Ming tian Beijing

I should change my name to Michelle. Everyone assumes that's my name anyway.

I have to deal with Mainlanders again this weekend. Someone should make an emoticon for the scrunched up face I have right now.

Wo ting bu dong

I had a group meeting for my CRM class today. It's an all-female group. This is going to be a nightmare. Anyway, I think the girls get frustrated speaking in English because they always revert to Chinese. At one point, their entire discussion was in Chinese, so I just sat there (as usual) and stared off into space. When they were done, one girl turned to me and asked if I understand Chinese. They were so shocked by my response...and then they didn't fill me in on what they said. Awesome.

I think my last name is deceiving. I know: Tai gui le. Bu yao. Shang. Ni hao. Xie xie. Neige. Zheige. I can count to 4. I know how to write "floor" and "exit" only because I see exit signs everywhere, and I stare at the Chinese characters for "floor" in the elevator. *sigh* I suck.

Tai gui le

I remember why I didn't get to see or do everything I wanted to in Europe last summer. Traveling is exhausting!

On Thursday afternoon, Trinh, Teresa, and I took the KCR to Shenzhen to catch an overnight bus to Guilin. At customs, the guy stares at my passport picture for a really long time because it doesn't look like me. 1) My hair is wavy. 2) I look like I have jaundice. 3) Apparently, my face is wider in that picture. I eventually clear customs, and at that point, we have 10 minutes or so to get to the bus before it departs. No one speaks English, so we run around looking for this hidden bus station. My roommate was texting me like crazy to hurry up and get to the station. (Our phones can't make/receive calls in China, but we can text.) She finally comes to rescue us, but we discover that the bus was full. We decide to go to the train station, but we find out that the last train departed at 6:00pm. Our last resort was to go to the airport, but I honestly thought we wouldn't get a flight out until the next morning. So we go to the taxi stand, and I ask the only non-Asian there if the airport is far away. He said 50 minutes and suggested sharing a cab with him since his destination was on the way. Evidently, I got us into a potentially shady situation, but I didn't think it was shady. *shrugs* The man was nice.

Miraculously, we arrive at the airport at 9:15pm and bought tickets for 440 yuan ($55 US) on the last flight to Guilin. By the time we clear the security checkpoint, it was 9:40, so we run like mad to the gate to catch our 10:00 flight. Thank goodness for moving walkways! We looked so silly running through the airport with our big backpacks and duffel bag.

So we get to Guilin and faced the task of finding a hostel/hotel. Our cab driver was nice enough to drive us to a couple different hotels. He kept trying to get us to go on his brother's overpriced tour though. I thought we got rid of him, but he stalkerishly called our room in the morning and then greeted us when we came down to the lobby to check out. After much discussion and frustration, we allowed him to drive us to the pier to catch a boat to Yangshuo. There was some sketchy business going on. Our cab driver felt the need to talk to every person we talked to. Trinh asked some guy why we couldn't buy a ticket, and he just told her to sit down. I laughed at the whole situation, but she didn't find it very humorous. In fact, she was pretty upset and making quite a scene.


I was sitting down this entire time since I can't speak Chinese and was pretty much useless.

We finally got on a 10:00am boat with a bunch of old Chinese people who felt the need to take an excessive amount of pictures. We got stuffed into a separate cabin though. I think we were stowaways because as the boat was departing, a man came by and made us close the curtains just until we were away from the pier.

This is where the other people sat.


This is where we sat.

4.5 hours later, we arrived in Yangshuo, where we were greeted by a woman named Lucy. The stupid cab driver sent her to meet us. She was going to take us to a hotel 5 minutes from where we wanted to be, which was West Street. I was so annoyed. These people don't understand the word "no".

The next day was much more peaceful. We rented bikes and rode them down to the river where we got on bamboo rafts.


Then we rode our bikes to Moon Hill, which had amazing views. Too bad an old lady selling water and soda followed us the entire way up. I wanted to kick her. Why won't these people leave us alone?!?


Shopping was fun in Yangshuo. The shop owners were willing to bargain so much more than they are in Hong Kong. My favorite phrase is "Tai gui le." It's one of the few things I can say in Chinese. I picked up a few souvenirs for people. By December, I'm going to have to buy an extra suitcase to transport all this junk back. It truly is junk.

This past weekend was quite an adventure. I think we would have been screwed if Trinh and Teresa didn't know a little bit of Mandarin. Traveling wears me out...and I have to do it again this weekend.

Come back to Texas

Aww, look what Trinh sent me:

Come back to Texas
It's just not the same since you went away
Before you lose your accent
And forget all about the Lonestar State
There's a seat for you at the rodeo
And I've got every slow dance saved
Besides the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway

It would have been a lot cuter if someone back at home sent me this though...

Bye bye

I have decided to give up AIM for a little bit. It's taking over my life. I just need to get caught up in school and enjoy my stay here rather than spend countless hours talking to friends back home. I'm sorry! I still love you. I'll still have e-mail, and if you really want to talk to me, I'll try to stay on Skype.

I went on a bike/hike tour this weekend, but I realized I didn't take many pictures. When I get them from other people, I will be sure to post.

Bye kids!

Typhooning

After eating a very unappetizing meal at the canteen last night, the buslady (is that a word?) came by to pick up my tray. She mumbled something to herself in Cantonese, which I later found out was "Why have you been eating so long that your plate has turned cold?" What the heck, woman?!?

Also, I was witness to a 'happy corner'. You should YouTube it: Crazy Asian Hong Kong Happy Corners HKUST. Evidently, this birthday ritual is popular among Asian male students. Wikipedia's definition: A male student is lifted up by several of his classmates and his groin is then rubbed against a hard object such as a pole, a tree, or even the edge of a door. Asian people are so weird.

