POST ONE!

Hello!!! I would say this greeting in Cantonese, but I still have not learned a word.... I'll get there. In fact, I am attending a program entitled "Get Fun With Cantonese" next week where I plan on learning on all of the important words on bargaining, ordering food, fashion words, Oh yeah, and Please&Thank You :)

So, I've had several requests to write a blog so I figured I would try it. It's not starting out to well, as currently I don't have a title, but we shall see. I will try to start at the beginning

Day 1/2 - Plane, Plane, Plane. First Caitlyn and I's flight from Raleigh to JFK was cancelled so we then had to fly back to Chicago ironically from Raleigh to connect in Tokyo instead of the original direct flight to HK. But, eventually, we got there. We arrived in Hong Kong International Airport and thankfully had wifi to tell everyone that we arrived safely, and also had an e-mail from my buddy informing me that she would not be able to pick me up from the airport that evening. So, we hopped on the train, followed by a taxi and were dropped outside of our residence hall all at about 11:00 at night. We dragged our luggage into the lobby, completely jet lagged having absolutely no idea what was going on - needless to say, the hall security guard's English was less than stellar. We eventually got temporarily checked in since the main desk was closed for the evening and we're escorted to the sixth floor room. After an amazing shower, Caitlyn and I discovered a fact we have been despising since arrival - There is NO HEAT in any of the buildings!!!! So despite being about 60 degrees in the middle of the afternoon and  much cooler in the evening, our room has nothing but pay-in AC. Needless to say, all we had that night was the thin blankets, we'd brought for the flight... sleep was not exactly in the cards.

Day 1 - Mission: BLANKETS. We went to an orientation that informed of us absolutely nothing like how to set up one's internet in the room. Very welcoming, very uninformative. But, we managed to get a map with a place to buy bedding. We received out PolyU ID cards which are a lifeline as you need them to swipe in and out of the dorms any time you go anywhere.  We took a nice tour and met another guy from NC State and learned a little bit about the campus from a local and had dinner in a Hong Kong mall foodcourt that was only about $3.50 (Food here is CRAZY cheap!) So, still totally jet lagged that night but at least warm!

Alright, I'm going to stop numbering days because the rest has passed in a blur...

I was determined to get my electronics set up before classes started on Monday so that meant finding a computer store with power converters (who knew?) and an Ethernet cable. I'll just google the closest Best Buy, yeah, wrong. After much spent time wandering we found this massive, stressful, but kind of awesome electronic store and I got my power converters and Ethernet cable.  So I am now wired for sound, though I can't use my power strip with the converters... it basically blows the circuit. Oh, and my hair dryer smells like it's going to blow up if I put it on the setting I do at home. It's ok, I just keep on super low :)
Caitlyn and I were determined to not spend money on clothes and generally non necessities the first week we were here so things other than window shopping were kept to a minimum. We tried to stick to things like hangers, towels, and pillows.

Classes. Well, first off, the schedules are confusing as hell. For any given class it could have any combination of a lab, lecture, seminar, and tutorial component. Most lectures seem to meet every week but tutorials and labs mostly meet every other week. The classes are about two hours long, and our lab was about three. So essentially, I'm going to have to check my weekly schedule at the beginning of the week and write down when  and where I actually have class or else I'm NEVER going to know what I'm doing.

On the record, there are more escalators here than there are in the entire U.S.

I have a lot more to write, but I'm lazy....
maybe another day :)