SWIMS

I made it to swims yesterday, even after getting on the wrong bus and ending up stuck with all my luggage with no way to get anywhere. It is beautiful here, cliffs and steep widing roads to get here, and a great rocky coast to look out from. There are islands all over in the ocean, some within an easy swim, others might take a paddle board to get to I just have to find one. I got into my room, a very nice fully furnished little room, bed desk bookshelf dresser, and then a bathroom with a shower as well. couldn't really ask for more.
The institute itself is a little smaller than I had expected, coming from one that was used as for teaching as well I hadn't expected the entire lack of teaching labs. Just offices and research labs all crammed with tanks. Dr. Rajan is very nice, he makes sure to teach you everything needed to do the work, then sets you on your own to repeat and learn it yourself. I feel like I could already repeat the experiment we are doing on my own. The guy who runs the facility is also incredibly nice. Judging by the accent I'd say he's Brittish, one of the first things he wanted to know is whether I play rugby or not. Of course he expected me to say no, but 'just in case...'. Dr Rajan led me around and introduced me to everybody, and told them all I was here to learn, so if they ever wanted help or were doing anything very interesting to come and get me. One of the Professors here dives off the coast to examine coral, I hope she'll come and get me for that. She is trying to improve coral growth by growing them on electric mesh. Never heard of that one.
I worked until ten setting up the second trial of Rajan's ocean acidification experiment, with some breaks. Like stopping for dinner, some Indian food Rajan had made, curry vegatables and wheat tortilla bread. It was tasty.
Today we are just observing the experiment, to make sure it is controlling itself correctly and later we are going to a seminar on main campus, afterward everybody goes out with the director for drinks. Supposedly hes a party animal, rugby hooligan type i guess.

a few photos

I don't know how many of you ever saw the new Batman movie, but, if you remember the part where Batman rips that badguy out of a building in Hong Kong by way of Sky Hook, that tall building in the background is the one.
This was the first evidence of traditional Chinese decor I saw, at the entrance to the University Hall where my dorm is for the next couple days. Its an old castle converted to monastery, to police headquarters, to dorm.
Bamboo scaffolding. I never thought they'd have entire buildings covered, and this one is small compared to the really tall ones covered by the stuff.
A road near Victoria Park.
This is Causeway Bay. I just thought the guy in the boat paddling with a single long oar was cool.

Sorry about the image quality, I only have my camera phone to use. it does ok though.

A day on Hong Kong Island, with Kelvin

My Hong Kong island adventure began last night around one in the morning when my plane finally arrived. About 7 hours late, the train had stopped running so I was stuck taking a cab. That was a rush, if I wasn't completely awake before I got in, I couldn't have been more alert when I got out. I found my room without problems, in what used to be the bishops house of an old missionary.
This morning I called Kelvin, my guide for the day and we met up around lunch time. He showed me a few really cool areas of Hong Kong. First of course he took me to a mall, assuming that is where I'd want to go the most. After finding food, some delicious bbq pork and rice, we left for something more interesting.
We went to Hollywood Road, Kelvin says its one of the oldest parts of Hong Kong. Here you find all the antique vending in the city. It looks exactly like China town in San Fransisco and the street vendors have more or less the same goods. We also stopped in at a temple that was full of smoke from all the incense. Coils of thick incense were hanging from the ceiling, and pots of sand for incense sticks stood in front of the gods. The more incense you light the more fortune that god will bring to you. It is the year of the Ox, so those born on that year of the zodiac burn especially large amounts of incense. The light them, bow repeatedly to the god, and stick them in the sand where they stand for about one minute before a worker takes them all the the incinerator. Kelvin and I are both born in the year of the Ox, we didn't burn any incense.
Just down the street from the temple is the bar scene. It consists of one street going straight up the side of the hill, with a giant escalator raised on giant concrete pillars going all the way up the hill. We rode to the top of the hill looking in the windows of the shops. The bars all have signs in English, and each bar had a good number of white people sitting at the tables. The escalator was a good experience I guess, the only problem is that it is one way. The staircase down really tested my quads.
It was on this ride that we started talking about marine bio work and Kelvin decided to take me to one of his favorite parts of the city. It was a section spanning 4 or 5 blocks crammed with hundreds of shops selling aquarium fish. I am pretty sure that I saw every kind of fish that I spotted when at the Marshal Islands. They had tanks of jelly fish that I am pretty sure are highly poisonous. The enormous tanks full of coral were beautiful. It was a very cool place and I think I would start the most incredible aquarium if I lived in the area. I have a sneaking suspicion that these corals and fish were collected from wild reefs though, which is pretty sad.
It was here also that I got my first look at some of the real Chinese food. Unfortunately the first spell was so pungent that I lost what little appetite I had in an instant. I had to move on quickly.
After fish town we headed back to campus, Kelvin showed me the canteen where you can get some amazing food for about 3 dollars, or 20 hong kong dollars.
That takes me back here, blogging. Tomorrow night is the firework show in Victoria Harbour, I'll be looking forward to that.