Chilling with Hong Kong Humans - Nech does hiking with the Yo-Hoo club

One of the other exchange students on the camping trip remarked that she had been calling one of the group leaders, "Human" for the past week.
"You mean Tommy?"
"Ohhhh, maybe that's it."
Though Dana was referring to Tommy, I discovered soon after that there was indeed a person on the trip named Human. "You a monster," he said smiling, "Me Human."

Dong Ping Chou is the eastern-most island of Hong Kong and directly across from the city of Shenzhen in mainland China. After train and boat rides to reach the island, we set up tents, had lunch, and embarked on a four hour hike/scavenger hunt circling Ping Chou. Barbecue dinner followed, which included an exchange-student led lesson on how to make s'mores.

It was only that night, though, when I finally realized my dream. After waking up in the tent with a mouse on my forehead, I decided it was time to whip out my hammock and sleep out on the beach under the stars. Within minutes it was set up and hours later I woke up in the shade. True to the hammock's slogan, "It beat the ground."

After a day spent in the water mostly laying on my back but also helping out a bit building our bamboo and garbage bag raft for racing (we lost badly), I arrived back in UST even tanner than I'd been before.

Water activities continued the next day when Brian and I borrowed (as per Tal's advice) UST kayaks and paddled out to a nearby island with little shacks and a little beach.

Tuesday afternoon the typhoon struck. Fun! Wednesday I finally played ping pong again with Jovian, who I initially met at Penn last year while he was on exchange (we met playing ping pong in Rodin). He was on the team here, which means he's darn good. I'm about to do my first homework of the semester...wish me luck.

Check back next week for Nech does Guilin. Happy New Year!

Where tricycles aren’t just for kids – Nech does the Philippines

There I was, passing through security with Sebastian, Johann, Jesper, Maximillion, and another Sebastian en route to Boracay, the Philippines’ premier beach island. The security guard inspected out passports and chuckled, “Four Germans… and an American?!” (To be fair, we also had a Swede.)

We arrived in Boracay wearing our matching SEAIR tanktops we had just purchased on the airplane. Leftover typhoon rain later forced a wet retreat from the ocean; that day we started drinking at 3. 6 hours later I was getting beaten in foosball by some guy Filipinos (the girls, though, were easy). 5 more hours later I was playing drums at a bar on the beach (I only played for one song; Max, who was much more drunk but still much better than I was, played a dozen).

The next day, after an oil massage, we took our first tricycle ride across the island on the way to pick up our ATVs. These vehicles are brave but weak; we almost had to get out and push to get up some of the hills. After riding the ATV’s to a hilltop, we walked up some steps only to be greeted by a cockfight (don’t worry – no metal claws) and monkeys. By the end of Saturday, I think I was the only member of the group not to have danced with a prostitute or transsexual (or both).

After a lot more beach, sailing, and snorkeling on Sunday, we returned to Manila for Monday. Our only experience thus far had been our first night in the Philippines before our transfer to Boracay, when we met a very friendly cockroach named Alex who seemed to want to assist us in our vintage (a large bucket of water with a smaller pitcher inside) shower. The rest of the city was not much better (except for the street urinals), so after 2.5 hours of driving around the city, we elected to wait at the airport instead for five hours (where I learned about the German school system). Still, Manila is the only place I’ve seen that has fully uniformed security guards in a 7-11.

On the flight home I won a very precious Cebu Pacific backpack and luggage tag by being the first person to correctly answer “Lord of the Rings” in the movie quote game. I’ll let you guess what the quote was.

Stay tuned for next week – Nech does hiking with the Yo-hoo Club (after Shabbat dinner with Brian at the Einhorns).

Nech and Michelle go to 7-11

I feel that being on exchange not only gives me license to travel on weekends, but also to be more adventurous the rest of the time.

Take Tuesday night. It started innocently enough. Swimming, dinner, and off with Michelle for a quick slurpee run.
After walking 15 minutes to the local 7-11 and finding it slurpee-less, we decided to continue on the road in the hopes of finding another. 20 minutes later still no 7-11, but, after getting ice cream from a gas station, we did see a path leading up into the forest. We took it.

There were no lights except for my cell phone and we had nothing in our pockets besides our school ID cards and less than $10 [U.S.].

Immediately we started going down steep steps until we passed some local tombs with remnants of incense. "Probably for the mountain god," Michelle suggested.

At this point we had already gone down about 200 steps, and the prospect of going back up was unappealing. We knew that if we continued down, we may have to go back up even more, but the potential of not walking up (and slurpees) was tempting. Thinking of Harold and Kumar, I decided on the slurpees. "We're on exchange," I said, "Let's have some fun."

So we continued. Down and down and down. We crossed over a couple streams, picked left at a fork in the path, found a swivel chair in the middle of a clearing, and (after about 1.25 hours) finally found a road. We were in Po Lam, right by the metro station. A little relieved, slightly bitten up by mosquitoes, and reasonably sweaty, we got back to school twenty minutes later.

But not before getting our slurpees.

