First Visit to Mong Kok 旺角

Tuesday Night was the first night we went out to eat in Shatin. There are three connected plazas with enough stores to rival Herald Square and Chinatown combined, so anything I could ever need, I could probably get there. In one of the plazas, there is a huge shopping mall with a lot of high end stores, there is a food court, another area with restaurants, outside area with supermarket, McDonald's, banks, Gong Cha (a boba tea chain), and smaller boutique stores with random knick knacks.

New Town Plaza in Shatin. Little did I know, this would be a place I'd come back to very frequently. If you look closely,
you can see Uniqlo (one of my favorite clothing brands) on the upper floor in this picture!

Mong Kok 旺角, crowded and bright!

Most of Wednesday was devoted to orientation information sessions, how to pick classes, where to go in case you get sick, information on what to do in case you want to travel outside of Hong Kong, and other things along those lines. It was informative and a great opportunity to meet and see who the other exchange students were. It seems like we have quite a diverse group this semester although the biggest group of students by far are from the U.S., specifically from the UC's because they have a special partnership with CUHK. The UC's were the first school to send exchange students to CUHK many years ago, and their relationship has been strengthened since then. For dinner, a group of us decided to go to Mong Kok 旺角, which is a very popular and densely populated district in HK.

First time in Mong Kok  旺角! 

Mong Kok was really crowded and my first thought was that it's 10x more crowded than Times Square. Then I remembered how New York Chinatown is like, and it's similar to that: Chinese people everywhere, with a sprinkling of tourists (us) and everyone pushing to get by, with food stands everywhere. There were a lot of lit up billboards and signs everywhere and even though it was at night, it was very bright, which is why I think I initially thought of Times Square. 

My first boba tea in Hong Kong!
Taro black tea- a tried and true flavor.

Watched this woman make little leek buns on
the street as people were buying them.

There seemed to be one of these food stands
on every corner.

Ladies Street  女人街 , a popular outdoor market located on Tung Choi Street  通菜街  in Mong Kok.

On Thursday, we were mostly done with orientation stuff, so I wound up doing a lot of shopping for things I still needed like clothes hangers and laundry detergent. Some organizers of the IASP program organized an outing for all you can eat hot pot. Outdoor dining at it's finest! We went up to pick out the things we wanted and would cook it at our table in little pots of boiling soup. It was so delicious! After dinner, we went out and explored the Central District 中環 of HK.