Macau pictorially

Macau was fun, but it's no Las Vegas. They may make more gambling revenue than Atlantic City and Vegas combined but that's cause it's the only thing to do. Vegas has all those shows and theme parks plus they speak English. Plus they have Hoover Dam. Plus you don't need six months on your passport to get in. Vegas-4 Macau-1 (for having the world's biggest casino). 

In terms of culture we saw some cool stuff and got a glimpse of China but I think Hong Kong has more to offer. Not to say I didn't have fun- thanks for taking us Graeme!  

skyline

Graeme waiting to collect his flock :) For some reason I really like this one

The crew resting up before dinner

Anna and a suit of armor + a building and palm tree

View from the ferry as we departed

These are not in order... but here is China! Note the environmentally friendly windmills

The new University they are building at Macau (what? Who told you it was a casino?! ) 

Fatty Olympic dude, love him

The facade of an old church, or a gate? I think I missed the part where they told us the purpose of this structure but I think it was important cause we had to walk up a lot of steps to get there. 

And then there were 3... we're a dying breed around here apparently- we missed you Sarah! 

So there you have it. We missed the Mosque though! 

Macao: Entry DENIED (old news)

I haven't gone running in nearly a week, but I have been literally running several times a day to keep up with Hong Kong--to catch the buses and ferries, to get to dinner dates on time, and to maximize math problem-solving time. Together, all of that has left me with little time to fill you in on the daily adventures. One that I had been particularly looking forward to was Macao, a Chinese territory outside of Hong Kong. Macao was once administered by the Portuguese, so to this day everything, including immigration forms are in three languages: Mandarin, English, and Portuguese.

Macao is mostly known for its casinos, some of which are the largest in the world. But I was excited about getting to visit the mosque, which my online sources reported sits right across from the main pier. However, after arriving in this special territory, the immigration people refused to grant me a Macao visa, even for one day because my passport is set to expire in one month. After attempted negotiations in Canto-English with bits of Spanish (I thought they might understand Portuguese's close relative), all efforts failed, primarily due to language barriers. So I was sent right back on a ferry to Hong Kong. After clear instructions involving "sit," "stay," "passport I keep," and a few other short phrases, I was placed in a front row seat under close surveillance for the one hour ride. When it was time to go, I followed my designated guard without saying a word.

He didn't seem very friendly, but I knew that he was just doing his job; and at the moment, that meant simply transporting me to the interrogation room, while acting like a tough guy. Eventually, we stood for a few awkward moments to wait for another immigration official. Unable to communicate properly in Cantonese, but wishing to improve the atmosphere, I pulled out the only thing I had in Chinese characters--a scrap of paper that transliterates to "lau lin." This is the name of the king of the king of fruit--that is, the best type of durian in the world; which I am disparately searching for to fulfill my final Hong Kong dream. The guard responded with "The best! The best! From Malaysia!" Although he couldn't explain where I could find lau lin, I instantly, gained his respect, and was transfered to the next guard with a smile.

After a few more transfers, some 'interrogations,' (that quickly became cheerful), and lots of paperwork, I was warned not to veer out of HK, re-granted my stay in Hong Kong, and set free to run to the MTR!

I was really sad to miss the Macao trip, but my experience with the immigration officials was interesting (an amalgamation of consternation and humor), and the rest of my day was relaxing--I spent it on the beach at Lamma Island. ...more to come on that later, but first I'd love to hear about Macao!

Sai Kung and Ocean Park

Last weekend, the REU ladies went to two wonderful attractions, one that seemed intended for locals and the other also for tourists: Sai Kung and Ocean Park respectively. At Sai Kung, we had trouble communicating with the boat people, but using numbers and body language we ended up taking a traditionally-designed boat an hour into the sea onto a deserted island made up of abandoned houses, water pipes, graveyards, wells, and farms. Map-less and clueless of what treasures and dangers the island might contain, we explored the land cautiously. Walking through the rubbles felt like uncovering a dead past, and I hope to do some research about the place to learn about the lively cultures that must have breathed life into that land, a long time ago.

