Hello Hong Kong

Hello from China! I have been wanting to blog and I am finally getting around to it. I have to blog from my email so I have no idea what this post looks like. I would LOVE to get comments because I can get them to my email so please comment. 

Early on the morning of August 3^rd I awoke at the beginning of one of the longest days of my life. It took up two actual calendar days and over 24 hours worth of travel time. It was worth it though because at the end of it, I was in Hong Kong!

 Hong Kong, China was an interesting experience. We arrived at the Hong Kong airport at 11 pm at night. We were exhausted after a flight to San Fransisco, a flight to Seoul, Korea and a flight to Hong Kong. There were 20 other girls from ILP flying with me. That means that there were about 60+ bags to load and unload when we were at the airport and then when we were at the hotel. Matthew was our tour guide. He picked us up from the airport and then he took us on our tour of Hong Kong the next day. It was pure mayhem. The first sight of Hong Kong I had was at night with thousands of blaring lights. In my opinion, Hong Kong is at its most beautiful at night. You cannot see the smog at night and there are not as many people massing the streets. We finally got to our hotel and I tried to sleep. It was a semi-fruitless affair because it was around 10 AM for my inner anatomical clock but I did manage to finally get some sleep. The next day we got up early and got some breakfast at a local bakery that we ended up eating at 3 times in the 2 days we were in Hong Kong. It was the first purchase I made in China. After breakfast, we went on a tour of the city on a bus. He took us by the Hong Kong temple so we could get some pictures and forbid us to cross the street that we ended up crossing about 20 times later on that day. He then he took us to Hong Kong island which is where all the huge skyscrapers are, Victoria Peak where you can get a sweet view of the city and other islands surrounding it, a fisherman's village with hundreds of boat houses and their peeps living on the water, and Stanley market which is a huge market with really great cheap things. The tour was fun but it was a tour so it was nice for it to be over as well. We then got to do what we wanted in the city for the next day and a half. After the tour, we split off from the rest of the group and the seven of us, who live and teach together, did our own thing. We went to the temple, went on the Star Ferry, and ended up going to the 10,000 Buddha's Buddhist Monastery.

 Hong Kong was very interesting for me. It is very tropical and humid but it is also a crazy gigantic city. I had a very hard time breathing there. Turns out that the humidity and the pollution is not a good combo for my asthma. Our friend John from our school told us that Hong Kong is a concrete Jungle and that pretty much covers it. I enjoyed visiting but I am so happy to be living where we are living. My favorite part of Hong Kong is getting to see the lights at night. It is very beautiful.  It was an awesome beginning to our adventure. There is nothing more adventurous than 7 white girls frolicking around China among millions of Asians and I love it.