Happy Corner'd

 Dragon's Back Hiking Trail

It's been 10 days since I came back to Hong Kong for the second time. These ten days could have turned into any directions, there were many things that could have happened differently and things which I wish would never happen.

Sitting here in a boring room @ Fragrant Harbor

<香港> : Xiang Gang is the Mandarin name of Hong Kong which literally means Fragrant Harbor

I came back on the night of Jan 31st, luck or no luck I found a friend of mine who studies here in HKUST in Suvanabhumi Airport. It was a weird coincidence since he's from France coming to spend some time in Bangkok for 2 weeks and going back to HK the same day I was. We and his friend shared a cab back to UST and I immediately went to my friend, Jamal's room as soon as I got here even though I was super friggin tired. Borrowed his phone for a sec, to contact some people, met Simba, another friend from Zimbabwe afterwards. Had a nice talk with them and a few other friends and a quick dinner delivery from KFC before I came back to my room and finally slept without even touching my unpakced luggage.

The next few days I slept alone in my triple room because my roommates were still not back from Mainland China. I enjoyed that period though I really missed my roommates also. I got to meet up with a few other friends including Julius, an exchange student from Germany. He and I went on a hiking trip to Dragon's back on Feb 3rd, Chinese New Year's day. It was a fun trip and I couldn't imagine any better way to spend Chinese New Year than being able to say "I have conquered the dragon"

Abdullah Jamal from Pakistan

On Feb 4th, second day of Chinese New Year's, I had plans to go out to see the fireworks at Tsim Sha Tsui, a busy part of Hong Kong where Victoria Harbor is. I had to watch the fireworks from Tseung Kwan O hospital instead for it turned out to be a very unfortunate day for a friend of mine. Many international students were coming back from their countries on that day and meeting up with one another. Among them there was Anand from India and Shin from South Korea. As they were greeting each other, Shin asked Anand for a friendly arm wrestling match which turned out to be quite...bone-breaking. I heard a popping sound coming out from Anand's right arm and we all were shocked by that. I quickly told Shin to just leave back to his room for he was only just coming back to campus with all his luggage from the airport and then Hemant, another student from India, and I rushed to bring Anand to a cab closest to us. We practically kicked a family arriving on campus off the cab quickly and told the cab to go to the nearest hospital. He had a problem understanding us of course for none of us could speak Cantonese.

"Emergency?" said the taxi driver and, "yes," we replied.

At the hospital, we went through the standard Emergency room procedure -sign up for hospital card-one of the nurse took pressure from Anand-go inside to see a doctor in the emergency room- rushed to the X-ray room after that. Since it was Chinese new year, the hospital was low on staff not to mention that according to my local friend, it was not a very good hospital to begin with. Anand was kept in the Orthopaedic ward until today to actually be operated on. I visited him today and almost every day before today just to check up on him, but there was no need to worry anyways because Anand is a guy who's famous with his other name, "The Beast"


My second semester studying in HKUST started 4 days ago, and classes have been busy. I've been dealing with course registration a little bit to improve my schedule here and there and I think I've gotten it down to a point where I'm satisfied with.
I'm taking Physics:Electromagnetism, Calculas II, Putonghua II, Basic Electronics, Introduction to Microeconomics and Career Building Class this Spring Semester. There isn't a lot to talk about that yet except the fact that they're mostly boring in the first week.

Got to get together with my Aiesec team today, had fun listening to their Exchange Experiences too. My teammates went to different places like Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia and India and I had fun comparing the similarities and differences among these places along with Hong Kong and Thailand.

And then when I came back tonight after the dinner with Aiesec, I got called from my room to go join the formation of floor committee for this Spring Semester. In Hong Kong, they have a tradition to celebrate... pretty much anything with something called, "Happy Corner"
After the floor committee was chosen, The president and vice president was of course 'cornered' and since they were still having fun, I got cornered as well.

I really don't want to go in explaining this "Happy Corner" thing but here is an educational video that does just that...