Day 30: 2/8 Only One Day in Hong Kong

                Today I had a field lab for my Global Lens course called Health Promotion and Behavior.  I wasn’t totally sure if we were still going to have this field lab since the woman teaching it was the wife of the professor who passed away, and she had left to go back to the States to have a funeral service.  Some other staff members helped cover the chaperone position though, so at 9 in the morning we all met in the Union.  From there, we walked through the town to Kowloon Park which was a sizable park in the middle of the city.  It was kind of cool that this spot which was filled with all of these natural elements was in the middle of all of the skyscrapers of Hong Kong.  On a side note, the city of Hong Kong is basically built upwards rather than outwards, so the skyscrapers in Hong Kong are extremely tall.  I feel like their skyscrapers put all of the skyscrapers in the United States to shame.  Kowloon Park was pretty cool though.  It was pretty big and had all these different parts to it.  There was this one part that had a covered area wrapping around this pond, another part had a maze built out of bushes, another part had all sorts of sculptures, another part had a fountain, another part had a swimming pool, and another part had an aviary.  We were allowed time to just wander around the park and observe the healthy behaviors being practiced.  There were a bunch of people doing Tai Chi and many of them were elderly people, but they were still kicking it!  I don’t really know too many people in that class, so I decided to just wander around by myself.  I have to admit I actually really enjoyed just being on my own because I was able to go where I wanted and spend as much or as little time as I wanted at each place and I had no one to answer to or cater to but myself.  There are times when I wish I could actually do travels on my own in port, but I had to be born a tiny girl… thanks a lot Mom and Dad! Just kidding, but in all seriousness I have come to find that I kind of like doing my own thing but I like having other people plan out the major logistics like transportation and housing and stuff.  Anyway, I wandered around for a while and then met up with the group again. 

We then walked back toward the ship but instead went onto the Star Ferry which is this ferry that has been running for a long time and goes between Kowloon Island and Hong Kong Island.  When we got to Hong Kong Island we got onto some buses and traveled to another park.  This one was called Hong Kong Park (creative huh?).  We did the same thing at this park, but this park seemed to be bigger in size than Kowloon.  In this park there was a large pond with lots of fish, there was a little waterfall that you could walk behind/under, an observation tower that you could climb up and get a cool view of the whole city, a memorial for doctors and health care workers who died during the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, an Olympic Square thing, an aviary, and a playground that was three different levels that catered to different age groups.  It was really cool to walk around this park, but there were so many stairs that I climbed up and down that I felt like I really got a good workout in.  After we explored this park we went to a dim sum restaurant that was in this huge room and was pretty much full of businessmen on their lunch break.  We got rice dishes, noodle dishes, like four different kinds of dumplings, some veggies, and plenty of tea.  I ate as much as I could at my own table without looking like a complete pig, and even though I probably ate the most at my table of about 12 people, I could have eaten so much more.  It was delicious! 

After lunch we got in the buses and were taken to Hong Kong University where we were going to listen to some professors and guest speakers talk about health in Hong Kong.  Parts of it were interesting, but I think a slight food coma was also starting to set in.  Until the last speaker, the mood in the room was just bleh.  The last speaker was this older man who had a good sense of humor and was just kind of crazy.  Maybe it was a mixture of what he was saying with his age, but it was hilarious and really seemed to pick up the mood and the engagement of the students.  After all of the speakers, we got back on the buses and drove back to the ship.  I kind of dozed off on the bus ride back, and it felt wonderful.

We got back to the ship a little earlier than on ship time (the time we’re required to be on the ship on the last day in port), and my friend Mike and I were both starving.  We decided to go to the bar on the 7^th deck and get a burger.  I had been trying to put off buying any food from the 7^th deck bar since I knew I would want to get it more often after I started, but in that moment it sounded so good that I gave into temptation.  We ate our burgers (which were just as delicious as I thought it would be) and then we went our separate ways for the night.  Later in the evening Jillian, Alexa, and I went to deck 7 aft (the back part of the ship) to watch the 8 o’clock light show that goes on every night.  From what I have heard from other people it is much better with the music that is supposed to accompany it, but we didn’t get to have that combo.  We watched as the lights on the buildings lit up the sky in deliberate patterns.  As the light show was coming to an end, our ship started to pull away from the port.  The city of Hong Kong at night was amazing to look at, and even though the pictures I have don’t quite capture all of its awesomeness it is pretty apparent how spectacular it really was to see.