Seawrack and (impressively few) Seashells

This week's blog is a special one. First and foremost, as of today I have officially been in Hong Kong for two months. It is almost difficult for me to believe. I remember how, over the summer, I had no concrete idea of what I'd be doing now. And yet suddenly two months have gone by in a blur and here I　am, midway through my first semester and (dare I say?) settled into a routine.

The second thing that's special about today is I　went to Fisherman's Village 漁村 with some friends. The weather today was fantastic, and we literally stayed out all day (from 10 am until 10 pm). Hong Kong autumn is sunny and cool-- definitely something I could get used too!

I went with some fellow students-- Dido and Yulong-- and some of their friends from a camera forum. Needless to say, plenty of photos were taken. I'm uploading them to my photobucket now, but it's taking awhile so for now I'll just post some within the blog. (UPDATE: Here they are: http://s1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff421/perpetualjoe/fishermansvillage/ )

To give a rough idea, the Fisherman's village looks kind of like this: (Click to Enlarge)



And the alleys and so forth look kinda like this:



The Fisherman's village contrasts sharply with the assumption that Hong Kong is all crowds and city. In fact, there are plenty of rural areas like this one. These kinds of places, however, are a lot less friendly to laowai. The people are still nice, but things aren't nearly as westernized. For example, an English menu isn't a given. Neither is a store clerk who knows English (or a store clerk who knows Putonghua, for that matter）.

After walking around the village for a little while, we went on a boat ride to look for dolphins. Unfortunately we didn't see any, but it was still a lot of fun. Afterward, we went an a nice (and scenic) walk around the outskirts of the village. Some places in Hong Kong are truly beautiful. Case and point:



Aside from spending an ample of time using my Chinese (I'm happy to say that today my listening comprehension-- by far my greatest difficulty-- was almost passable) I had a lot of time to think, both about where I am and what I'm doing. Being able to reflect was nice, and, I feel, extremely helpful for my attitude. I'm feeling really positive about everything right now, and excited about what's in store.

That said, it's midway through the semester and I'm hoping to come home for a couple of weeks in the Winter break (preferably the ones surrounded Christmas. I'll talk to my adviser about it this week to see what can be done. Whether I can or not is really up to how the conversation goes, but I'm not expecting any issues. So next week's update will be a big one and, hopefully, not an unfortunate one!

I conclude the post with something I saw today that I thought was incredible. Behold, America: I bring you the apostrophe "Z".