Friday, September 29, 2006
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Notes of Late
Rohit, Elisa, and I were treated to lunch on Thursday by Edward Ko, who was a former colleague of our former professor Dr. John Vohs, of CBE 160. He was extremely nice, and very helpful, particularly with our need to get courses approved. He also tried to steer us in the right direction to get the richest experiences out of our exchange, questioning us about the cultural and societal differences we'd already seen at UST, and to suggest why we thought things were the way they were.
He also pointed out that just coming to HK to party would be foolish - I could just as easily drink, dance, smoke, back at Penn - with people i'd be with for more than 6 months. Armed with his recommendations for a few cultural sites to visit, ro and I decided to hit up the southside of the island today on a purely cultural and sightseeing excursion. Here are the latest pics from HK.
enjoy! (thanks to sonya for the slideshow maker!)
He also pointed out that just coming to HK to party would be foolish - I could just as easily drink, dance, smoke, back at Penn - with people i'd be with for more than 6 months. Armed with his recommendations for a few cultural sites to visit, ro and I decided to hit up the southside of the island today on a purely cultural and sightseeing excursion. Here are the latest pics from HK.
enjoy! (thanks to sonya for the slideshow maker!)
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Living someone else's life
So I've been in HK for two weeks now, but I haven't had the drive to make a post, although my minds been on many things.
The first few days in Hong Kong were a real whirlwind, getting acquainted with the city, I basically went into Hong Kong Island and Kowloon every day (HKUST is kind of out in the boondocks, a good 1 hr by public transportation from Central, Hong Kong's busiest downtown). Central, a grid of glitz and glam, with the most chic boutiques and hottest eateries. HKUST, in Clear Water Bay, has a beautiful campus... and really nothing nearby. Despite the fact that these two locations are less than 20 km apart, the people in them live lives separated by a nearly unbridgable social divide.
I spent my first few nights in Lan Kwai Fong, which is a few streets large district in Central where several bars, nightclubs, lounges. are clustered in a brightly lit slope. My first night a friend happened to hook Kristen and I up with some ibanking analysts and we were able to get into a trendy nightclub. Coincidently, the a modeling agency was throwing a party at that club. It was pretty ridiculous. The girls were georgeous and I didn't hear any cantonese while I was there, just English.
It amazes me sometimes where I've ended up - I'm just 20, and I can do things my parents would never had dreamed of (although its unlikely they would've wished such an opulent and perhaps decadent future for me). Even so, this psuedo-playboy lifestyle puts me out of my element - small town Washington, to a world-class city is a big jump. By merit of speaking English fluently, going to an ivy league school, we make the assumption that we, merely students, are high rollers (or at least will be- thanks FNCE 101 and Consumption smoothing!), despite the fact that we've hardly started earning (although perhaps this isn't the case with the REAL high rollers).
When I go out 'big' here, I can drop a cool 50-100 USD... and think...whatever.
I don't know how comfortable I am with that fact.
Pics to come..
Recent Quote of Note - 'I win on the conversion... I do what I want!'
btw. if you read and you blog, please drop me a link to your blog.
The first few days in Hong Kong were a real whirlwind, getting acquainted with the city, I basically went into Hong Kong Island and Kowloon every day (HKUST is kind of out in the boondocks, a good 1 hr by public transportation from Central, Hong Kong's busiest downtown). Central, a grid of glitz and glam, with the most chic boutiques and hottest eateries. HKUST, in Clear Water Bay, has a beautiful campus... and really nothing nearby. Despite the fact that these two locations are less than 20 km apart, the people in them live lives separated by a nearly unbridgable social divide.
I spent my first few nights in Lan Kwai Fong, which is a few streets large district in Central where several bars, nightclubs, lounges. are clustered in a brightly lit slope. My first night a friend happened to hook Kristen and I up with some ibanking analysts and we were able to get into a trendy nightclub. Coincidently, the a modeling agency was throwing a party at that club. It was pretty ridiculous. The girls were georgeous and I didn't hear any cantonese while I was there, just English.
It amazes me sometimes where I've ended up - I'm just 20, and I can do things my parents would never had dreamed of (although its unlikely they would've wished such an opulent and perhaps decadent future for me). Even so, this psuedo-playboy lifestyle puts me out of my element - small town Washington, to a world-class city is a big jump. By merit of speaking English fluently, going to an ivy league school, we make the assumption that we, merely students, are high rollers (or at least will be- thanks FNCE 101 and Consumption smoothing!), despite the fact that we've hardly started earning (although perhaps this isn't the case with the REAL high rollers).
When I go out 'big' here, I can drop a cool 50-100 USD... and think...whatever.
I don't know how comfortable I am with that fact.
Pics to come..
Recent Quote of Note - 'I win on the conversion... I do what I want!'
btw. if you read and you blog, please drop me a link to your blog.
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