So I know the title of my entry is not a word, but I like it. The typhoon signal was upgraded from a level one to a level three today, whatever that means. It was raining so hard this morning that I decided to skip class and sleep in until noon. The weather is annoying here. One day it's hot and humid, the next day it's cool and breezy, and the next day there is a torrential downpour. Hopefully, I'll escape the rain in Guilin and Yangshuo this weekend. *crossing fingers*

I miss

I miss my car.
I miss Westridge.
I miss my own bathroom.
I miss Houston.
I miss cape cods.
I miss caesar salads.
I miss Wal-Mart/Target.
I miss Pappasito's.
I miss Pita Pit.
I miss football games.

You're going to laugh your head off

I spent some major bucks on whitening cream. $88 USD!



I was looking at pictures of the girls here, and my skin could never be as pale as theirs even if I tried. I wonder how white my face will be when I finish all these bottles... (If you're still laughing, you can stop now.)

Advice

My floor smells like sweaty boys and cheap cologne. They stuck a bunch of international students on my floor, just like I think the UT housing people stick all the Asians on the 5th floor of Jester West. I don't see how this is fair or intelligent, but there are two bathrooms on my floor: male and co-ed. Where is the female bathroom?!? It's weird walking out of the stall and seeing a guy right in front of you. Some guys have stopped closing the door when they pee. Note to self: listen for the sound of urine hitting porcelain and/or water before entering a stall.

I have almost mastered shaving my legs without touching the sides of the shower. I still have to touch sometimes (only my hands though!) to balance myself. We have push buttons in the shower, so the water turns off every 15 seconds. I don't know why the housing people don't trust us to turn the water off. If it's a water-efficiency concern, then they're dumb. I think most people push the button again before the water has a chance to turn off...or maybe I'm just wasteful.

The other day, I went to the ATM to withdraw some money. At the end of my transaction, the screen displayed a message that read "Do you want advice?" I said yes, even though I really had no idea what I was getting. A fortune perhaps? It turns out advice = receipt.

Look at the cool stuff I learned in my Exploring Multimedia and Internet lab about Google searching!

1. Similar to the (+) sign in a search, the (-) sign tells Google to return pages that do not include the word after the minus sign. For example, "football -american" will return pages about soccer. There cannot be a space between the minus sign and the next word.
   
2. To restrict the results to documents containing the search word in the title, use the intitle: operator. For example, to search for webpages containing the phrase "chinese recipe" in the title, type "intitle:chinese recipe" in the search box and search.
3. If you want to restrict searching on a particular domain only, you can use the site: operator in your search. For example, to search for any webpage relating to admission within the HKUST domain, type "admission site:www.ust.hk" and click Search.
4. If you want to find the definition of some specific terms, you can use the define: operator in your search. For example, to search for the definition of diabetes, type "define:diabetes" and click Search. Try searching using both "diabetes treatment" and "diabetes ~treatment" for comparison. The ~ sign means return results also containing the synonyms of the term.

Isn't that cool? Why didn't I know this?!? The class seems too easy, so I'm paranoid that it won't count as my upper-division MIS elective. I guess I'll find out soon enough!

http://public.fotki.com/melissat527/

I suck at this

Melissa Tan
407R
New Undergraduate Hall
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Clear Water Bay, Kowloon
Hong Kong

Mobile: (852) 9247-8300
Skype: Melissa.Tan527

If you love me, you'd call or write me.

I'm a moron

Before you tell me that I spelled "invisible" wrong, I already know. I was in a hurry!

Fried apple pie

After an entire summer of playing, it's hard to get back in the swing of things. I almost forgot that I came here to attend school. This past week in Hong Kong has been filled with shopping (mainly for necessities), eating yummy food, and touring. No homesickness yet, but I do miss people! I've met some really nice kids from all over, but I think everyone tends to bond with people who are from the same country. My roommate is Swedish, and we have had little interaction in the past week.

Registration is a huge mess. They registered me for a class that I did not request, and it turns out to be the equivalent of MIS 365, so I dropped that and I'm not considered a full-time student right now. A lot of exchange students seem to be stressed out over registration. :(

So HKUST uses a lift system because the university is built on the side of a hill...or mountain. I think it's just a large hill. I have to take 5 elevators to get to class. Isn't that ridiculous?!? I take an elevator to get to the ground floor in my dorm, another to go from Ground to 11 in another building, walk across the bridge, take an elevator from Ground to 10, walk across the bridge, take an elevator (now I take the escalator) up 4 or 5 stories to Ground, and then take another one up to class. All elevators go to different locations, so I have to know beforehand which elevator to get in. Whose brilliant idea was this?

I heard they have fried apple pies at McDonald's on campus. Do you remember FRIED apple pies? McDonald's stopped selling them in the US a long time ago, but they still make them in Europe and apparently Hong Kong. I'm "egg-zzzzited"! (That's for you, Kat!) And I bought an egg tart at KFC yesterday. KFC!!! It was really greasy - egg tart KFC style!

I got my hair permanently straightened. No me gusta! I miss the option of having wavy hair, AND my hair is too straight! So we went into this salon, thinking it was going to be $298 HK, but it ended up being $688. The guy told us it wasn't going to be $298 after he had already washed our hair, so what were we supposed to do? Walk out and just pay for the shampoo?? I figured it was still cheaper than doing it in the US, so I coughed up the $88 USD. This is the third time I think I got gypped because I'm a dumb American.

Keep me up-to-date with everything that is going on! If you want a postcard, please give me your address.