrassing. But anyway...they were pretty cool!

So we get there and we have to have our legs covered down to our knee for girls (pants for guys) and we need to cover our shoulders. Since the King's sister had just died, everyone was wearing black and was in mourning (the King is a BIG deal in Thailand), so I, trying to be respectful, did the best I could with what I had in my backpack. I wore my black yoga pants, a black tank top and the purple scarf I had bought the day before, around my shoulders like a shawl. Unfortunately, they spotted me and this wasn't going to cut it so I ended up having to "rent" a HUGE ORANGE men's shirt instead. Mind you it was hotter than HADES as Mom would say. I was not in a very good mood, but was trying for the sake of the beauty of the temples. I really did like those little temple guys that hold up the temples. (See picture, hard to explain)

Afterward we went to the Weekend Market. Oh child! (that's for you Wheels) did I do some damage and some good bargaining too! I managed to buy 3 really interesting pieces - a dark wood bowl thing, a cool shaped vase, and some wood elephants holding up a plate - for about 1,000 thai baht or maybe less? (there are 30 baht to a $1, you do the math, I'm really tired right now). Yeah! Freaking sweet. Afterward we all decided we were in dire need of air-conditioning so we went to Phil's favorite restaurant the Magic Chicken. It was seriously magic chicken. Soooooo good again! Thai food is SO good that it makes me eat spicy stuff and like it! If you know me and my eating habits, you know I'd never eat curry, but the Thai people make it so well that I don't even care it's hot! I eat curry now! Can you believe it!?! They are so good those Thai chefs...

Honestly, I don't remember what we did until we went out that night. I just know we had Subway for dinner and found out later that tuna in Thailand from a Subway should be avoided (as Caz was sick for about 4 days after our trip). Then we went to this sweet place to play pool and I freakin' won the game. How that happened I don't really know. I know many of you have tried time and time again to teach me and I never seem to get it, but when Matt said think angles, that was it! Me and my math/geometry head. Haha! So that was rather exciting. Then we rode in a tuk tuk (aka a little tricycle taxi that was pop-a-wheeling all over the place, so fun!) and I quite enjoyed it. And then we had some chocolate/banana crepe-ish Thai dessert off the streets and then went to bed, got up had a yummy breakfast once again and headed back to HK! I love Thailand!

The Land of Smiles (aka Thailand!) - Chiang Mai

Okay, so I first must apologize for how horrible I have been about updating the blog! In all honesty, I just got back from my third trip - CHINA!, but I'm going to tell you about Thailand first anyway because it is so wonderful and deserves its own post!

We left on a Thursday night, arriving in Bangkok around midnight. We had planned this trip much better than the Philippines, and we even had a "guide" (my good friend Phil) who actually SPEAKS Thai! Our group this time was also 8, but consisted of Laura and me, 4 USC guys, and 2 Austrians. That night we went to the LKF of Bangkok, Khowsan Rd or something (the bar/club street), had a drink then hopped in our van around 2:30AM. Phil's aunt was nice enough to hook us up with a HUGE, air-conditioned, 10 seater, DVD-equipped van and driver (affectionately known as "Hee Hop"). We drove through the night to our destination, Chiang Mai, a backpackers heaven in the north of Thailand (and I really was a "backpacker" this time BTW). I didn't sleep much given it was Eric's birthday and the boys wanted to "celebrate" on the way there, but how could I complain, we were on an adventure!

One of my first adventures was around 5 AM. I had to pee. We were at a gas station. Gas stations in Asia only have squatters. The time had come. I had to learn. I did! And what a feeling of liberation it is to be able to use a squatter as a girl! The whole world really opens up to you!

That day we checked into our perfect little hotel, Roong Ruang, after our first yummy $4USD Thai meal. Then we talked to the travel agent and booked an afternoon ATV riding excursion. It was a blast! I felt like such a bad ass. But I have to admit I wasn't very good at driving it because I don't like to go fast and my hand muscles would start cramping after like 5 minutes of holding the gas trigger thing. Luckily, Laura wasn't scared and she was very good at driving it so I enjoyed being passenger. We went through some jungles and past a bunch of beautiful vegetation terraces and small villages with the cutest kids you've ever seen on their way home from school, smiling and waving at you with their enormous backpacks. It was quite an experience! The whole journey was supposed to take 3 hours, but because of the boys frequent stops without the leader's permission, and one of the other group member's fall into a ditch, it took about 4.5 hours! Thank you Laura for driving all that way! We were going soooo fast on the highway!!, but for some reason, I kept falling asleep and my helmet kept banging into Laura. It was funny. I guess I did need that sleep more than I thought.

