Home Sweet Hong Kong Home

After spending a grand total of 11 days in mainland China, it was finally time for all of us waiguoren to head home to good ole Hong Kong.  Because we had booked some rather cheap tickets through Shanghai Airlines from Shanghai to Shenzhen, we figured getting back to CUHK was going to be an obstacle course.  Firstly, I was again on the later of 2 flights, mine being scheduled to leave at 2:30pm from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport.  Alex, our Shanghai tour guide recommended leaving via cab by 11:30am.  I'm proud to say that all 8 of us that were on that flight were downstairs, checked-out, and ready by 11:00am.  Great job, guys!  We got 2 taxis and found that, luckily, the ride was both short and inexpensive.  However, I now know that I am not a big fan of Shanghaiese taxi drivers.  Out of the 3-4 I've encountered, all of them have been rude...and actually kind of grim.  Believe it or not, that was one of my first impressions of Shanghai itself--a grim city.

Anyway, we got to the airport with a couple of hours to kill.  We went ahead and checked our baggage then ate lunch at Subway.  It was either that or "Real Kung-fu Restaurant," which is a Chinese chain you see everywhere as soon as you cross the border from Hong Kong.  It pretty much just serves noodles and dumplings...oh, and it has Bruce Lee in it's logo.  These places are far more ubiquitous than my beloved Subway.  I can't even find a Subway in Hong Kong, except for the one way out near Ngong Ping.  So there you have it:  I have officially eaten at an American fast-food restaurant in a foreign country.  I admit defeat, but my toasted turkey club sandwich was completely worth it.

So we waited a few more hours, and boarded our plane about 15 minutes late.  For those of you who might have had second thoughts about me flying with Chinese airlines, you can relax.  Not only am I still in one piece, I actually thought the service and professionalism were very good.  I had a lovely window seat with no one taking up the aisle one beside me.  Also, even though it was only a 2-hour flight, everyone got a complimentary snack box.  Because I wasn't hungry and I'm just this kind of person, I stowed the nonperishable snacks in my carry-on luggage for later.

We arrived in Shenzhen about 5:00pm and got our luggage by 5:30pm.  Then began the really fun task of getting from the airport to the MTR station.  It would have made a lot of sense for the airport to have a station either there or nearby.  That would have been too convenient, though.  No, instead we all had to buy 20 yuan tickets (about 3 bucks) to ride a shuttle bus from the airport to the MTR.  This took just short of an hour because, even though it's not as famous, Shenzhen is really bigger than Hong Kong.  So we found the immigration line around 7:00pm and all of us got through by 7:30pm.  We rode the MTR from Lo Wu (Luo Hu in Mandarin) all the way to CUHK.  We caught the 8:00pm shuttle buses to our new respective dormitories and thus went our separate ways.

Just a little recap here:  Over the summer I lived at Shaw College in Student Hostel II.  However, all of us IBCE students are actually affiliated with different colleges.  For example, I'm affiliated with United College.  The day before we left for Guilin, we found out which dormitories were had been assigned to for the school year.  I'm the only IBCE student I know of living in United College's Adam Schall Residence.  This is the kicker:  while we were in mainland China, CUHK needed to use all the dormitories.  Therefore, instead of moving in before going on our trip, we had to store all of our belongings in a room at Student Hostel II.

So, with that in mind, I showed up first to the Adam Schall Residence so I could get my room key and drop off the luggage I took with me on my trip.  More details on the dorm itself later, but for now I'll focus on move-in.  Due to a lack of elevator, I had the joy of lugging my rolling suitcase up 2 flights of stairs and into my new room.  No one was there when I arrived so I just set my things down and went downstairs for the next round.  It was about 8:30pm and I still hadn't had any dinner.  I was glad to have eaten a late lunch, but by then my sub sandwich was gone.  I found out from the guy at the front desk that all the canteens on campus close at 9:00pm.

I rushed over to the United College Student Canteen (easily the worst food on campus), and gave the term "Chinese Fast Food" a much more literal meaning.  I also downed a big dose of caffeine because, even though it was already late, I knew I still had a long night ahead of me.

I managed to catch the 9:00pm bus to Shaw College, not relishing the fact that what awaited me was the need to carry all my clothes, bedding, books, etc. all the way up a mountain by hand on a night with a heat index of almost 120 degrees Fahrenheit and 100% humidity after spending all day getting good and travel-weary.  It could have been worse, though.  I could have flown from somewhere far away and had jetlag.

I ran into Justin on the bus and, while co-miserating, we both saw Chris wheeling a huge handcart towards Shaw College!  We got there before him since we took the bus, but we waited for him to show up.  Immediately, we got all over his case about (1) where did he get that thing? and (2) could we use it?  It turns out that some of the dormitories loan out handcarts on a sign-in/sign-out system.  Hoping that my dorm was one of them, I picked up all my lightest stuff and ran back to the Adam Schall Residence.  Sure enough, I was able to borrow a gigantic hand-cart.  While happily guiding it down the mountain, I ran into a guy who had also stored his stuff at Shaw over the summer.  He goes by his family name, Wang, and is living in I-House this semester.  Unfortunately, I-House doesn't lend out handcarts.  We struck a deal.

Because I-House and the Adam Schall Residence are extremely close to each other, Wang and I were heading in the same direction anyway.  The deal was that we would put both his stuff and my stuff on the handcart together and then we would push it, together, up the hill.  In retrospect, I think it would have been impossible for me to do this on my own.  However, because I was nice enough to let him use the handcart signed out under my name, he had to be nice too and help me carry my stuff up to my room on the 3rd floor of the dorm with no elevator.  It seemed fair enough to us both so we finished our trek to Shaw College and loaded that baby up.

I don't know how much that handcart weighed when we were done, but it was monstrous.  To be honest, it looked practically tow-truck worthy.  Even so, U-Hauls are in short supply at 10:00pm on a college campus in Hong Kong.  Wang and I pushed the heavy-laden handcart all the way up the mountain, sweating like hogs and gasping for air like drowning men.  It seemed like it took forever getting to Adam Schall, but we finally made it around 10:30pm.  When we got there, Wang ran into a couple of his friends in the lobby, who he then decided to recruit to carry my stuff upstairs.  I was pretty embarrassed because (1)  I didn't know these guys, (2)  They didn't leave anything for me to carry, and (3)  They wouldn't even let me buy them cold drinks as thanks.  It still amazes me how nice Hong Kong people usually are, and how willing they are to help a stranger.  South Carolina better take some notes because Hong Kong's giving "Southern Hospitality" a run for its money.  Also, every guy I've met from Hong Kong, mainland China, Korea, Taiwan, or Japan has been a real gentleman.  I'm definitely noticing a cultural trend here.  Not to knock American guys (some of y'all are the sweetest people I know, especially old friends from Governor's School), but I can think of several people who could stand to learn a little.

Moving on, though (oh gosh, I swear that pun was unintentional!), they got all of my stuff to my room where I left it to go help Wang move into I-House.  That was fairly easy since he lives on the 1st floor, and I got my handcart safely back to the Adam Schall Residence by 11:30pm.  Of course, it took me until 2:00am to get settled in.  I have no idea how I made it to church in the morning.