Hong Kong '13: Week One

It is a little over a week since I arrived in Hong Kong. My jet lag is almost fixed! I can sleep until 8am now compared to the previous 3-6am wake up time.

April 21: This week has been eventful starting with my 13 hour flight from Canada to Hong Kong. Lucky for me the seat next to me was empty so it was a pretty comfortable ride. I watched the movies that were Academy Award winners: Les Miserables and Silver Linings Playbook. The latter movie was surprisingly good and attention grabbing.

April 26-27: Grandfather's funeral stretched over two days with a Chinese traditional ceremony that I mostly did not understand. There was chanting, burning of incense and paying respects. I learned that for women, wearing a blue flower clip in your hair means you are the grandchild from the father's side and wearing a green flower means grandchild from the mother's side. A white flower means you are the daughter of the deceased. A red dot on the white bandana around the son-in-law's foreheads means their parents are still alive.

It was kind of hard to look at grandfather's face in the coffin because he looked so different from the man that I remember. At the funeral I met relatives that I've never met before.

On a happier note I got to meet up with old friends and meet new ones. I became familiar with the MTR quickly because I used it everyday.

Hong Kong MTR

April 25: Met up with friends from back home who were also visiting Hong Kong and got to watch Iron Man 3 in IMAX before it was even out in North America! I really loved how action packed this movie was with a suitable dose of humour. Definitely my favourite of the Iron Man trilogy.

Iron Man 3 IMAX

Visited the Charlie Brown Cafe in Tsim Sha Tsui. You can choose which character's head you want stenciled on your drink, which was really cute.

April 27- 28: I got to meet new friends because of AIESEC. Attending the BrandXP Summit hosted by AIESEC Hong Kong allowed me to meet many AIESECers who were doing the same thing I was in Communications halfway around the world.

BrandXP Summit 2013

April 30: Also because of AIESEC, I got to visit Hong Kong University and people from AIESEC HKU. Had to suffer some vicious mosquito bites to get to their campus though!

In the AIESEC HKU office

My grandmother is celebrating her 80th birthday next month so we ate dinner together as a family before the Mother's Day crowd. I got to meet one of my baby cousins who I have not met yet. The elder sister, Charlotte was very shy the last time I saw her two years ago but this time she was so quirky and sociable it was absolutely adorable! 

Photo of all the cousins

 Dinner was pretty tasty, of which this dish was probably the most unique. It was BBQ Pork stuffed with rice which reminded me of turkey and its stuffing. The rice soaked up all the pork juice so it was especially aromatic.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

That sums up the first week of my stay in Hong Kong with a good balance of family, shopping, and AIESEC just the way I like it.