The Boat People:
Water Caves:

Say Cheese, in Chinese!

An abandoned jug:


Happily Exploring:
An old salt farm:


Sunday's outing to Ocean Park proved to be far more comfortably adventurous. As soon as we entered the theme park, we picked up maps and planned our day accordingly. All the signs were bilingual (including English) and even the water theatre presentation (where dolphins and seals were the actors!) was also bilingual. We rode "The Dragon," the park's biggest roller coaster, in the rain (!!!), caught the feeding of the seals, watched the dolphin show, walked through an aviary, peaked into massive aquariums of the world's sea creatures, watched the panda bears fight (or play), and enjoyed the Chinese culture apparent throughout what will soon be one of the world's most extensive theme parks. On the way back from high land to low land (the park is built on mountains), we rode in a cable car with a woman from the park's guest services, who told us that in 2012 the number of attractions in the park will double from 35 to 76.

Notice the pandas coming out of the trash can:


The real theater of the ocean forms the backdrop for this artificial theater:

This is my favorite bird! Notice that it is eating oranges, mangoes, papaya, apples, bananas, and so much good food!
A Dragon Fish:


Jia Jia, the mother panda:Silliness:

Goodbye, Ocean Park!

Da da da da da da da da BATMAN!

Does this skyline look familiar? Yesterday Kirstin and I were walking through Central when we stumbled upon this poster, looking closer (due to a vested interest in all things Batman) we realized that the skyline was none other than the one directly above our heads. When we returned home we confirmed that Batman was indeed shot in Hong Kong, so get excited! 

Something Mathematical About Life

Yesterday evening my lower left eyelid suddenly blew up to the size of an almond, accompanied by sneezes and general drowsiness. Within minutes, my REU family came to help—Claire diagnosed my case and consoled me with the fact that it would go away with time, Eugene offered medicine that “is really good,” and Anna made sure that at dinner we all practiced the chopstick rule, “black is personal,” and “brown is public,” preventing contamination. After a hearty vegetarian meal beginning and ending with Chinese soups (melon and red bean respectively) and drinks (strong green tea and carrot/orange/apple honey cocktail), my eyelid melted back to normal size, my nose stopped sneezing, and my mind thought clearly. As fast as it had come, the random affliction had disappeared.

After a night of smiles and happy thoughts over the degustation of two Japanese plums, a custard apple, a Chinese peach, a persimmon, and more, I found that such cyclical progress exists only in smooth periodic functions, such as sine or cosine. On this journey, I have sought over and over again to apply such mathematical rules to life—the goal of my project is to find a formula that will solve an integral that appears often in nature, but does not have an analytic solution. We believe that we are close to deriving a formula that will approximate the integral at an acceptable level of accuracy, but at best, what we will obtain will remain a mere approximation. After all, symbols, no matter how they are formulated cannot, with perfect precision, capture life. Neither numbers, nor words can correctly approximate the state of the soul.

But beyond such attempts to calculate and create, I believe in an ultimate peace, that from God we came, and to Him we shall return. Perhaps, something about life is periodic, like sine and cosine, and like the vanishing almond beneath my eye.

Claire, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Junk Boat Ride and Adventures in Central

Today was quite an eventful day. We were sad to see Claire leave this morning, and sorry for her loss. Kirsten and Eugene saw that she made it safely to the airport and waited with her before she went through security.

Later in the afternoon, Jason, Tim, Samantha, Kirsten, and I called it an early day and went to Victoria Harbor for a junk boat ride. We cruised around the harbor for an hour before landing in Central. The trip was calming and beautiful.

Kirsten, Samantha, and I headed up to a Chinese restaurant (found in Sam's book, of course) in SoHo. I want to commend Kirsten for being brave and ordering the pig's tongue! I had a bite and thought it tasted great.