That night, we went to the night bazaar which was super interesting. We got fake LeSportSac bags for $10USD and new scarves for $5. Oh! Also, it was election time when we were there and they have a policy of no alcohol sales during elections. Nevertheless, there were still places you could drink, but it was a bit of a sketchy operation. Phil had made friends with some bartender who said to come back around 11 PM and she'd let us in. So we show up to this bar and the metal shades are pulled down and it's completely dark, but then one of the shades comes up, she lets us in and we just hang out in the bar with the shades drawn for a while with a few other foreigners.

We decided to turn in early because we hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and had a big day ahead of us!

The next morning Laura, Phil and I had a delicious breakfast at the cafe next door for $5 (Matt was not very happy we hadn't woken him up. Sorry Matt!) before the truck came to take us to the white water rafting place. It was going to take about an hour to get to this place and the boys had been planning on sleeping in the car on the way there. They were rather disappointed when an open-air truck with some benches in the truck bed shows up to take us there. White water rafting sucked basically because the water level wasn't high enough so we just kept getting stuck on all the stupid rocks. The guides would have to get out and push the damn rafts through. I fell out twice. Jumped out once too to pee. Heard later there were snakes in the water... But the fact that the rafting was so bad just made it really funny.

Next, we had lunch in a small village and bought some Oreo's at a little local shop for dessert. (got to use the squatter again too!) We jumped back in the van and headed for the elephants! Now, elephant riding sounds like this elegant, grand, extravagant activity, but really it's a lot of animal begging for bananas and bamboo, trunk snot on your bare thigh and getting showered in snout water at the "watering hole." Even so, I still love telling people, "I rode elephants in Thailand!" because it just sounds so damn cool. Our final stop was bamboo rafting through some more forest/jungle and crazy tree house looking villages. The raft guides were so silly though. Our guide must have been 12 or 14 and got such a kick out of bumping our raft against the river bank so I would wobble and then he'd look back at me and snicker, so I would snicker back at him. Laura thought it was really funny.

That evening we had divine foot and back/neck massages fore $7USD, half an hour each. Sooo good! Then we packed up, jumped in the van, had another sweet Thai meal for $7 and headed back to Bangkok. We started to watch Bee Movie; it really sucked. We all slept well that night. Bangkok, TBC.

The Philippines...Part 2

Batangas was a real beaut...NOT! It was definitely my least favorite place...here's a picture of our hotel room. Oh and by the way, this place, the Travelers' Inn it was called, was RECOMMENDED by Lonely Planet!?! Anyway...that night Ronan had rented 2 tricycles for our gang, yep, you read it right, 2 TRICYCLES for 8 people! They're these dirt bike like vehicles with a sidecar for 2 and room for 2 behind the driver. They were SO FUN! Don't worry Mom and Dad, they only go about 30 mph. So for like 200 pesos a person or something (which is like $4USD?) our drivers stayed with us the whole night, dropping us off at places and then waiting for us. Wild! They were so silly though. We asked them to take us to a bar with pool and a TV so we could watch the "match" (as the Norwegians would say talking about soccer) and 4/5 times they took us to hooker bars! At dinner, Laura and I were smart and ordered chicken fingers and cheesesticks while everyone else decided to get steaks. The steaks were gray and the empty restaurant had somehow managed to run out of knives (?) so everyone had to cut their meat with forks and spoons! Obviously still rather hungry, we girls had ice cream at McDonald's while the boys ate "spaghettis," as Ronan would say, at the local fast food place, Jollybee's. By the end of the night we finally found a cool outdoor bar with live music and toilets with toilet seats!



