Moving to Hongkong

So it has been nearly a week since I got out of 3+4 quarantine here in humid and sweaty Hongkong. I had time to adjust, to head out and explore, to get to know the first few new people on and off campus. Time to reflect a little.

As this is the first of it`s kind, be warned. Gonna be long. Dont worry, there will be pictures 🙂

I knew a fair bit of Hongkong beforehand and yet it is clearly something different starting to live in a city, rather than coming as a tourist.

Quarantine

Enough ramble! The food in quarantine arrived at specific hours (08:00/12:00/18:00), you hear a knock at the door and then were allowed to open your door to collect it. Range went from good to bad, depending on what your preferances are. There was an option on vegatarian, vegan or omnivor diet, i picked omnivor and received meat all the days, breakfast, lunch and dinner, absolutely craved a salad and some chocolate after the 3 days.

Everyday you had to upload a picture of your Rapid Antigen Test (This continued until day 10 after arrival). Also I had to messure my temperature twice a day. Then on day 2,4,6 and 9 i believe, one gets a PCR done, first one in the Quarantine Hotel and afterwards one can book one with a local phone number or just walk into one of the many community testing centers and get a free PCR by showing the quarantine order. Easy peasy, register, go in, sit down, get tested, takes about 2 minutes if even that. always got my result a day later via SMS.

In the +4 days you are not allowed to enter high risk areas such as cafes, restaurants, malls and so on, after that only daily Rapid tests and a PCR and then one is free again. Except for the mask mandate which includes everywhere even outside or at parks. Got to explore a lot anyway as you can still use the MTR (Metro System) more to that later though.

Arrival at HKU

Choosing courses online went alright, dropping and adding some to my liking and thus on 1st of September I checked out the class rooms and campus for a bit of orientation and not being late the next day. This would all have been done in Welcoming events, but during that time I was still in quarantine, so loaded with the HKU App and the Map it contains I stumpled threw the huge campus. Still went to the wrong Chinese subcourse though on the next day. Made the first few connections with other students in an HR class and in the now right Chinese sub course. So finding people to talk to is rather easy, everyone is quite open and ready to connect, no matter if local students or exchange students.

Arriving at Campus also really helped nutriotionwise as there plenty of restaurants or eating facilities available with decent prices.

All courses until now had rather light work, except for maybe the Chinese course, really got to commit and learn the pronounciation of all the different tones and syllables, its made rather fun tho, with everyone repeating the syllables after the professor gives us an example on how to say it. And as everyone gets called upon to resay some syllables individualy, the akwardness of learning something new and difficult subsides fast.

Exploration of HK

Now life can`t just be food and university right, so exploring the city you arrived in takes precedent especially when coursework is still low and manageable. I tend to overcommit and wonder on foot and get called crazy for it by the locals (rightly so) as during this summer heat at minumum of 28+ °C at night, most people spend their time indoors or in malls to stay cool.

I met a photographer (@htung_216) in Mongkok and strolled around with her for a bit discovering the district and hearing some interesting and fun stories as well as taking photos together. We also checked out the seaside around M+ (Art Museum) as I still wasn’t allowed to enter under home surveillance restrictions (+4).

Went back there a couple of days later to check out the inside too with a friend thats also very interested in art and had a lovely couple of hours searching for images in abstract art, finding mostly giraffes and sitting on the seaside talking for hours about life.

The days afterwards i walked around by myself to Causeway bay and to other districts to find a different vibe in each ranging from a lot of Indonesian or Filipino domestic helpers relaxing in a park to people shopping for the next LV bag in either Tsim Sha Tsui or Causeway Bay’s “Fashion Walk”.

As Hongkongs streets are very well enlightend, I learned a lot about composition and exposure, definitly fixed a few settings and adjusted my brain to find smaller details in a busy setting. More on that at another time.

Next Time

Next up is the Mid autumn festival on the weekend, so i will hope to collect a few impressions there aswell, if i am not distracted. Alright took longer to get this all written and photos added, so here are some Mid-Autumn impressions.