It turns out that next to the restaurant was a reputable-looking barber shop. I got an appointment for 7:00 and said goodbye to the other girls. After my amazing shampoo, I sat down in the chair to have my hair trimmed by an "English speaking" male. Ha! Despite the language barrier, I am pleased with my new 'do. He straightened my hair as he dried it and then sprayed it so it would stay. Hong Kong, however, does not permit straight hair so I enjoyed a few moments of glamor while I was still in the shop. The whole experience cost $98. Not bad!

We miss you Graeme and Claire!

pictures from the night!

Here's to the nights!

The day wasn't to bad. It rained off and on again but for the most part it was pleasant.

We all met around 6 to go to the nunnery for dinner since we wanted to celebrate Claire's last night. Dinner was awesome!! We ate a lot and it was delicious just as the first time we went. Afterwards we headed over to the Ladies Market for some I heart HK t-shirts!

We ended the night with a fruit party!! YAY for fruit. The conversation was quite interesting, but very fun and might turn scary when I go to sleep! Which I say the night ended, but we are actually still in the room chit chatting!! Defintiely a great last night!!

July 8th, 2008

Well, as first days go it might have been smoother. But luckily only one REU member suffered shark attack, while the others managed to get away with greater than or equal to three limbs intact. Surviving members went out for sushi and enjoyed shark rolls. (not really)

Besides this the rain continued its epic summer march through the middle of our summer experience. In terms of work, no groups report desuetude though some are experiencing obstacles.While the whole group did not participate in any completely uniform activities some went to the night market while others ate Vietnamese and the remaining members dined at Wonderland.

We hope the sun re-emerges tomorrow, but perhaps with less of its glorious intensity. Maybe even enough to discourage further watery incidents.

A Rainy Day

July 2008 set the record as the wettest month in HK, ever! ...And it hasn't stopped raining yet. I hope that such constant onsets of deluge will prove beneficial to the fruits in the region, since for us, the effects have been dilatory. Today we were planning on cycling through the new territories; but moments before we were set to take off, dark clouds quickly covered the sun and in an instant, the storm curtailed our plans. We stared out the windows with discountenance; but instead of spending the whole day in desuetude, we decided, that although we are officially denizens of Hong Kong, it wouldn't hurt to partake in the #1 HK tourist activity: SHOPPING! So we (Claire, Kirstin, and I) went off to the Jade Market. Prior to coming to Hong Kong, I was not at all easily lured by jewelry and other such glittering goods, but I found that at the Jade Market, I suffer from financial diffidence, which off course, only makes the experience more enjoyable!

Browsing through rows and rows of pearl, jade, coral, turquoise, onyx, and other prized gems made the perfect rainy day activity! One of my highlights however, was indulging in a mango dessert shop, right outside of the market: Hui Lau Shan.

This shop offers all types of delicious fruit-filled desserts ranging from mango ice cream to pudding to soup! I tried something delicious with a long elaborate name--something like "Mango and Pomelo Saga in ____ (word I don't know) with _______ (another Chinese word) and Bird's Nest." I don't know what it was, but to the best of my knowledge it was meat-less (whew, safe for me!), and beyond simply comestible, but both wholesome and very tasty.


....are you wondering why there are so many big words, sometimes awkwardly amalgamated with the rest? ...We are studying for the GRE and we just got through the list of "C" and "D" words!

Fourth of July Party!!!

Alright folks, here are the details for Friday night. Please let us know what you think.

Location: City University BBQ Area (map: http://www.cityu.edu.hk/fmo/images/bbqmap.gif)

Time: Friday, July 4th at 7:00 PM

Food: burgers, kabobs (maybe), chips and dip/salsa, fruit (pineapple, watermelon, and others), cookies, mochi, s'mores (hopefully), water, soda

We are going to try to keep the price around $60-80 per person. We don't know how much things (meat) cost here so this is just an approximation (ha!). Feel free to let us know if you don't like the price range, we can try to work things out.

If anyone has any specific food requests or objections, speak up. We are hoping to cook some Thursday night and Friday before 7. Let us know if you want to help cook, and grill on Friday!

Get ready to celebrate before the rest of the US!

