End of Week 2

So the kids continued to give out free food...and of course I continued to eat it. It's depressing when the equivalent noodle packages to our American Ramen have more flavor than the canteen noodles. I'm now stocked up on Instant MiFun. Too bad  I forget what the food they make is called:

The kids hard at work making a dish I wasn't in the dorm for:

Another random soup dish I had at Sha Tin (a close mall):

Today, I had my first dim sum experience. It has probably been my favorite meal here so far; it's reassuring to know that Hong Kong actually has delicious food. I'm not a big fan of bread, but the steamed buns were absolutely fantastic. They didn't taste or look like normal buns at all. I temporarily misplaced my camera, otherwise I would have taken photos. We ordered approximately 13 dishes to share for six, which included dishes from lemon cake to chicken wings. I mainly liked the dishes that were steamed.

The second add/drop session for the shopping period for classes began today; aside for a minor registration complication, I think I have my schedule down. I will be taking Introduction to Energy & Environment, Applied Probability & Statistics, Chinese Diaspora, Family, Marriage, & Kinship, and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. It's going to be a lot more reading than I'm used to, but I think it suits the complete change of everything else in my life right now. The semester is going to be a very different learning experience for me in almost every respect. I am still shocked every time I walk into a classroom; the student population is so homogenous. With blond hair extremely rare in China (literally, you never see any), I almost fell over in my chair when I skyped Audrey.

The campus continues to become less of a foreign place to me; for the most part, I can get around without a map now. I feel like such a freshman harassing all of the local students, map in hand and a confused look on my face. The going uphill both ways is going to take a while to get used to, especially when running, though. FINALLY, we got our gym memberships today; I cannot wait to do some form of exercise other than running cliffs.

My Chinese New Year Destination is Manila, Philippines. It was difficult figuring out our break destination because all of the flights were full/expensive. Honestly, we picked Manila since it was the only reasonable flight available. We fly out February 3rd and get back February 8th. We booked our hotel today and after some wikipedia-ing Manila, I am extremely excited. One of the museums in Manila is dedicated to the Chinese in the Philippines and I think there is even a Chinatown in the Philippines; I'm really hoping to check both of those out because my Chinese Diaspora class is all about Chinatowns in the world. I haven't even been to an American Chinatown, so it'll definitely be cool to experience my class firsthand.