Long overdue (photo) introduction to my host school

It's been one and a half months (there about) since my arrival in HK, and while this particular 'introduction' post may be more than just a little overdue, I guess you guys will probably not mind reading it anyhow.

My first night here with Gladys and Zhenhui was rather memorable; we managed to grab a taxi at Tai Po Central (Sg's equivalent of Jurong Point and surrounding environment) and the driver brought us to the institute within 15 minutes. However, we spent like at least 20 minutes after the driver dropped us off searching for the security office so that we could collect our room keys; we spent a lot of that 20 minutes climbing down a scary flight of stairs with our luggage.

Some very nice security officers showed us to the ground levels of our respective halls, and after filling in 10,000 forms, my hall's security officer finally decided to hand my room keys to me and informed me the way to the lift. Speaking of which, the lift system here is a little different from what we're used to back home. Instead of heading straight from ground level to the eleventh floor, you have to change walk through some swinging doors and change lifts at the 3rd and 6th floors - that was really annoying at first because we had to walk much more than usual, and I was constantly worried that the swinging doors would hit people walking behind me, but... I think I'm more or less used to it now, and I haven't been hit so far!

A sick sense of foreboding washed over me when I first arrived at my doorstep; on my door was a picture of this Disney villain (sleeping beauty btw, I had to google that):  

#1

I still don't understand why my roomie chose to stick her face on our door of all the Disney characters, but whatever rocks her boat lor. I've gotten used to seeing this villain everyday now. I didn't meet my room-mate until a few days later because it was the end of year holidays, and anyhow, she turned out to be a very busy person (works part-time at Disneyland) who doesn't usually come back to hall to spend the nights. You can say I'm enjoying a single-deluxe room most of the time.

#2

#3

#4

#5 I think I got up at 6 in the morning when I took this. Very early, by my standards!

These are the views that I wake up to every morning (when it doesn't rain). Not too bad right? Still got mountains in the background. I live on the 10th floor, so yes, I'm lucky that I have such a good view. When I was talking to one of my neighbours a few days ago, she told me that the view's the only redeemable thing about our school haha. I don't quite agree lah, but then again, I'm a student on holiday exchange, we're bound to think differently about these matters.

Oh, and the accessibility of our school in HK can really be compared to NTU. Both locations are equally ulu, but at least the buses come frequently and they don't get so crowded over here. :)

#6 My humble abode. Nothing too fancy, but I really love being in my room whenever I have to stay in.

#7 The entrance to IEd (eye-ed); first building (with the green walls) is the hall that I'm staying at currently.

#8 Signposts at the bus-stop.

It was CNY some two weeks back so the student representatives of our hall put red slips of paper and bottles of black ink and brushes on tables on all the different floors so that we can write some lucky words for ourselves. 

A very nice floor-mate wrote this for me:

#9

I definitely hope I'll be lucky and happy for the rest of the year too! Anyway, the slip at the back doesn't really mean anything when you read it in Mandarin (or as the locals call it Putonghua), but I think it means to give Zhang's heart to Jun when you read it in Cantonese. My room mate very sweet to her boyfriend hor.

#10 Random picture of bananas in a bowl

#11 Dark Chocolate Vitasoy. Nice!

#12 The Original in kids' packaging.

I'm trying a little hard to finish the remaining packets of my coconut soya milk la - while I'm usually not too fussy when it comes to food, I really don't think coconut and soya milk is a good match. Oh well... at least now I know I don't like it too much.

So... my grandmother stories come to an end for now. Hope all's well back home! xx