Uneventful Days and Learning to Count

Monday was relatively boring.  Besides going to class, I also submitted my application for a Student Octopus Card.  For those of you who might not know, the Octopus Card is really neat.  You buy one for HK$50, and then add however much money you want.  You can keep adding money whenever you want, and when you don't need the card anymore, you return it and get your HK$50 deposit back.  You can use the card on the MTR (Hong Kong Subway), the buses, any other form of public transportation, and you can even use it for most vending machines.  As for the Student Card, even though regular fare is really cheap already, having a Student Card gives you a 50% discount on all your ticket purchases.  They add up.  Right now, I have what's called a "Temporary Student Octopus Card," which gives me all the discounts.  I just hang onto it for about a month, after which I can pick up a personalized card with my picture on it.

OK, enough about the public transportation.  My latest obsession has been taking pictures of strange signs, which are (of course) abundant in China.  I have here a modest example from one of the dryers in the laundry room of my dorm:

There will be more signs to come, but for more I'll offer you a quick glimpse at the rest of the laundry room.  I think this weekend will be a good time for me to go to Sha Tin and look for unscented detergent at the giant Park 'n' Shop since the little one on campus doesn't even carry liquid detergent.

After checking out the laundry room, about twelve of us walked over to United College, which is where Sailing Boat Catering Company is.  You know, the poorly disguised student canteen?  Well, it's still the best place to eat that we've been.  In fact, the food is (for the most part) really good.  I know I mentioned the annual overhaul where almost everywhere is closed for renovation, especially all the eating places.  Thankfully, they're supposed to open back up on Thursday so I'm looking forward to trying all the different places.  It'll be like suddenly having 10 new restaurants to choose from.

Anyway, back to United College.  I got the Sliced Beef and Vegetables in Sauce over Rice.  I'm not sure whether or not this picture really makes the food look appetizing, but believe me, it WAS.  I will definitely order this again.  Om nom nom.  And, yes, I've been using chopsticks.

And here's a lovely picture for you.  I didn't really take it to show off the scenery.  It looks like it's raining pretty hard, right?  This is why I took the picture:  it's not actually raining at all.  The sky was bright and clear when I snapped this.  So do you want to know what all that blurriness is?  That's the fog on my camera lens from the humidity.  It's so humid here that water condenses on my glasses when I step out of a building (air-conditioned or not), and for about half a minute, I can't see anything.

Enough about that.  Who wants to learn some Chinese?  This is something fun we learned today in class:  how to count on your fingers in China.

One (yi):

Two (er):

Three (san):

 

Four (si):

 

Five (wu):

 

Six (liu):

 

Seven (qi):

 

Eight (ba):

 

Nine (jiu):

 

Ten (shi):