We're staying at the Hyatt Regency in Sha Tin, which I think just recently reopened after extensive renovations. Although it's not a particularly hopping neighborhood, we have a metro station located right next to the hotel that can take us to pretty much anywhere in Hong Kong. Due to jetlag and just wanting to settle in first, I haven't been able to explore the city that much, but our class is heading down to Chung King Mansions later and we'll probably spend the evening at Central.
We've been incredibly spoiled in terms of accomodations for our four weeks in Hong Kong. The suites are spacious with huge bathrooms in each of the two bedrooms plus a common room/kitchenette with an additional guest bathroom. There's something wrong with the AC in our room, but as long as it's not as humid as outside, I think I can deal with it. There's also a gym, sauna and spa, and a couple restaurants, but I'll be avoiding them (the restaurants) as much as I can.
We took a tour of CUHK's campus yesterday that ended up being a 2 hour hike up and down a mountain in 90 degree weather. It reminded me of my family's visit to Guangzhou when we went to all those national parks and the humidity would give me shortness of breath in about 10 minutes. It's something I'm still getting used to.
One of the few places to eat I've been to so far is the chain MX by Maxim's which is one of the few stores located right by the hotel. It's incredibly quick and pretty inexpensive; for breakfast yesterday I got 2 bbq pork buns and congee for 19 HK, and today's lunch was hainan chicken with rice. What I loved was that they had the duck/chicken hanging in the glass cases like they usually do in Asian supermarkets. Definitely different from American fast food chains, and much much better in my opinion. The chef cut it into pieces right in front of me.
Afterwards, I went to the New Town Plaza at Sha Tin station, but I wasn't unable to take any pictures yet because for some inexplicable reason, my SD camera card stopped working (which was why I had to go in the first place). But because there's a huge grocery store, I'll probably be back before long.
Despite adjusting to the weather, I have a feeling that we're going to have a great time in HK.
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