The next day we were supposed to leave Travelers' Inn by 5:30 AM to catch a 6 AM boat to White Beach in Puerto Galera. Of course, 5:30 rolls around and who's still sleeping after I banged on the door 5 times? Yeah...the boys. So the half of us that are ready by 5:45 speed over to the seaport to make sure the boat doesn't leave. About 10 minutes later the other 4 show up and through some miscommunication, we find out that two of the guys ended up paying twice since Ronan had already paid for them in the first place! They were pissed...but we're talking again...$4USD. Whoops! In true Filipino time, our boat didn't end up leaving the dock until 7:30 and we arrived at our destination around 9:30. We spent the day on the beach with all the vendors and massage ladies..."Hello Ma'am, do you want a massage? When you want massage you let me know, I am Baby, remember my name when you want massage." And Man! were they persistent! Laura got so fed up with them bothering us all day that she refused to have a massage at all, but Maud and I gave in and for 200 pesos (~$4USD), we had 45 minute full oil body massages on the beach...beautiful. At 3, the boys said they had rented a boat and we were going to go to a place to go snorkeling. I had no desire to snorkel, but was under the impression we were going to a more private beach where we would still be able to lay out if we didn't want to swim. Unfortunately, that was not the case. They dropped anchor a ways off shore and said, "Go!" I didn't want to be the baby that stayed on the boat (and after all, I was paying 300 pesos!), so I put on that nasty mask that I was sure had never been cleaned and jumped in. Owww! Something had wrapped around my wrist and it hurt like a bitch! I was sure something had stung me, but I didn't see anything. So I shouted to everyone, "There's something in this water that stings!" And everyone said back, "Nah, it must just be the salt on your sunburn." So I kept swimming and damn! my legs were burning like hell! I had had enough. I started to swim toward the ladder on the side of the boat, saw a jellyfish, and turned around immediately. I got out on the other side of the boat and saw red lines all over my legs. Then, of course, everyone starts going, "Ow! Ow! Ow!" And now they believe me. Needless to say, our snorkeling didn't last long and there were no fish anyway! Being the Philippines...there were unfortunately no refunds.

We ended our time in Puerto Galera with a good dinner of bbq pork and rice and a crazy Philippine rum shot drinking game that I fortunately did not take part in because man that game went fast!

The next day the 8 of us rode for hours in a 4Runner size SUV back to Manila. Our driver was nice enough to stop frequently to let us eat and use the toilet and thank goodness because for one of our travel mates it was a "photo finish" at Jollybee's after an unfriendly hot dog from the last seemingly well-kept gas station shop.

Back in Hong Kong safe and sound, I'd never appreciated the luxuries of a first world country so much in my life - toilet seats, toilet paper, and hand soap. But something I did notice and love about this country was the genuine happiness and enjoyment of life of the local people despite their apparently desperate situations. They maybe "developing" in the economic sense, but they sure seemed to have a better handle on other aspects of life us "developed" people are still working on. That trip certainly prepared me for my travel adventures to come.

The Philippines...Part 1

At 6:30 PM on Friday, Laura, Maud, and I head up to the big red bird/ruler sculpture thing at the front of the school to meet the people we were going to the Philippines with. First, we met Ronan, the French surfer dude that had already been to the Philippines 3 times; he was our "guide". The last time he was in the Philippines, he got arrested by the Filipino police because they thought he was a rebel since he had been walking up this hill toward the rebel camp , unbeknownst to him. The police then had to call HKUST to make sure he actually was a student and everything! So that should give you a pretty good idea of the kind of journey on which we were about to embark. Afterward, Matt, a cool British guy, and the 3 Norwegians showed up.

The adventure began right away as we were chasing after buses with all our luggage. The mark of a true virgin of a traveler, I brought a freaking duffle bag without a shoulder strap, a backpack, AND a purse! We finally arrived at the airport after like 4 modes of transportation, had some Burger King and hopped on our CebuPacific Air plane. The flight was fine for me as I've learned the wonders of Dramamine - I went right to sleep, but poor Laura was getting hit on the head by this 4 year-old that was screaming and growling...yes growling, like the whole way there.

