Hong Kong

Look who came to send me off at the airport. I'm as surprised as you are. haha. But I seriously appreciate the effort.

The three of us before departing. Byebye Singapore!

We had to take a train from the landing area to collect our bags at the arrival area in Hong Kong airport. Makes you remember how small Singapore is.

After settling in at HKU, we went to visit Victoria Peak, where we took a really really cool tram up. The tram was like at 45 degrees for a good part of the journey. Damn scary. The wonders of technology.

I think the McDull pig is like the Peak's mascot. No pictures of the HK scenery though. Those are captured better on HW's camera.

Yes, Hall 3 here we come! Haha. Not an image you would see often. Us with TK, Hall 11's sports sec. We stayed on the 3rd floor of our hall. Unlike in NTU, where we have different blocks, they have 8 floors, their whole hall is in one building. And though there are space constraints in HK, and the rooms are smaller than ours, we are very happy with our double room, cuz it has a lot of storage spaces and a lot of power points and Lan points and AIRCON. And it has a balcony with a view of mountains. =) And we love our floor, cuz the girls on it are uber friendly. They say hi. I mean, if I see a foreigner in Hall, I may mostly just smile, but not say hi or ask if they need anything. It's just a whole different culture, the hospitality we received there was good. And they are more united, cuz the floor only has like less than 40 people on it. Unlike our block culture.

This was taken at a Char Chan Ting. The girl in pink is Clarissa, Hall 7's hon gen. The meal portions in HK are huge, so me and Bengs saved money by sharing everything.

After we shopped till we wanted to drop, we love to end our shopping adventures at Hsiu Liu Xiang, this famous place which has very good mango-inspired desserts. The guy on the left is Hall 4's VP, Yen Kun and he's gonna be the next P or so I heard.

Apart from HKU, we visited HKUST, where the halls are situated around sea and mountains. Wonderful! And, they are moving towards single rooms instead of triple rooms. HAha. The girl in the pix is Joan, Hall 11's VP.

At the dimsum restaurant where we went yum cha. Esther's the VP of Hall 8, she's my hokkien spewing buddy. Since Hongkongers can understand English, Chinese and cantonese, we spoke hokkien so that they didn't know what we were talking about, when we were trying to decide what to buy.

This is like a famous pier in HK. Before HK became a city, it was a fishing island.

We went to see the pandas at Ocean Park. One of the pandas kept pacing around and around his enclosure. I think the poor thing went mad. It happens to animals kept in an enclosed environment, which just makes me wonder if I should be happy or sad visiting such places since the animals are often captured and taken away from their natural habitat.

It rained a lot while we were in Ocean Park. That's my umbrella buddy, Shu Fang or Ah Tan as we know her by, cuz there are two Shu Fangs in our group. She's Hall 7's Fin Sec.

This was taken in sortaf our Carlsburg Tower in Sentosa. This ride made my head spin.

This is like their version of our Underwater World. It's quite cool in the sense that it has three levels worth of fish. And some of the fish are HUGE!

Bengs and me before the Dolphin and Seal/Sealion show started. I like the show a lot. I love dolphins. =) Bengs and me roomed together and I got a chance to know Bengs more, which was great. The best moment was in our room, when Bengs talked about how she felt about our hall and how we would go down for events just because we were jcrc (or something liddat) with the other people and the others said that we were very patriotic. I suddenly felt like got similar wavelength with Bengs. Haha. And I wished madly that next year's jcrc would feel the same way.

The lovely Ocean Park, where I didn't dare to sit many of the rides (I'm chicken that way).

me, bengs & esther at avenue of stars, where you can take pictures with handprints of famous people and a statue of bruce lee. pretty cool stuff. we went to the avenue of stars to get a sticker though. The HK tourism board was running a campaign by which if you visit 3 specified locations in HK and you get stickers to show that you visited such a place, you get a Walnut Biscuit Tea Set. I'm not sharing my prize. =P

Hong Kong was awesome! I literally shopped till I dropped and I'm very thankful that there were people in our group who went HK before and who knew their way around. Made very good friends and talked about being in the jcrc till the wee hours and the different politics in our individual halls and who we reserved rec lists for (we were drinking alcohol, that could explain everybody's loose lips. hehs). An enriching experience. Lines between different halls weren't drawn as clearly and I found myself sincerely wishing the best for some halls' future jcrcs. I don't know if Hall 9 has a future, but I'm prepared to let go and wish the juniors all the best. Each hall has each hall's own problems. That's what going to HK has taught me.

Might have more pictures but I was damn tired after shopping everyday. Seriously. So I couldn't be bothered with my camera after awhile. But I just like to say that I love HK's MTR. Singapore's mrt should learn from it. It's damn convenient. I still have my octopus card! Whoo!