One foot in the West, one helluva large and possibly swollen foot in the East

That's it folks, now I've been here in H.K. for a little over a month, and everything and nothing has happened.

Firstly, my school is the best. I attend St. Paul's Convent School, a Catholic girls' school in Causeway Bay. The students are perky and nice, and the teachers are extremely kind too. The lessons are exciting, and whenever I fall asleep in class, it's because I don't sleep enough, or because it's the lesson right after lunch.
According to a classmate, Causeway Bay is one of the most polluted areas in Hong Kong, but that hasn't stopped it from being propped full with small restaurants and eateries. It makes you wonder how they keep from going bankrupt, but go to Causeway Bay a Wednesday afternoon during lunchtime and see how throngs of school children, businessmen and women, and regular people flock EVERY SINGLE EATING PLACE, and you'll understand.

The actual school subjects are rather hard to keep up with, and the workload is so huge that I'm getting more and more sleep-deprived. Unlike Norway, where you usually get a big piece of homework with one week to finish, here in Hong Kong, you get a little homework from every subject, every lesson, and that adds up to quite a bit. The subjects are, as mentioned before, very interesting, though, so I survive, somehow.
I've also errr "joined" some societies at school, mostly to show that I'm involved, or because the people promoting the clubs asked me so nicely. So far, I'm a part of the French Club, and the English Debating Society (oO). I wanted to join the Film Society too, but before I noticed, it was too late. Dawwww.
I've also started Tai Chi in school, as we have a "Diversified Interest Program" every Wednesday, where people pick a cool activity like Tai Chi and learn it. Allthough they call it Tai Chi, it's more like slow dancing with a fan, and I'm really enjoying it.

I would also like to tell you all about my favorite Hong Kong candy, which, for some reason, comes from Japan.
The first one is "Milk Candy", which is basically candy... that tastes like milk. So simple, yet soooooo good!
The second one is Pocky, and well, Pocky is super good. 'Nuff said.

Whatever I do when I don't have homework, aka my spare time, depends. If it's a regular day, I'll hang around the house, watching a movie, surfin the net. If it's a weekend, going to the movies is very great. I've seen more movies since I came to Hong Kong than I did in Norway last year, and there's this new one that just came out that I REALLY wanna see. It's a movie from mainland China, with all the big Chinese stars (allthough I recognize few of them) about the making of the People's Republic of China, one of my favorite parts of history! I would also like to know how the Chinese movie-maker person depicts the characters involved.

I have also started taking piano lessons, and it's a real pleasure every time the teacher comes. My sister and I will also be starting Judo in a little while, and as soon as we do, I'll write a letter to my Judo club back in Norway (as per the request of an extremely nice person who trains there) telling that I'm having fun and that Chinese people are scary.

The Cantonese is going slowly, though I'm picking up new stuff mostly every day. I can even hear the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese now (something that was impossible when I first got here)! Maybe I'll be able to pick up some phrases after all?

That's the update for now, here are some pictures:

Singing... in the RAIN oO

In writing moment, it's raining like hell. Seriously. Got thunder and such too. If the weather stays like this, I get a free day tomorrow!

*cough*, moving on.
School has been very school'y and I'm actually right now taking a break from the mounds of homework I need to finish before tomorrow. Which is sad, really, the 14 and 15-year olds here get more homework then I ever did in Norway.

I would also rather be playing with my new shiny laptop, that I got yesterday, but alas, my homework calls to me. My old laptop was dying in the heat here, so I got myself a new faster one to help meh.

lol just heard a loud bang from outside, sounds like the wind knocked something over oO

Also, just today realized how polluted the air here is, we were driving around in Hong Kong looking for school books, and it was like fog seriously. You could only hardly see the buildings on, say, another island not too far away.

Oki, back to homework again..
HMM

'Norwegian fails at phones, school and life in general'

So yeah, I fail. This is at least the keyword for today's blog!