At midnight, we got in the van Ronan had "negotiated" that would take us to our first stop, Talisay. We arrived in this dark town around 3 in the morning, and some how, we found an open "resort." The toilet was interesting, to flush it, you had to turn on this faucet that ran into a bucket, then flush, then dump the water out of the bucket into the drain on the floor. Oh yeah, there's just a shower head, no shower surrounding and it's just cold water...but it was all part of the adventure! The next morning, I woke up to one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. We were right on this beautiful lake - Lake Ta'al. Everything was green and the birds were singing! Our "auntie" (the hotel owner) had even cooked us breakfast! (but I was too afraid to eat much since it was my first meal in the Philippines and about 2/3 of our friends that had already been had gotten severely ill...so I ate the 2 pieces of white bread) We took this cool wooden boat with a crazy loud motor across the lake to the volcano in the middle - the Ta'al Volcano! When we stepped off the boat, these local girls were jumping all over us trying to sell us stuff and people were trying get us to hire these poor donkey/horses to take us up to the top, but Ronan said we were "trekking." We sure trekked. It was incredible and incredibly hot! When we finally reached the top...WOW! Gorgeous. There was another lake IN the volcano we'd just hiked up. Unfortunately the pictures don't capture the real beauty.

When we got back to the hotel, we had to pack up in like 15 minutes because apparently they were trying to charge us extra or something. That afternoon we traveled to Batangas by jeepney and bus. Jeepney's are these crazy trucks that were brought over from America during some war and now they use them for public transportation! (To be continued...I have to go to sleep.)

First Day of Class

My first day got off to an okay start in my Finance class. I was lucky to arrive on time considering this place is like impossible to navigate. To find your classroom, you have to enter it into the "Lift Selection Advisor" which then tells you which elevator to go to. Then you have to look up the elevator because by the way there are about 30 of them. So my first class was Lift 25-26, room 4503 or something. My professor has a lot of experience in the industry and seems like she's going to be really good, but she kept trying to scare everyone out of the class saying, "I'm mean and horrible!" She succeeded with some. About 5 kids just got up in the middle of the class and left. They do that here during drop/add. It's so weird. I think she just wants less grading. Then I went to Musical Theater which was a blast! We just watched clips of musicals. I even sang along when we watched Rent's "Seasons of Love".

My management class was the best. I walk into this big lecture theater, sit down. I'm a little confused because Beethoven is playing and and all the kids have these little remotes in their hands and they're pointing them up at the screen. And I'm like, "What the hell is going on?" So I ask the kid next to me, "Hey, is this MGTO 120?" He says yes, so I start getting settled and start checking out the scene more. My professor is wearing a double-breasted pin stripped suit and I'm thinking, "Yes...this guy is going to be the shit." And he is. He is such a character! He's from California so he's always making these jokes about America. My friend Alex, a guy from Michigan, and I are the only ones who get his humor; all the locals are always looking at each other like, "what's he talking about?" It's great.

So anyway, Alex and I head to lunch afterwards. We get to one of the dining halls, or the "canteen" as they call it here, get in this line for what looks kind of like Panda Express. We get up to the front and get yelled at in Cantonese (seems that happens a lot, doesn't it?). Luckily, someone in line spoke English and explained to us that we needed to go buy some sort of ticket at this other desk and then get back in the line we were in and then give them the ticket and then they'd give us the food. So we did that. Then we're trying to find a table and there's no open table. So we see this guy sitting alone, Thomas. Thomas is nice enough to let us sit with him. He's got this lunch in a plastic box of a cold chicken leg with a ton of rubbery skin, rice, a hard-boiled egg, and some black like vinegary stuff (it was NOT soy sauce). So we decide to engage him in a bit of conversation. He tells us he lives at home with his parents, it takes him 1 hour to get to school, he takes 9 classes (?? I was confused, maybe he misunderstood our question), he's a first year student, and he doesn't like dessert - he specifies definitely not chocolate. So as we're starting to talk about his major, Alex picks up his bowl of soup to take a sip (we didn't see the spoons) and as he's setting it back down on the table, he spills it all over Thomas' laptop bag! Like I said before, napkins are scarce. So Alex and I are running around trying to find something to dry it up with and Thomas is trying really hard not to get mad, frantically moving his stuff out of the soup stream. It was really awkward. After that, conversation kind of ended.

Afterward I headed to the "Computer Barn" where I ran into Maud and Laura. Maud looked very excited. "Do you want to go to the Philippines this weekend?" she asks me. I'm like, "Hell no!" It's just NOT like me to just do something so unplanned. So then I thought for a second and was like, well okay I guess I'll think about it. So after I was done with class, Laura calls and says the plane tickets are only $150 US and that we weren't leaving until Friday night (it was Thursday night), so I said, oh what the hell, let's do it! So the airline's website (CebuPacific Air) was so sketchy that none of our credit cards would go through so we had to have this guy, Ronan, a full year student who was going to be our "guide" in the Philippines, buy all of our tickets for us. And so, as Maud would say, we were "going to the Philippines!"

