High Table Dinner

HKU dorms have a tradition called High Table Dinners. Every month the entire hall (dorm) suits up and has a formal dinner with honorary guests and speeches. For mine, Lee Hysan Hall, we had the "honor" of having it in the main building of school rather than in a restaurant. I was expecting local cafeteria food and was very upset when I heard that my friends got sushi and an open bar.

I arrived at the main building a couple of minutes early since my Chinese class finished a bit before. I was shocked to see the transformation of the lecture hall! Instead of rows of desks there where ample tables with wine glasses and actual silverware! The room was decorated in a Broadway theme and each one of the 500+ attendees had an assigned seat with their name on it.

The ceremony started when the esteemed guests arrived and we all sat down in our respective spots. We sang the hall song (which was extremely cheesy) and heard a speech from the school Vice-Chancelor. Later on we ate a multiple-course dinner comprised by a plate of ham and salami, mushroom soup, our choice between fish or steak, blueberry cheesecake and tea or coffee. We also had the option to drink white or red wine. Interesting options considering the school no-alcohol tolerance policy.

After the dinner was over, the representative of Hong Kong in Beijing gave the longest speech I have heard on my life and then proceeded to some Q&A with sub-speeches. It was so long that I fell asleep for a big portion of it.

We proceeded to take pictures by floor and then headed out. They where very strict with attendance. You had to check-in and check-out. It turns out that if you miss 3 in the entire year, you are banned from living in the dorms for the upcoming semester. Since I am only here for one semester I could not care less, so I will probably skip the following ones unless they change their policy of speech durations.

Overal, it was a great experience since it forced you to bond with all of your hall-mates as well as get to meet new people. The US dorms should think about enforcing it.

Every Given Weekend

For any average student, the weekend starts on Thursdays, and in some cases, even Wednesdays. In Hong Kong that can only mean one thing: LKF. I found out that there is one bar in LKF that has an interesting challenge: How fast can you drink 10 shots. 

Having Venezuelan blood running through me, I had to take the challenge. I mean, they gave you a free t-shirt as well! (how american/jewish of me).

Turns out it was a bit harder than I expected. I started freezing after the 5th and took more time than expected to finish the remaining ones. I ended up doing it in 26.86 seconds, loosing to my friend Sean by a mere .2 seconds. I can not and will not accept that. Im doing it again for sure; this time I'm bringing a sweater though. Some dude holds the record with 7.8 seconds... what a beast.

On Friday I took my friends Chasen and Mike to the local Chabad. Funny thing is that Mike is not Jewish, we just didn't want to leave him alone in the dorm. We ate like we had never eaten before and promised the Rabbi (who lived in Venezuela for a while!!!) that we'd come back every Friday. After leaving the house Mike turned to me and told me that the meal had made him want to convert to judaism.

We went to a hookah and mohito joint called Sahara and chilled for a while; there was a guy having his birthday party there so he kept buying everyone rounds. Afterwards I met with my friend Sasha who had just arrived in Hong Kong as an exchange student as well. We partied in the bars of LKF for a while and then decided to head to a club called Pi. We walked a couple blocks and arrived to what seemed to be a commercial building. It turns out that the club was in the 46th floor. The club was exploding so Chasen and Mike decided to split a bottle of champaign so that we could get a booth. That seemed to get the attention of some people and got us a couple numbers. 

The sun rose around 7am and they turned the music off. Talk about being a party pooper. We left for our dorms and got back around 8am. Skype didn't let me go to bed until 11. I went to bed later than my grandma even with a 12 hour time-zone difference.

I woke up around 5-6pm and headed to the IFC mall to help Chasen buy a sports jacket to take to Macau. We found one, ate some dinner and got on the 9pm ferry. We met our friend Hubert and a couple of Berkeley girls in the casino of the Sands,they had gone that morning to do some hiking; that is still on the to-do list. We gambled for a while still trying to rack some points for the free ferry ride, ate some dumplings and headed to the one and only D2. We partied until 7am and headed to the ferry station.

We woke up and went for some sushi dinner and then the dry-cleaners. We watched some martial arts movies with our floor-mates and then headed to a bar called The Wheel to watch the playoff games. Chasen had a 10:30 am class so he took his backpack to the bar. After seeing his mighty Jets get owned he went straight to school. What a crappy way to start the week. Luckily I didn't have class till 1 so at least I got a couple hours of sleep. Talk about an inverted schedule.