Hiking In Hong Kong

As much as it hurts me to write here....

For those of you that think Hong Kong is just an urban jungle, you're wrong. After finally getting a good guide book, along with the end of the wettest month ever, we were all set to bond with wilderness.


Tuesday July 1st was the celebration of Britain turning Hong Kong back over to China, and more importantly, we had the day off. So I planned a little bit of a Hike for us. Anna, Sarah, Sam (and friends), Kirsten, Cole and I left around 6 am to head for the Tai Tam Reservoir, the trailhead for Hong Kong Trail section 7.





The beginning of hike was completely flat as we followed the reservoir catchwater. Though flat, it provided some great views of the reservoir and Stanley on the other side. This area was abundant with life with butterflies, insects, spiders and oddly enough crabs. As you can see, there were some above averaged size spiders.







About 4.5 miles in,we came to a small fishing and boating village. This place was pretty much only accessible by foot or boat. (There is a road leading near it, but the staircase leading between village and road is an quite an obstacle). We took this as a natural place to eat lunch, though it was still only around 10 am.


On the way out of the village we climbed a daunting flight of stairs. There were somewhere between 700 and 800, enough to not bother counting. About half way up we turned around to see how secluded the village we were just in truly is. Its a sole patch of beach on an otherwise tree-lined shoreline. With that behind us. We went back to work on the steps.


At the top of the staircase we completed stage 7 of the HKT and moved on to the most famous section, stage 8, Dragon's Back. This area started off by sending us up some more stairs. Shortly(about .3 miles in) we reached the first of the many peaks of Dragon's Back, Shek O Peak. From here we had some good views of the village below, and the outlaying islands.

We then headed into the main stretch of Dragon's Back, which was the most painful part of the trip, at least for me. This was completely exposed the full strength of the Hong Kong sun for quite a while. We crossed a few more peaks with great views of the sea as well as Big Wave Bay, our final destination.



The path then took a pleasent change. We entered a denser section of trail. The paths were shaded resulting in drastic drops in temperature. The easier hiking conditions provided a much more enjoyable treck. We ended the Dragon's Back section and proceeded to Big Wave Bay, where we enjoyed the views of our new found beach.

Loving you like a mouse loves rice

A dose of local culture: Apparently this was the most popular song in China a couple years back, here is the English version! This one. 

Buses & Maps

You might find the following links useful:

• For directions or a map of any place in Hong Kong, complete with English and Cantonese:
• http://www.centamap.com/gc/home.aspx
• For a list of all the bus routes in Hong Kong:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_Hong_Kong
• For bus fares, interactive routes, contact info, etc:
• https://www.nwstbus.com.hk/home/default.aspx?intLangID=1

I hope you find this info helpful!

Strange Propositions

When I agreed to participate in this REU, I certainly expected I would encounter situations not necessarily of the most ordinary composition. Nonetheless, Sarah and I were a bit shocked when we were repeatedly solicited by photographers in the City University Library! I must admit I didn't expect modeling would be one of the propositions I would be confronted with. And imagine that TWO different photographers asked us to model in the library on distinct days! I suppose Sarah and I were the picture of diversity. My mind almost immediately jogged to the flyers adorning the HKBU buildings alongside the NTT House. You know the ones I'm talking about with the Chinese basketball player and the eager blond girl. I suppose the administration is not aware of the absence of western students here. Or perhaps they are simply hiding during our stay? Everyone needs some flagrant misrepresentation in their surroundings I always say.

So, if you are near a university institution like a library beware rogue natives with cameras. They may just ask you to join in the awkwardness of posing for the website of a Chinese University. Who knows, the next REU might get to enjoy the smiling faces of all of us on the next generation of HKBU flyers. We're almost students here though, so I guess they are entitled.

Hong Kong Classics: Shopping & Hiking!