The Not So Ladylike Market

The other day my friends and I decided to go experience the Ladies Market. The Ladies Market is an outdoor market just like the swap meet, a bunch of vendors selling a ton of cheap stuff, none of which you really need. For instance, I came away with a Hello Kitty handkerchief which I tried to tell myself was going to be my napkin, since... (oh yeah! I don't think I've mentioned this. They don't have napkins here. It's really bizarre! If you're lucky, they'll leave a box of Kleenex on the table like that's supposed to get the shrimp juice off your fingers.) Nevertheless, it's an experience "you just have to have" in Hong Kong. Part of that experience is supposed to be haggling.

At first, I was really intimidated by the whole scene. There were SO many people and so much shouting in Cantonese and oh the peculiar smells...I kept losing my friends and with a "death-clutch" on my purse, I was so sure someone was going to "just slip their hand right in and snatch my wallet!" Pretty soon my friends were getting good at the bargaining thing, so I decided okay, if I find something I like, I should try my hand at it. Sure enough, I find this awesome bracelet, one of those painted bangles that they sell at J.Crew for like $40 a piece. This one was great! Blue with little white and red flowers and green leaves. And...it fit my wrist which is like a miracle! So the vendor woman walks up and says, "$89HK okay for you?" Now $89HK is about $11 USD. While that doesn't sound very expensive, for the Ladies Market, it was. So I say, "Uh...no..." trying to bargain a bit, you know, and the next thing I know, she's shooing me out of her shop shouting, "Den okay BYE BYE!" I was shocked! Here I thought I was SUPPOSED to do that and the one thing I want, I can't have now!?! I mean, I even would have spent the $11, but I was just so appalled at how rude she was, I couldn't bring myself to go back. I think that's what prompted my Hello Kitty impulse buy.

At another shop, my friend Kristen was trying to look at a pair of leggings. She accidentally knocked 2 off the rack while she was looking and the shopkeeper grabbed the leggings and yelled at us in Cantonese!

So now I can say I have had the Ladies Market experience, but it's not one I plan to have again.

Yay for a Roommate!

On my third day here, I came back to my dorm room one afternoon to find someone sleeping. "Uh oh...she's here," I thought. When we officially met about a day later when finally neither of us were sleeping, we really hit it off! So like I said, I had thought I had it bad with all that stuff, but man, did she make me feel better. She had had it even worse! Having to fly from Texas to San Fran before she could get to HK, she missed her connecting flight in San Fran because of a delay in Texas and had to stay over night without extra clothes. By the time she got to HK, she'd been wearing the same clothes for 3 days! She was somehow able to still smile and laugh about it by saying, "It's all part of the adventure." So I decided to adopt that too and that's how we've been getting through all the craziness that is the first few weeks abroad...in Asia.

So far there have been 2 cultural differences that have been especially hard for us to get over. One, there is no sense of chivalry in Asian culture. Two, it seems no one was ever told not to stare.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the public transportation here is incredibly efficient and clean! I absolutely LOVE the MTR! The system that is. The experience as a whole sometimes I am not quite as in love with. If you're not moving quickly enough or aren't willing to shove a little to get on/off, you will get pushed aside by men and women alike. When on the train, I've never seen a man offer his seat to a woman, despite the signs on the train that read, "Show you have a loving heart. Let's care for others!"

Last night, in fact, I was doubled over from a crippling stomachache that obviously had me in a lot of pain, and not one person even attempted to offer their seat. Then when we were arriving at the station, a man just stepped in front of me so that he could get out first, so out of frustration I shoved him aside so I could get out first! Oops! I know that wasn't very nice, but I couldn't hold it in! And it's SO rare that anyone apologizes for ramming into you! And on the occasion they do, I smile, applaud and thank them!

Another thing on the MTR is the starring. The other day, this old man in a suit was watching Laura and me. We thought, maybe if we stare back, he'll get the picture that we don't appreciate him looking at us. We tried, but man did he win! We just felt so awkward looking at someone like that, though he apparently did not. Then we noticed that even when someone else's body would obstruct his line of sight, we would just move so as to continue watching us. Very very uncomfortable, but "it's all part of the adventure!"