Dim Sum and then some

This past Tuesday a bunch of us got together to eat some traditional dim sum. We went to a place called Star Seaworld (or something else lost in translation) and ordered a bunch of different platters to try a bunch of different stuff. The dishes included but where not limited to shrimp dumplings, pork buns, egg yoak buns, soup dumplings, and my least favorite: chicken feet. Apparently it is a custom to suck the meat out of the bony fingers of a chicken. I would much rather eat the snake again rather than that last one.

Afterwards I headed to class and then the Taiwanese embassy to apply for a visa for a possible trip. I just got a new passport and have almost filled half of it already.

We headed to Mr. Wongs for dinner and then hit up the bars in Wan Chai. This Tuesday we went to one called Carnegies, world renowned for its 10hkd-you-call-it.

After a couple whiskey-cokes we thought it would be a good idea to get on top of the bar. Surprisingly it  actually was. We got free drinks from there on. Afterwards a couple of creepy asians and old people started to crawl up there so we got down. My friend Phillip (Swedish) got so drunk that he started dropping his beers and shattering glass all over the floor; the bar did not like it that much so they kicked him out.

 Hopefully we'll be allowed in next Tuesday because it is too good of a deal to let go by.

The Ladies Market

This past Saturday we went to the Ladies Market in Man Kok. This is where people go and buy all of the fake products. Having been in an Israeli Shuk before, I had already mastered the haggling skill and as a result I could get anything I wanted for significantly less than my American friends.

My friend Chasen, being the compulsive shopper that he is, could not say no to anything and as a result started buying everything he saw. He started with the belts, followed with watches, towels, paintings, zippo lighters, shoes, sport jerseys, ties with a handkerchief and cufflinks and even rings. The fact that he was carrying that many bags made things worse. Every single shopkeeper kept pulling us in and throwing more stuff at us, there was no escape from there. After a couple stores ripped him off, I started doing the haggling for him. I explained to him that there is no way to win in these markets; you either get scammed, or you get scammed less, but in either case the shop will always make an insane profit, the only difference is how you feel afterwards.

Originally he had paid 200hkd ($26) for each silk tie/handkerchief/cufflink set. I bought 5 sets for 300hkd ($39) total. He also wanted to buy the jersey for 200hkd. I got it down to 50. I explained to him that the key to get a very reduced price is to throw an insanely low price, let them laugh at you and then simply walk away. They will chase you yelling lower prices until you turn around and buy it from them. They are so used to selling to the average tourist that they feel ashamed if they cant close a deal, and as a result will drop the price until you buy it.

Hong Kong has been trying to fight piracy for a while, and as a result they have a lot of undercover cops in the area. This made it more difficult for us to get the higher quality products, since the shopkeepers where afraid to display them. After talking to a local for a while, we convinced her to meet us in the KFC across the street with a bag containing 20 rolexes. Chasen ended up buying 5.

We walked for a while until the shops closed. Then we went to the parallel street to head back to the subway. The way Hong Kong shopping is organized is very interesting, there are streets dedicated for each individual product. There is a street for cellphones, one for computers, jeans, etc. At this point we where in the shoe street. It was insane to see the amount of Nike logos, every single store had a giant swoosh on top of it. There must have been at least 20 in a row, and again, Chasen being the compulsive shopper he is had to go in to every single one. He bought three limited edition jordan kicks. The only crappy thing about Hong Kong is that everyone is tiny, so finding a size 12 is nearly impossible. After going to 10 different stores, I was finally able to find one that had the shoe I wanted in my size.

In the end we added up all of what we bought. Between Sean and I we didn't even spent a fifth of what Chased did, even though each one of us bought a pair of shoes as well. Thats what I like about going out with him. It doesn't matter how much I spend, it will never be a significant portion of what he spends so it makes it alright.

Theres nothing like Vegas.... Or is there?

Hong Kong amazes me every day, specially yesterday.

Back in the day, when HK was under British rule, the island used to be very strict when it came to gambling, alcohol, prostitution, etc. The Triads looked for a place for their headquarters and be safer from the cops and therefore set shop at the next island called Macau which was under Portuguese rule and was way more lenient. Nowadays Macau managed to transform to an industry which does pretty much the same thing, but legaly. CASINOS.

Macau is pretty much a copy of Las Vegas, if it where on steroids. There are 25 Casinos within the Cotai Strip, and there is an island just for the Venetian, which is one of the few buildings in the world bigger than the Pentagon. There are identical copies of many hotels such as the Sands, Venetian, Sands, Rio, etc, and the net gross is greater than the one in Vegas.