My second day of school today, and it was quite okay. Well, once the school actually started..
The day, you see, started off awesomely bad. My host mother, you see ("Auntie"), comes into our room early in the morning with a worried expression, and asks if I'm not going to school soon. I tell her that it's fine, I'm not starting before 8, so I have put on an alarm that will go off at 6.30. The train ride to the school takes about 45-60 mins, so I need to get up early!
However, her concern worried me a bit, and so I couldn't sleep again. I reach out and grab my cell phone. According to it, the clock was 7.36.... lolwait, 7.36? EEEEEEEEEEK

I hurriedly grab my stuff and school uniform, muttering oh shit oh shit under my breath. My host sister (who doesn't have to get up as early) then tells me that it's not 7.30, it's 6.30.
o_o
I then checked my cell phone again, and it read 7.37.... pm.
Apparently, when my alarm went during school assembly yesterday (eep), and I quickly took out the battery to prevent further... alarming, it reset the time on my cell. I'm so glad Auntie came to check if I wasn't going soon lol ><

Okay, so I get dressed at the proper time, get on the train and get there in time. Our school is very cautious with the Swine Flu here, so we have to write down our temperatures and such every day. Before leaving that day, we took my temperature the regular way (hand on the forehead, yaknow). My temperature was nothing out of the ordinary, so I wrote down what I thought was an ordinary temperature on the sheet.
At school, I line up with the other students, but wooops, apparently a temperature of 37.3 up from 36.9 is scary, so I had to go sit in a corner with a face mask while the teachers ran back and forward trying to figure out what to do D;
I missed the assembly, even missed the start of my lesson, but after a few temperature checks, they found out that my temperature was regular.
Quote Hilde "There must be something wrong with the thermometer at home.."
*cough*

When I finally came into my classroom, I was oddly enough greeted by most of my class with a cheery and most perky hi. The classroom was chaotic as it has been every time I've been there. We had chemistry, math, english (mostly just handed in forms), history, mandarin and french (I got a free period), before I could go home at 12.50. I also had a nice chat with my class' teacher, Miss Lee, about midnight sun and classes.
What surprised me the most during the school day was
1. The girls seemed not to like the chemistry teacher, which I could not understand. He seemed like a very nice guy. Apparently, it's just because it was the first lesson of the year, and my classmates assured me that he'd start yelling at us asking where we left our brains soon. Reminds me of a certain someone who I have very much respect for, so yelling is fine(I think o_O)
2. Hong Kong school is SCARY
Except for the history class (which I thoroughly enjoyed), the level was amazingly high (considering that I'm in school with 14-15-year olds), and most of the teachers even randomly picked students to answer questions or solve stuff in front of everyone. I was sitting "don't pick me, don't pick me" through the entire chemistry and math class D;
I hope I get used to that.

After school, I went to meet my host sisters Angel and Winnie, plus Tracy, for lunch. We were going for Japanese food, so we went into a sushi place (eek).
I ordered a very safe dish of rice and pork, but as that took so long time to prepare, I got to taste the things that the other people ordered, like miso soup, sushi and other weird stuff.

And now I'm at home. I'm pooped. Really pooped. Getting my school uniform off is so nice that I forget to take a picture of it. Every. Single. Day.
You won't believe how hot it is.

HMM

Also, best article EVER at Dagbladet (you may need a translator tool): http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/09/02/nyheter/innenriks/rus/vold/7917580/

Sooooo much on my mind now, but this will probably turn out to be a piss poor and short blog anyway :<

Firstly, I'd like to point out a couple of interesting stuff about Hong Kong and it's inhabitants.
Here, caps and umbrellas aren't only for gangstas and rainy days. They are also used for hiding from the sun (to avoid getting a tan)
Cleaning teeth with a tooth pick and tying your shoe laces are things that must be hidden.
Whistling is a no-no at night, it makes ghosts appear D;
Also, have you noticed Chinese doing the v sign on pictures? All though I in Norway have grown up believeing it meant "peace", this is not what Hong Kongers do, apparently. Yall know the "guy with sunglasses"-smiley on MSN, I bet. Imagine him saying "Yeah", and you know what the v sign means here!

Secondly, about turning Chinese...
I get a lot of sideway glances and the occasional stare here and there, but I pretend not to notice n__n
I actually do understand it, because I'm having a hard time not staring at foreigners here myself, because you hardly ever see one :o It's like "WAAAA, A FOREIGNER"
*cough*

Also, visited Disneyland today. It was super fun, though I kinda regret not buying the picture of us from Space Mountain. It was less scary than I thought it would be, but my mouth was still wide open in a silent scream o_o
It was also suuuuuuuuper hot, so if you happen to look at Facebook photos from Disneyland, you might see that I'm pink as a pig on some of them ^^;

eeep
HMM

About this heat...