Back home in Mid-Missouri, we had only one mall in my town. Here in Hong Kong, I enter a mall at least twice a day: on my way to school and back, in order to get to the university, I must pass through a mall. In fact, in order to get anywhere, one generally must pass through a mall. And it is not uncommon for one mall to connect to another mall that connects to another that leads one home, or to the way home--a train station. So in Hong Kong, following malls seems to be the thing to do if you're lost or unsure of how to get back. Shops are also open day and night and on every corner there is a type for everyone: the ladies market, the night market, the jade market, the fish market, the wet market, etc. The endless shops are unavoidable, and even natural. While this strong presence of commercialization has shaped my experience here, mostly favorably (as you can see a group of us having a good time at the Ladies Market), I am troubled by the fact that sometimes shops seem more natural than nature itself.



However, the other day as Samantha casually noted, mountains form the background. Towering above all the shops, markets, and malls, stand massive mountains. Over the weekend, we ventured out away from the buildings, to explore this beautiful backdrop: mountains. On Friday, Anna, Tim, Cici (a friend from my school), and I left the NTT House at 6:30am to hike up Victoria's Peak. The scenic route began at Pok Fu Lam Reservoir Road and encircled the mountain, taking us through waterfalls, forests, and breathtaking views of more mountains. The next day, hungry for more, we (Tim plus ALL the ladies--Anna, Kirstin, Claire, Samantha, and I) again left at 6:30am to hike Lion Rock, the mountain that we can see from our windows at the NTT House. This hike included getting a bit lost, trusting local Chinese hikers, climbing endless stairs, ducking through trees, watching out for monkeys, and ultimately landing on a peak!

I have never before in my life been in such a place with the most intense and beautiful combination of both cityscape and landscape; a place where one may sometimes confuse one for the other. Nevertheless, after experiencing both, it is certainly clear, that there is nothing with more grandeur or nature than nature itself.

Math Graduate Schools

For anyone who is considering math grad school and hasn't figured out which schools interest you, the US News & World Report ranks schools. The website that shows the list is:
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/mat/search/
There are other rankings on this website too, for different programs if you're interested in studying some other topic.

The reason we are here

Complements of xkcd.com

God in Hong Kong

Actually, the title of this post is misleading: God cannot be confined to place, as He created place. Perhaps, a better title would have been "Seeking God in Hong Kong."

And certainly, that is what I, along with Anna, Sam, Kirstin, and Jason, witnessed on Sunday in Hong Kong: hundreds of servants seeking God. Tucked amidst the hustle and bustle of a city with the vibrancy of ten American cities cramped in one, masses of Hong Kong-ers entered their Holy places to join one another in remembrance of God.

We went to a mosque and church, separated only by a few streets, in Wan Chai. Unlike the classic postcard images of mosques and churches that stand out with domes of gold or statues of stone, these places were marked by plain signs. “Church of Christ” posted across a billboard distinguished this sacred building from its neighboring shops and restaurants. Upon entering the church, however, we found a little hallway that led us up a staircase, and ultimately into a room much larger than I could have imagined from the outside. Similarly, the mosque was one simple white building on the outside, but on the inside, an eight-floor community center, complete with two prayer halls, ablution stations, bathrooms, a library, classrooms, offices, and even a restaurant! But like in the Church, what I found most striking of all in the mosque was the strong sense of community built out of a love for God. On the outside, each building looked like a part of the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, fitting neatly in between the crowded buildings that characterize this cityscape. But on the inside, each building opened up, physically and spiritually, literally, amidst the craziness of city life, into a realm more peaceful and loving than any rural place.

I felt this sense of peace at the church as I listened to verses from the Old and New Testament, and quite personally, when my presence was welcomed publicly (my name was called, I was asked to stand up, and everyone clapped—it was totally embarrassing, but also such a family sort of thing that warmed my heart). I also felt this sense of peace at the mosque when I prayed shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, alongside believers of all backgrounds, including servants ranging from native Chinese Muslims to Filipino domestic helpers. You can visually get a glimpse of this cross cultural peace that transcends boundaries by checking out the following banners, displayed in the Mosque and Church, respectively—words from Holy books translated to fit every community: