Seeing the city through new eyes

Over the past few days, I've come to develop a new round of warm, fuzzy feelings for Hong Kong.  I've been volunteering to take the visiting Yale-China fellows out and about the city for the past few days, so I've been able to show off my favorite parts of the city - at least the ones that I know so far!  But it's been great, and every time they exclaim how pretty, how bustling, or how clean the city is, I get another little jolt of excitement, thinking that I ended up in a pretty good city :)  I definitely feel like I have a bit of ownership over the place now - I don't feel lost and clueless as much anymore!   I've also found that I have yet to tire of just gazing at the skyline, as the dazzling lights on the buildings provide endless entertainment.  Maybe I'll get sick of this eventually, but given how much I enjoy skylines in other cities, and how HK's skyline basically trumps all others (IMHO, hehe)*, I don't think that will be happening anytime soon.  So!  I'm posting some more pictures for you to enjoy!

*IMHO = In My Humble Opinion.  Apparently our students at CUHK like to use this phrase a lot in class discussions and e-mails to the teachers.  I think the sheer gumption of using an acronym like IMHO negates any actual humility in the statement, but I think it's hilarious.

(Sorry that they are fuzzy, I had the night setting camera but couldn't hold it still long enough for the picture to come out smooth!)

The HSBC Building, a crazy, modern building designed by the ubiquitous Sir Norman Foster, of Wembley Stadium fame.  This is the view of it from the China Club (12th floor of the old Bank of China building).

Here are the HSBC building and the new Bank of China building squaring off against each other.  The story is that the Bank of China building was purposefully designed to be intimidating and to send bad feng shui vibes to HSBC, one of its main competitors in HK.  So which building do you like better?  

Here's the Bank of China building with the Hong Kong Legislative Council building, built in 1912, in front.  Old school British architecture vs. hot, sassy Chinese architecture.   

The view from Tsim Sha Tsui, across Victoria Harbour.  I could sit here for hours and just watch people, watch the ferries go back and forth, and look at the lights.  Plus, there are always lots of brides in this area, posing for their portraits in front of the skyline, so it's always a fun fashion show as well!

Me in front of the old Canton-Kowloon Railroad Station clock tower - the station no longer exists but they decided to keep the tower around.  I'm enjoying a treat from the friendly ice cream truck right by the Star Ferry pier.  There was something sweet about having all of these quaint, old-fashioned things (the Star Ferry, ice cream trucks, old bell towers) in the midst of all the craziness in downtown HK.  This area is by far one of my favorite spots in the whole city.

So if you haven't noticed, I've fallen back into tour guide mode with everyone here, so if these passages sound different than the usual posts, that is why!  Well, I must be off to read about being an effective teacher - we're getting to plan and teach an actual lesson on Friday, so hopefully I'll have reports of how Camille and I dazzled the whole class and were awarded tons of gold stars.  But it's more likely I could come back with stories of me forgetting and/or losing my lesson plans, giggling nervously in front of the classroom for a few minutes, and ultimately dancing a jig in front of the classroom and calling it a lesson in extemporaneous performance.  That's acceptable for a college professor to do, right?   ...hmm, yeah, I should really go study some more...

I'll report back soon!

xoxo

Jenny