Stock market and hall life

As you probably know the stock market has taken a massive plunge. Two of the girls in my residential hall therefore decided to decorate their door and room with red notes with writing on them symbolising wealth and money. Apparently it is the thing to do if you want to get rich. Could be worth a try. Decorating is in general quite a big thing in the halls. People are especially big on beautifying their doors. Each floor also competes against the other floors about having the best decorations.

Hall life is pretty good and I am so far enjoying it. However, I am glad I am not a local student, as they are required to participate in all kinds of very time-consuming activities in order to be able to live in the hall. It is not uncommon for a sport team, the choir or something similar to meet several times a week for many hours at a time. If you do not participate in enough activities you will be given a warning and if you do not improve you could eventually get kicked out of the hall.

Pictures: two doors on my floor. The first one has the "getting rich" notes on it.

Hong Kong

Today I spent an hour and a half learning my phone number - in Cantonese. I am taking a Cantonese language class designed for exchange students and so far it has been pretty fun. However, Cantonese is a relatively hard language to learn because of its six tones. This means that a change of tone could change the meaning of the word completely. The word "si" therefore has six different meanings depending on how you say it.

The last week and a half has been pretty hectic. Besides completing the tedious registration process with all its paperwork, my time has been spent exploring the island. The university organised two tours this weekend which among other things included a visit to the bird and flower markets, a boat trip in a "Sampan" (a wooden, small boat), beach exploring and a traditional Hong Kong breakfast.

Most people in Hong Kong, except the extremely rich, live in small apartments and it is therefore difficult to raise a pet. Birds are a very popular alternative and this bird market is one of the places to go shopping for one.

On the Sampan. The fishermen use them to get around the harbour. They are not designed for going out to sea.

A part of a nunnery. It is fascinating that you can find a place like this in a big city like Hong Kong. Very calm, quiet and peaceful, but note the high rise buildings in the background.

On Saturday night my buddy, assigned to me from the university, took us out for hotpot. The hotpot is in the middle of the table and the ingredients are placed into the simmering water and cooked at the table. You choose what you want to put in it yourself. We had meatballs, lamb, chicken, beef, vegetables, fish, rice nodules and many other things in ours. I really love this stuff.

From the bottom left: Xi En (on exchange from Melbourne, Lesley (my room mate, on exchange from California) and me. Top left: Cindy (Me and Xi En's buddy) and Michal (Cindy's boyfriend).

The absolutely best dessert place. It has mango as its main ingredients. Does all these fruit drinks and dishes.

* I have gotten all the photos from Lesley. My camera is not quite working at the moment.

Newyears in Sydney

Vas and I escaped Brisbane on New Years eve by catching a plane to Sydney. I am using the word "escaped" because it was pouring down and quite windy in Brisbane. Some of the surrounding cities even had to cancel their fireworks because of the weather. Sydney on the other hand was sunny and warm.

We headed into the CBD to see the fireworks around 9pm. The city was packed and it was hard to get a spot where you could could actually get a glimpse of the Harbour bridge. People had been there since early morning, the most dedicated had even stayed the night, in order to secure a spot. But after a while we found a place where we could see the bridge in between to ferries. I was really jet-lagged and started to get tired around this time, especially when I realised we were going to have to stand up for two hours. After I while I abandoned my dignity and sat down, and soon other people around me followed.

The fireworks was good, but I think the atmosphere was even better. We stayed in the city till 2pm eating ice cream and looking at the life. The streets were packed.

The rest of the days in Sydney were spent going to the beach and on a day-trip to the Blue Mountains.

The best photo my camera could get of the bridge in the dark

Tired of standing up

People leaving the area after the fireworks

Somewhere in the blue mountains