My day started with a phone call from my friend Phillip, suggesting that we take a ferry for Macau, spend the night gambling and partying and then taking another back in the morning. After we where all done with classes we did exactly that. We went to the ferry station, boarded the 8pm ferry and arrived at Macau at 9pm.

Macau was everything I imagined and more. We took a shuttle to the Venetian and where amazed by its size; It was huge! We immediately signed up for the VIP rewards card and started gambling to rack up points. The goal was to reach 28 points so that we would get a complementary ferry ticket for the way back. It didn't seem too hard since each ticket only cost 150hkd ($20).

The lowest table minimum for blackjack was 300hkd which scared us since we where not planning on gambling that much, so we decided to hit the roulette where the minimum bet was 50hkd. Chasen and I somehow got on a roll and suddenly where hitting every number. There was only one spin in which I did not get paid something. After making a hefty profit I decided to play it safe and stop playing. Wise decision. Chasen kept playing and managed to loose everything he had won. I left with Sean and Josh to get some food and roam around the hotel while he stayed with Matt, Dave, Chris and Phillip. Two hours later we went back and noticed that Chasen was still playing. He had somehow managed to win everything back and even double what he had originally made. I guess here everyone actually is a winner.

We decided to cash out and checked our rewards card to see how many points we had earned. I was surprised to know that after playing over 4 hours I had only gotten 9 points. so much for that free ferry ride. Chasen had only earned 30 even though he had placed bets significantly higher than mine all night long. Matt decided to give it a try to see what he qualified for, turns out he had not made a single point all night long, oh Matt. It makes one wonder how the casino expects someone to earn 88,888 points to get a complementary helicopter ride.

At 3am we headed to a club called D2 to celebrate our success. Turns out that the club lets prostitutes in and gets a cut of their profits. It was disgusting to see how many old guys where surrounded by local prostitutes. We partied through two separate DJ's and finally headed to the ferry station just in time for the 7am ferry back to Hong Kong. I got back into my dorm just in time to hear my hall-mates alarm clocks.

Apparently we are heading back next weekend but this time staying for the night. Turns out there is a complementary buffet and an epic go-kart track.

Lan Kwai Fong

Thursdays in Hong Kong for International Students only mean one thing. Club 7 and LKF.

Club 7 - better known as 7-eleven is a chain store similar to Walgreens that you can find in pretty much every corner of Hong Kong. It is very useful when you want to buy snacks, bathroom essentials, food, or my personal favorite: alcohol.

Hong Kong is very liberal when it comes to alcohol laws. Pretty much any store can sell it as long as the recipient is under 18 years of age. 7-eleven is the most convenient store to get it since you can find it everywhere and is really cheap, therefore making it the ideal pregame hub.

Every Thursday night all of the international students from across all of the different universities in Hong Kong hit their local 7-eleven and head to Lan Kuai Fong or LKF, a street filled with bars and clubs. What is even more convenient is that there is a 7-eleven right on it, so you can do all of your after drinking there as well rather than paying the ridiculous prices at the bars, and still go in them afterwards.

I met Mike at the 7-eleven while looking for a drink. He told me that he had blacked out the night before and that he didn't remember anything about the fight. He started telling me the story of how he saw the guy in LKF and apologized for calling him Justin Bieber. Turns out it was a totally different guy than the one from the night before. Typical Mike.

Sadly the night came to an end when I realized that it was 6am and that I had class 3 hours afterwards, so I decided to call it a "night?" and headed home.

Any given Wednesday

Wednesdays in Hong Kong are kind of special. To some its finally the day their bodies realize that its a week day; to others like me, its the day the "weekend" starts.

I started the day by going to the Immigration office and applying for a Hong Kong ID. Afterwards I went to Causeway Bay with Chasen to do a bit of touristing. We found an awesome Japanese Tepanyaki place called Aji Le Tetsu inside the 11th floor of a residential building. There we had sushi, tepanyaki beef and scallops, and a couple of beers to start the night.

We then walked around Times Square and took the tram to meet some friends at Happy Valley, the local race course for horses. Apparently every Sunday and Wednesday everyone in Hong Kong goes to the tracks and bets on the horses. I decided to place a bet based on payout odds, and was greedy to put the horse to win rather than to place in the top 3. It got second.

