Hong Kong

Hello from the Conrad hotel in Hong Kong! We flew in from Shanghai on Friday to visit my aunts, even amid the typhoon warnings, but so far the weather has been great. And I have been living a life of luxury over here on the decadent island of HK. Tonight, I must have eaten about 8 different animals for dinner: an appetizer of duck foot and abalone, sharks fin soup full of chicken feet and fish stomachs, and then lobster, pork ribs and fish as main dishes. As much as I would like to be a vegetarian, it seems pretty impossible at the moment.

It has been great to see all my family, especially since I have spent just about every waking hour since I arrived in China with my father. My aunts spoil me like crazy. Last night we went to a very upscale, cosmopolitan restaurant overlooking the entire city of Hong Kong. My aunts are extremely worried that I never eat enough, so they were constantly piling more food on my plate, while in the meantime giving me "hong bao" (red envelopes filled with money).

And today I literally shopped til I dropped. In the morning, my dad and I hit the brand-named stores in the malls which are the size of small cities (dad bought me some nice walking shoes). And in the afternoon my aunt Alice took us to "Nu ren jin" (Ladies market) which is basically ten blocks of stalls selling purses, clothes, watches, jewelry, ipod cases, lingerie, and everything else you can think of. Err.... I went a tiny bit crazy there, and bought a few things that I possibly don't need.... but it was hard to say no to the cheap prices, especially when I had the bargaining machine of Aunt Alice to back me up. Tomorrow we are going gambling in Macao with Aunt Jenny, and then we return to Shanghai on Tuesday.

So, things are going well even though I have been pretty homesick and it feels like I am rather isolated (even though there are 1.3 billion people around me...). But hopefully things will change once I start classes. Yes, I enrolled in a school! My dad was hell-bent on getting me into a university here, but since the application deadline for the fall term has long passed, we finally, finally, Finally found a suitable private mandarin school which is quite jazzy from the looks of it. The best part is that they offer apartment accommodations close by, in which I will be living with not one, not two, but five other students! Roommates = new friends. I will have my own bedroom of course, and the place is nice and very clean inside. I am uber excited and counting down the days until move-in and classes starting (Sept 14th). And I am sure I will get over my homesickness soon, I hope.