China Meiguo

August 14 -I arrived back in Hong Kong on 8/14 from Manila since I spent a few weeks there visiting friends, relaxing and doing a little scuba diving at beach resorts in Bohol and Subic Bay. Unfortunately, a typhoon hit during the last 5 days (almost constant heavy rain & wind). The good side is that it cooled things off a little bit from the normal oppressive heat & humidity, but the bad side is it limits beach & diving activity plus it made me sick (sore throat & cough).

I took a taxi from the airport to Lingnan University rather than try to navigate the buses since I had 2 large pieces of luggage. I had no problem finding a taxi, but the driver only spoke Cantonese (fortunately I had written out the Chinese characters for Lingnan University & Tuen Mun where Lingnan is located). No problem getting to Lingnan although since I couldn’t communicate with the taxi driver, the best I could do was have him drop me off at the university entrance. I said xiexie (thanks) and he responded with a look of surprise & a litany of what I assume were Cantonese words. I said "Wo bu dong, wo hui shua yidiar Putonghua (I don’t understand, I speak a little Mandarin). He seemed pleased with this and grinned so I uttered another xiexie & ventured off to the Security office & got the access code for the building & apartment I'm staying in.

The apartment ("flat" as its referred to here) is pretty nice - living room, small dining area, small kitchen, 2 bathrooms, one main bedroom with a small adjoining room with desk & huge closet room & 2 small bedrooms (probably for visitors with kids). The apartment has wireless Internet, but I’m not able to connect since I don’t have a password from Lingnan yet (will check on this tomorrow). TV gets 4 channels, but 3 are in Chinese (too bad I don’t know enough to understand much of it yet). Went to bed early (around 10) since tired and still a bit sick (sore throat a cough) from typhoon weather in Philippines.