Afterwards we hit up the bars in Wan Chi. Apparently Wednesday nights its girls night out, so they get free drinks all night. We met with some friends and partied for a while. After a couple more drinks my friend Mike was wasted and started hitting on every single girl in the bar. He proceeded to call a guy Justin Bieber and start a fight. We got kicked out of the bar not much after Mike passed out and headed home.

Mr. Wong's

On Tuesday we decided to go to a place called Mr. Wong's for dinner. A group of about 20 of us got into the subway and started our journey to Yau Ma Tei.

After arriving we noticed the amount of bb gun stores that were in the area. Of course, my friend Chasen had to go into all of them to relive childhood memories. He decided that it would be a great idea to buy pretty much the entire store. He bought not only the gun and bullets, but decided to go all out with the perks such as camo jacket, patches, hats, a haji scarf, gloves, etc. While playing with the gun he accidentally released all of the gas from the clip that shoots the bullets faster. He was really pissed because by then the store had already closed.

Afterwards we met the rest of the group across the street where they were waiting for a table at the famous Mr. Wong's. This place was so attractive to locals/tourist because it was an all-you-can-eat-and-drink for only $40hk (about $5). We decided that it wasn't worth it to wait in line that long so we grabbed a couple of folded tables and simply set shop in the middle of the street. We started to eat a huge variety of food ranging from deep-fried vegetables, rice and noodles to chicken, duck, pork, beef, etc. All of this of course while chasing with 32oz beers.

Mr Wong himself kept bringing an unlimited stream of booze to us. This was a very strange business concept since somehow he drives a lamborghini. The majority of the locals which we have talked to think that the restaurant is a cover for some sort of Triad operation and we are simply helping him launder money. Anyways, triad or no triad, Mr. Wong's is amazing and everyone should go there.

And then it begun

Well, I guess I have to start blogging, so this is how the story of my trip begins. If the rest of the semester is anything like this first week was then this will be one of the greatest adventures of all time.

It all started on Tuesday night. My brother decided to take me out one last night of partying before I left to Hong Kong. We went from club to club drinking and drinking. After a bottle of sake, 6 vodka tonics, 2 whisky's and two yards of poison (gin, whisky, vodka, rum and a lemony soda) we decided to head to the casino. While my brother played blackjack, some random lady started buying me rum and cokes. Granted to say I was beyond fucked up at this point. I decided it would be wise to sit in a table and start playing poker; surprisingly I actually won one hundred bucks. At 8am we headed back to the room. We slept for a couple of hours, ate lunch and then drove to the airport.

After flying 3 hours to Miami, 6 to LAX and 15:30 to Hong Kong I finally arrived at 8:30am on Jan 7th. I went to my dorm and was surprised when it turned out that I had a single. Little did I know that it had no heating when I signed the lease. I dropped my bags and rushed to the university where Orientation had already started. Between all of the events and paperwork I ended up leaving school at night. I headed to Kowloon and bought my cell phone and ate McDonald's for a total price of $2. Suck it America.

Saturday morning I headed to Central. We saw the most amazing skyscrapers in the world. After walking around the city for a while we decided to go to the Victoria Peak. This is an observatory in the top of the mountain where the richest people in HK live. We took some cool pictures and then ate some traditional chinese food. I ate an assorted platter of dim sum, Shark Fin, jellyfish, duck, pork and beef. I tried my bargaining skills and ended up buying two remote control helicopters for $14. We saw the sunset from the top of the mountain and headed back to the city.

On Sunday there was a parade celebrating the 100th year of the university. I was a part of the international students troupe. I got to meet a variety of people and noticed that I was not the only spanish speaking person in the island. whattup. After the parade was over we went to Kennedy town, ate some food and walk around the zone. I could not find a single english-speaking person around. Anyways, it is hilarious how much cheaper stuff is here. A good meal can cost approximately $2-4. Afterwards I headed home, registered for classes and ate dinner at the canteen.

Today I went to classes in the morning, and afterwards went with my local buddy Carl to eat some traditional chinese food. Little did I know that this meant snake and fish gut to clear the 'cold airs' from our system and be healthier; a common tradition before the chinese new years. Afterwards we took the Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui where we took some amazing pictures of the city skyline. Unfortunately we did not make it in time for the light show (youtube it). We took the bus to Jordan and walked to Temple street. It was a closed boulevard that sold many fake purses, electronics, and other stuff and had a variety of palm readers and singers. It was an awesome experience.

Ill try to write more often, and hopefully Ill have some new cool stories to tell.