First Day in HK

Over 20 hours of traveling & I finally made it to Hong Kong!

For those of you who don't know: I am studying International Advertising abroad for a month as a part of my graduate program at SMU. This is one of the main reasons I chose this school over many others because of this part of the program. The school takes everyone in our class, which in our case there are 5 of us. Yes, 5, I know it's small but it serves its purpose as a much more personal educational experience.

First Impressions:

• Hundreds of skyscrapers and in contrast, tons of mountains. The pictures don't really do it justice but it is the true definition of a concrete jungle.

• Pleasantly clean. Envision New York except for the streets aren't filled with trash, the metro smells like fresh air, and no one is honking throughout traffic. (still love me some NYC though)

• No homes :(. All of those high rises in the picture above are where people live, in apartments. There are very, very few homes on the islands due to the mountains and little land to live on.

• MALLS. Where everyone wants to be. So since everyone here lives in small apartments in high rises, they don't have people over, they go to the mall. Especially because they want to save money on energy in their apartment. There are tons of malls unlike in the U.S. where we have around 2 or 3 in each city.

• Everyone speaks English!! It amazes me how much we take for granted how many people learn English as a second language. From street signs to waitresses, english. There is no problem in communicating and for that, I am grateful.

I'm going to try and post as often as I can, not only to inform everyone on what I'm up to but to keep track of this wonderful adventure for myself. Sorry there isn't much to post today but I hope to share more with you all in a few days!

8 am Hike at the Peak mountain