... seriously, I love it, but I just can't seem to shake the feeling that I've pissed myself o_o
I'm hoping it goes away soonish. *cough*

Enough strange talk, let's see what's new... Well, today the Cantonese lessons started, it was very interesting, of course. After those, Angel (my host sister), Marco (my "first friend", an AFS returnee who is helping out with stuff here) + Angel's friend Tracy, a Swiss AFSer (Raphael), his first friend and some other AFS people went for a nice lunch at a Tea House (茶餐廳 ;3). I got beef and tomato and rice, + iced chocolate milk, everything for 34 Hong Kong dollars hihi. This tea house was an interesting experience. Firstly, everything was in Chinese, so whoever says that you don't need to know it to live in Hong Kong is lying. Secondly, you get glasses with liquid to clean your eating cutlery stuff with (chopsticks and such), and I'll give you a sec to guess what liquid it is....
oki enough guessing, it's tea actually o_O
I got some tourist photos and such, before we left (see them on facebook <3) style="text-align: center;">I think I saw someone drink out of one of these actually

wut?

After the tea house, we took the MTR (google it!) to (I think it was) Mong Kok to set up a bank account for me and Raphael, a Swiss AFSer. We had to wait before we could do that though, so in the meanwhile we went to a gaming place. We're not talking handheld gaming, we are not talking gambling gaming. We're talking "hit the punching ball thing as hard as you can", which we did. We also threw basket hoops, and we rounded everything up with taking some purikura photos (yes, lots of Japanese stuff here in Hong Kong). I swear the booth made me look even whiter than I am. You can't even see the difference between my skin and the white in my eyes o: We were, of course, a little late back to the bank, but no trouble there. We finished up the account business quickly (I even got a children's account haha), and then we took a taxi to a biiiiiiig shopping mall full of expensive stores, to watch a movie :>

The movie was G.I. Joe, and we bought some Salt and Vinegar potato chips from a supermarket (lovely vinegar'y), popcorn (very sweet :o) and soft drinks (THEY HAD FANTA). The movie was very adequate, with a lovely amount of action and pew pews.

Sweet popcorn; literally

*yawn*
I'm tired now, so I'm going to bed
muhuh

gnight

<3 Hong Kong

Ya srlsy.

Today has been a super eventful day! All though i didn't take any pictures (cry), it was a great day hihi.

All the students were woken up at around 7-7.15, and we had to pack our shiz. After that, we all got down for breakfast (cereal, salad, ham, funny bread and a fish thing o_o). At 9 and 10, we were meeting our host families (group A at 9, group B at 10, I was group B D;). I was really really nervous, but some of the nice AFS volunteers comforted me and my First Friend (who has been in Norway) was there to help.

My host family is really awesome, and really nice too :3
I managed to fall while we were walking to the car (of course -_-') and I scratched my feet, and they came with tissues and water to clean it, and when we got home, they even found disinfectant and band-aids :o

After unpacking, we all sat down and they gave me some rules and regulations, what to call them, if I could bring friends home and so on. When we were done with that, we all went to eat at a pizza hut, and I was surprised to see how cheap everything was. We live above a shopping mall, so I got to see lots of things. And yeah, Hong Kong is surprisingly cheap ^^;

I know a certain person who would -love- HK burger kings; there was olives on everything ;3
One thing I also noticed was that stuff with "Norwegian Salmon" was popular in restaurants, Norwegian Salmon Pizza, Norwegian Salmon Salad etc. We also went and took my picture (eep!) and cut me a key (yay).

When we were done with pizza, we went back home and I took a sweet nap. It'll be weird going to bed soon without a downy, but I think I'll manage hihi n__n

We still had stuff to do after my nap; we went out again to Tsim Sha Tsui, the famous shopping place. Here we found me a camera, and went to dinner with one of Uncle's business associates. After that we just hung around in the mall.

Okiiiiii, need to go to bed now
-- HMM

yawn

After a looooooong flight (with surprisingly good food) I am in Hong Kong, whee. Well, I've been here for a little while actually.

Pictures from the flight


Nom <3


Soy :o

The camp is interesting and full of nice people, though I can't wait to meet my host family and start going to school, lol.

My first thoughts when entering HK was something like wheeee tall buildings, my second, gosh it's hot. At the moment it's something like 30 degrees celsius and super humid, so it doesn't really feel like you're breathing when outside.



-distilled- water



View from the airport



Tall buildings <3



Plenty of stray cats here



eep

I've also gotten a taste of how the Chinese handle the Swine Flu; I had to fill out several forms describing symptoms and where I've been the past week, and the AFS staff takes our temperatures several timesa day. We also had to wear masks, but only the short stretch from the bus to the camp o_O

That's all fer now
-- HMM