I MADE IT!
So I've only been here for 5 days and it already feels like it's been a month. Everything is so new and exciting and we just GO, GO, GO! No time for sleep in Hong Kong (or blogging for that matter).
I'm surprised at how quickly I got over the jet lag...I didn't really have any actually. That was probably because I didn't sleep for A FULL 48 HOURS, so when my head finally hit the pillow on Friday night, my body didn't even realize it was 11 am back at home. After a 15-hour flight complete with three very strange Asian-inspired airplane meals (the first served at 3 am), we arrived in Taiwan 10 minutes before our connecting flight was supposed to take off. Even though we were escorted from the plane at running speed all the way from the second to last row before all the other passengers were allowed to exit, we still missed our flight. But not to worry!! There was a very nice Asian man waiting for us with our names on a sign to inform us of the later flight we had been switched to. My name was successfully copied straight from my boarding pass and looked a little like this: “Walpert, Kellyta”. I was so tired I almost believed this was my hand-chosen Chinese airport name. But nope, I wasn’t that special. I mean, Kellyta could be Chinese right?
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| First view of Hong Kong from my airplane window! |
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| I'm a tourist! First picture of the city through my taxi window. |
We finally made it to Hong Kong on Friday morning. After spending an hour trying to figure out how to get to our hotel in Wan Chai (we decided on a combination of metro and taxi), we set out on our first exploration adventure. Note missed nap opportunity. I still hadn’t slept more than 2 hours at this point since Tuesday night. But against all odds, I had energy!! We spent the next 3 or 4 hours walking through the crowded city streets and taking pictures of the incredible buildings and people. We returned home to shower and then went out to the infamous “LKF” for the first time (A description of LKF deserves its own post entirely!! Coming Soon). After nearly falling asleep in the middle of a bar, we finally made our way back to the hotel. SLEEP!!! The only problem was that the mattress was harder than a rock. NO JOKE. I woke up in the middle of the night and half my body was numb. Luckily the mattress in my apartment is a tad softer. Maybe the equivalent to sleeping on carpet instead of on concrete. IMPROVEMENT!!
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| First night dinner in Kowloon with Marguax and Claire! |
The next morning we moved into Kornhill Apartments in Quarry Bay, our permanent home for 8 weeks. We met up with the other 5 Global Fellow students interning in HK and got settled into our rooms. I can’t even begin to explain how much I love it here!!
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| On the MTR after a full day of exploring! |
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| Right outside my new home! |
- The city is incredible!!! I’ve always dreamed of traveling to New York, but now I might not need to…
- I LOVE my job. I’ve only been working for 2 days, but my coworkers are so sweet and amazing. I haven’t met my boss yet, David Harilela, because he is currently in Las Vegas. But a full description of my internship also deserves its own post… (Coming soon…I promise it’ll be worth it!)
- I’ve been trying so many new foods and it’s so exciting!! The smells and strong flavors are definitely taking some time to get used to, but I’m loving every moment! Devin, picture the strongest fish smell you’ve ever experienced, and then multiply that by 100. That’s Hong Kong on the streets. Yesterday my coworkers ordered an amazing lunch for me at this delicious restaurant called Dynasty (my new favorite!!). For dessert we got this crazy soup with mango and sweet tofu. It was so good!
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| Our dessert at Dynasty! |
I didn’t even begin to skim the amount of stories I already have after 5 days…. I have so much more to tell!! But for now I’ll settle for this introduction, but please know that there will be more to come!
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| I love my Hong Kong group! |
Tomorrow night the group is going out to experience our first ever “Ladies’ Night” in the city! Hong Kong…show me what you’ve got.
