Today was the first day of class so basically from here until Friday a lot of my days will be taken up with work of course. I started out with a breakfast in the executive club lounge that was basically the same as Sunday's breakfast and met my coworker during that time. We both ate and then we headed to the train station to take our train from Mong Kok East to University. From University Station we needed to take the 272K train to a short distance away from our office in Science Park. The trip probably took about a half an hour total though I wasn't keeping track of time.
My class is fortunately only 8 students. 2 Koreans, 3 Chinese (one from HK), 1 Indian, 1 Saudi and one Iranian. My fears were moderately founded. Most of them are struggling with English and asking questions of the class basically only brings back blank stares. I will deal with it as best I can but I do not expect miracles here. It definitely means the sense of humor is right out the window. How do you tell jokes with proper timing and all that when they barely understand a third of what you are saying? In any event they do seem very nice and like most people who aren't American, very eager to learn so it should be a good class. We had some mild ice-breaker incidents along the way today so it should hopefully only get better. It will be a struggle from beginning to end all the same, I am sure.
The weather today was basically perfect. Sunny, not too humid and cool and breezy.When we broke for lunch we had to travel outside for a little while to get to the place we ate. I regretted not taking my camera to lunch because the office is in a really nice looking area. For lunch I had a chicken and pork over rice dish that was good. Typical to most Asian foods it was bone in and you are expected to spit out the bones. I have already gotten used to that concept and the food was actually enjoyable. Much better than the lunches from the Belgian office. After we ate we took a short walk around the area and could see some of the bay we must be situated on.
When I sent the class home for the day I walked out to take the pictures I missed at lunch. It was still light out though twilight would hit soon. The best light was sort of gone but the haze still wasn't as prominent as the day before so hopefully the pictures came out well enough. I think I would have had the best effect from the lunch time sunlight but I will have to take what I could get.
After that I got on the bus (272k same as the way in) and then from University took the Hung Hom line back to Mong Kok East which is where the hotel is. My coworker had already left earlier so it was solo. All the same it was fairly easy and not too unpleasant. It was crowded, but not horribly so. The train was amongst the noisiest I have ever been on. You don't hear quite this many people talking on the MBTA in Boston. After a few minutes in the room I opted to hit the lounge for a couple free beers, one Asahi and one Tsing Tao. After that I decided to cruise the mall underneath the hotel for a little while to kill some time. I wasn't particularly hungry so I opted to just see what sort of stores and restaurants there were but really just spent about half an hour wandering around.
After that I opted to just kill some time watching TV for the night.
The pictures from today are here.
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