A red eye to Narita and a five hour flight to land in Hong Kong near midnight the next day – it was my first time ever flying to another country by myself. With this new experience under my belt, I checked into a hotel for the night and went to campus the next day. The airport in Hong Kong is on the Lantau island whereas Hong Kong Baptist University’s campus is on the island of Kowloon.
A couple of days later we had our orientation for the exchange students. I was able to meet many new people and take a tour around the campus. After the tour was over, we broke into groups to tour the city a bit more. On this night, we chose to eat traditional Shanghainese food and drink some soup due to the chilly temperature.
A few days later, some of the people from the tour wanted to go for a hike. We chose to hike Lion’s Rock which is located near our school. One of the girls, who is on exchang for a year, was able to point out our school for us at one of the peaks.
The entire distance of Lion’s Rock is about 7 miles and a five-hour hike. However, my group only chose to do the front half of the hike and forgo the first two hours of hiking. It was such a clear day, that we were able to see almost all of the island from where we were standing. We could even see monkeys during our trip there!
About a week later it was one of our friend’s birthdays (the girl on the right). For her birthday she wanted to showcase some of her culture to us and took us to a local Lebanese restaurant. In the restaurant we had many traditional foods like hummus, fattoush, and Lebanese baklava!
Taila