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!