cry baby. not in friendly manitoba anymore.

So what should’ve been a 13 hour flight turned into a 17 hour flight after having to land in shanghai due to mechanical concerns, longest day of my life! Finally arriving in Hong Kong was overwhelming to say the least, thankfully my buddy “Fanny” met me at the airport to take me back to campus. This girl is soooo nice and helpful, it’s unbelievable. The worst part is that she didn’t know the flight was delayed, and had been waiting for me at the airport for FIVE hours, what a trooper. We cabbed back to the hotel and found my room, I’m on the tenth floor of a building overlooking the ocean, can’t get that kind of view in Winnipeg for $200 a month lol. I had told my exchange coordinator about my newly discovered condition and she put a fridge right in my room so I can keep my insulin in it, talk about clutch! I bet all of the non-diabetics on the floor are jealous, for once. My roommate is a French girl from Paris name Anaise (I’ll get back to you with the correct spelling later), her and I both sat on our beds crying late last night … It’s just super overwhelming being here, being pretty alone in a world you hardly understand. She was crying mainly because she missed her boyfriend, I was crying mainly because I looked at my tiny bed and realized I had no sheets; you don’t realize how something like that can affect you until you’re a million miles from home and your roommate has the comfiest looking bed ever. Needless to say, I made it through the night thanks only to air Canada, meaning that the tiny pillow and blanket I sniped from the plane comprised my bedding. I also decided to roll up a hoodie and sleep on it because my one inch thick pillow was really not cutting it. I would like to thank auntie Shauna for giving me the travel pillow containing a blanket because that was the blanket I used for my upper body, while the airplane one was used strictly for my lower half lol.

For the first time in a long time I had a hard time sleeping in this morning, so I decided that I was going to talk a little walk around campus to try and find some breakfast. Talk about unproductive. The campus is a maze of steep hills, and countless escalators and elevators, of which I knew nothing about. It was after walking for about 20 minutes and getting really upset and frustrated that I couldn't find food that I decided to turn back. Good thing I brought those granola bars. I found my way back to the residence which was still completely desolate and went into our common room on the 10th floor, there was once chinese girl in it at the sink so I decided to try and make my first friend... No sooner did the words "Hi, how are you?" leave my mouth, than she looks at me, says "I have training, can't talk", and beetled out of the room; definately not friendly Manitoba.

My buddy Fanny came and met me before lunch to help me get some things done around campus, we actually did so much running around that I was physically exhausted by the end of the day... Paid my residence fees, got my student ID, got my internet set up, applied for an octopus card, bought a phone, bought bedding (much needed), and about a million other things! On the brighter side of things, I rode both a double decker bus, annnd a "minibus" (small bus/big van driven by a crazy asian man that has no mercy when it comes to traffic or speed limits). Today also proved to be the day that I would have my first meal on campus, Fanny suggested the cafe which has a wide selection of "western" foods. After deciding I didn't want to have to pump myself full of insulin, I decided on what was called a "smoked salmon salad", expecting to get some sort of salad topped with a piece of salmon... Turns out it was indeed a salad, but had pieces of raw salmon draped over it. Shocked at first, and admittedly a little scared, I decided that when in Rome... Not the best choice I ever made, but definatley not the worst.

sidenote: it was 16c here today, with humidity of 75-90%, so much for bringing my straightner and curling iron... crazy afro hair here I come.

Tmrw is a big day, on the agenda - Lantau island tour.

ps. apparently nobody uses tampons or eats rice cakes here. weird and extremely inconvenient.