Arrival: June 24-25

Hong Kong has to be one of my favourite places on Earth, so to have another change to go back and actually live in the city...it's an amazing opportunity. I love the culture, the polished, controlled grit of the buildings, the amazing MTR service, the technology, the people. It's a surreal mix of Modernity and Western lifestyles, yet unique within the Asian region with Japanese pop culture, Canto culture and a little bit of everything else splashed together. I love it, wholeheartedly.

A little while ago I decided that, between semesters, I should probably try and get an internship for my Advanced Biology course. One idea stuck in my mind. Last year, I went to Hong Kong as part of a little team of undergraduate researchers to present a group talk at iGEM. This bio-engineering competition took place at HKUST, on the Eastern side of Hong Kong. One morning, I met a professor from CUHK on our bus trip to HKUST (CUHK is a university right next to the hotel we stayed in). So, when I was deciding where to do an internship this year, I thought I might as well contact this same professor and see if anything could be organised. One thing lead to another, and here I am at CUHK, studying in the bio/biochem labs.

First, I had to actually get to HK. The weeks leading up to my departure were a blurry mess, leaving me with the strange impression that I wasn't actually heading overseas, despite having to arrange visas and flights between three exams and work. It's hard to describe the feeling; I felt as if all the preparation was ephemeral, and yet Dad, MQ and myself put so much effort into the process. In any case, one look at the plane sitting neatly outside the airport gate with its wings gleaming in the chill, ten degree morning brought home the fact that I was leaving for a full six weeks. And it was a good feeling.

On the flight I met a girl studying hospitality/management at UWS, flying to Lebanon via Dubai via HK. I didn't envy her 24+ hour flight time (she had 12 hours of stopover time in total!). The flight was a pretty standard affair: watched a movie with Denzel Washington in it (mandatory), and a movie about Sarah Palin called Game Change that was insightful, quite sobering and a little scary.

So, Hong Kong. Well, if you do quick calculation of the pictures to words ratio (P:W) and their relative worth...you know the metaphor. I do enjoy my words, but I also enjoy my pictures! I think it'd be nice if I show you what my Sunday night and Monday morning looked like:

This is the region surrounding CUHK, my university. I thought the moody clouds, the humidity, the mountains and the city worked so well together. It was a beautiful sight.

The view from my room!

Some of the other summer school students haven't lucked out view-wise. A girl I spoke to said her window opens out on bamboo scaffolding.

Dinner! So that's (clockwise) a rice pizza, shaved ice with mango syrup and icecream and a display desert (there was a whole cabinet full of them!) 

From the bottom of the University, this building really stands out! See those green windows? I didn't know it at the time, but that is where my labs are located, and where I am writing this blog post! It's certainly a very colourful science centre!

And this is Daisy Li hall, part of New Asia college. I live on the second floor in the room furthest to the right. Be jealous, yes please do.

Ok, I think that's all I'll do for now. I'll write another post soon about what I did yesterday evening, what work I'm actually doing in CUHK, what the university is like etc...