New horny dicky club - Nech does Taiwan

Having been repeatedly disappointed with the Mandarin capabilities of Hong Kong's citizens, BFink and I were very excited to finally show off our new language skillz in the generally Mandarin speaking Taiwan. Unfortunately, we weren't entirely ready for the challenge - within hours after arriving, Brian managed to turn "Do you want to have lunch with me" to "Do you want to f*** with me over lunch."
Either way, Friday we (me, Brian, Mikhail, Tiffany, Tiffany's Taiwanese friend [who Brian so crudely propositioned], and the friend's friend) bounced around Taipei for a bit before settling in our hotel, leaving Brian to rest, and then heading out to Taipei's famous night market.Emboldened, Mikha and I tried some local street food, most memorably stinky tofu - even if it had tasted good, nothing is worth that stench. The next day we went up to the observatory deck of the (pre-2005) tallest skyscraper Taipei 101 before happening upon a performance by the winners of Taiwanese Idol and then visiting the memorial of Taiwan's ideological founder, Sun Yat-sen.
That night we discovered the new horny dicky club.
Unfortunately, that boy was not the only person who clearly had no idea what his t-shirt said. Two minutes later, we ran into "FREE! You do take me home!! Right now!! Cock and bun." Then we stumbled upon a goldmine in a store called "100% American" that was filled with shirts no American would dare wear outside. The winners included "Aggressive Town," "Topological Variation," and of course "You might say that all do it way created in love." For fun, I even went for the Fobby* look at one point.
Sunday, Brian and I woke up early to journey to Taiwan's breathtaking Taroko Gorge. Rebuffed by more than a dozen mo-ped rental rentals after arriving in the nearby city of Haulian, we managed to screw up our once real chance by admitting we'd never ridden them before. Another bus ride and several rain storms later, we found ourselves on a Chinese tour bus hitching a ride up from the park entrance to the gorge so we could salvage what was left of the day.
But salvage we did. After an intensely uphill but nice hike (in my naot), we meditated on a rope bridge suspended over the gorge. Later, after a nice walk along the gorge, we were in dire need of a ride to the bus station when we were rescued by 3 Canadians on mo-peds that we had met earlier during the hike. So much fun riding those things. Since we had some time to kill before catching our train back, we had dinner back in Haulian where we met Jhun Hin, whose job at the restaurant consisted entirely of getting people beer. Amused by our attempts at Mandarin and enraptured by our stunning good looks, she stayed with us for much of the meal and even gave us travel chopstix and a little screwdriver set (both sponsored by Taiwanese beers) as parting gifts.
Rounding out the trip with a Monday morning that included the National Palace Museum(host to some of China's finest treasures) Chiang-Kai Shek memorial (Taiwan's founder) and one of Taiwan's oldest temples (beautiful), by 6:00 PM we found ourselves back in Hong Kong - a mere 3 days before setting out again. Check back next week for Nech does the Philippines.

HKUST - The First Days

It's been a full week since I've arrived at HKUST so I figured it's about time I shared the wealth.

After being met at the airport by some nice HKUST students, about 20 of us who arrived that Wednesday morning (including my good buddy Michael Ruah) boarded a coach bus and headed over to the UST. It was (and is) hot and humid, but the view was (and is) spectacular.
Located on a steep hill on the coast of Clear Water Bay, the university is afforded a panoramic view of mountainous islands and ocean from both the main buildings (which have partially open walls) and most of the dorms. We even got a beautiful beach 20 minutes away (went on Monday).

Most fun has been meeting the people. It's kinda a rewind to freshman year: anytime you see a white guy or gal (or a Chinese kid speaking perfect English) it's permissable to introduce yourself and start chatting. But this time 'round people aren't just from Nebraska, Michigan, and Texas, but also Germany, Sweden, and Spain. Meeting Europeans though does have a downside - I have proven myself to be a complete American when it comes to knowing geography (like when I was surprised that Slovakia still existed upon meeting a kid from there last night). And being Jewish can mix things up a bit too: A couple days ago, my new good friend Sebastian (from Frankfurt) noticed I was wearing my Jew-Black alliance t-shirt. Guessing (correctly) that I wasn't black, he asked hesitantly, "So, you're Jewish?" and then, "What do you think about Germans?" (Later on I got to ask what he thought of Hitler.)

Meeting local students works a bit differently. Contrary to what we expected, not only do they have a lot of trouble with English, but they also have very poor Mandarin. Still, Brian and I tend to lead off with the classic
"wu shu mei gua ren" (I am american) - at which point they start smiling

, "wu chway shwa idiar Putonghua" (I speak a little Mandarin) - Now they're sometimes impressed, sometimes laughing, sometimes confused

and "wu Putonghua shwa da boo how" (I speak Mandarin poorly) - shake their heads vigorously and give thumbs up or say "hen how, hen how" (very good, very good)

with girls we sometimes add "ni hen mei" or "ni hen pial lian" (you are very beautiful). Works every time.

As for exploring the city, so far I've been to Stanley Market and Victoria Peak, both popular tourist destinations, as well as parts of central Hong Kong (including the bars of Lan Kwai Fong), Victoria harbor, the night market, and Macao for a day (won $50 Hong Kong). Most fun though was my first Karaoke bar experience. For 3 hours we (14 students, including 4 locals) ate, drank, played, and sang. For those of you who are curious, there are embarrassing videos of me singing "pump it" and soulja boy" up on facebook. I even sung some of the Mandarin songs we played (though I can't read any Mandarin characters) and fooled several people for a good 40 seconds before they realized I was just making random "chi chai wong tu" sounds (not videoed).

Food here is amazing. Not only do I get Chinese food (which I love) every day, It's also usually been less than $3 (U.S.) per meal with surprisingly large portions. In Macao we had a "hot pot" meal, which meant that they put boiling pots (each with a spicy and clear section) around the table, and then we ordered raw food which we cooked ourselves so it was constantly hot and freshly made. And trust me, you do not want to hear which new kinds of food I tried that day.

I think that's 'nuff for now, but stay tuned for next week's post - Nech does Taiwan