auradis

The morning after I arrived in Hong Kong, I took a shower to scrub off the grime of traveling. I’ve never had communal floor showers before, but the stalls looked relatively clean, so I thought I’d give it a go. I entered the stall and turned on the water, but it sprayed harder than I expected and left a puddle outside the shower curtain.

I hopped into the next shower and turned it on, but it wouldn’t warm up, even on the hottest setting. The water felt tolerable on my arm, so I stuck my whole head under it. This turned out to be a bad decision, because the water was freezing. I tried to get minimally wet while washing my hair as I took the one of the shortest showers of my life. Teeth chattering, I wrapped myself in my towel and hurried back to my room, which was just as cold.

Rosaline was still sleeping, but Nadia was awake, and I asked her if the hot water turned on or off at a certain time of day, since I remembered that would be the case sometimes in mainland China due to water shortages.

“You have to turn on the hot water separately,” Rosaline mutter from underneath the covers.
“What??” I asked, thinking back to if I’d seen another lever in the shower stall.
“The switches are by the door, next to the light switch.”
“Ohh…”

The next morning, I was determined to have a pleasant bathing experience. Armed with my towel and shampoo, I marched to the shower room and flipped the switch for stall #4, closest to the windows [opaque ones, don’t worry]. Even though I turned on the hot water, it only got lukewarm at best. Disappointed, I cleaned myself quickly and jumped out. I usually shower at night, but since I had been staying out at night until 4AM, I could only shower in the mornings.

My next experience was only slightly better — the water was scalding in the beginning, so I tried to turn it down a little bit. I had a hot shower for two minutes before it turned ass-freezingly cold again. Nadia said that the water seemed to stay warm when she showered in the evening, so I tried that the next time. It was my first enjoyable shower of the week. I haven’t completely figured out the system yet, but I hope that consistently hot showers won’t be a luxury of the past while I’m here.

Don't leave me here...

My residence hall is not an actual dorm, and it is not one that I had even heard of before getting my housing assignment. Its name is Patrick Manson [we call it PM for short], and is pretty much the farthest residence hall from campus that I know of. Indeed, it would take me more than 30 minutes to walk to campus, so I have to take a bus to and fro. The closest facilities are a 7-11, the hospital, and a canteen [cafeteria] that most people denounce as gross.

Yet, they filled this hall with female exchange students. We don’t even have a front desk, much less the hall life that is touted in HKU brochures. That means no hall activities, no hall sports teams, no hall spirit — only the security guard that comes at night. If we need maintenance or a piano room [things normally available on a hall’s first floor], we have to walk over to the building next door.

The hallways are narrow and dim, as if one is in a warehouse rather than college student residence. The laundry room only has four machines, so it’s amazing to me that it would be able to handle the laundry of 100 girls. The building has no heaters, which makes the place feel damp and chilly even in this relatively mild HK winter. Our “mailboxes” are more like cubbyholes — no security at all. When my new debit card arrives in the mail, anybody would be able to just take it.

What are the advantages of living here?

Well, nobody plays soccer/hockey in the hallways at night [apparently this is a habit of guys in certain other halls]. Because we don’t have a front desk, security is very lax, and we don’t need to sign in our guests or worry too much about possession of alcohol [curfew and prohibition are stated but not exactly enforced], not that the latter applies to me. The only other one I can think of is that the toilet paper is of a remarkable caliber. Even the Scott tissues that I bought were of lower quality.

To make blogging more manageable, I’ve decided to do shorter, topical posts instead of lengthy ramblings. Here goes!

For the past year & a half, I’ve been living with two roommates while at school, though off-campus. This, however, is my first time in a dorm with two roommates. I believe ours is the only triple on the floor, and thus our room is significantly larger than the others that I’ve seen.

Because I was the last one to move in, I was stuck with the middle bed, which is a strange situation for me because I always sleep by a wall. So far it’s been good, though three girls with long dark hair tend to shed a lot.

One of my roommates, Rosaline, is from California, and she’s been here since last semester; she enjoyed HKU so much that she extended her stay when she was supposed to graduate a semester early. She also speaks Cantonese, which allows her to be doubly helpful whenever we go out. Although she seems to be a rather unassuming person, she’s gone out almost every single night since I’ve gotten here, so she’s quite the social butterfly. Rosaline likes Kpop, which is always a plus, though her tastes are more akin to LC’s: Big Bang, Siwan/Kyuhyun/Donghae, Taecyeon & dramas.

My other roommate, Nadia, is from Denmark, where their education system differs vastly; she’s a college senior at the age of 27, which is apparently normal over there. Danish is her first language, but I didn’t even know because her English is quite good. Nadia is half Danish and half Thai, and she’s had a lot of experience traveling to different places, so she’s good to go out with as well. Her boyfriend, who is apparently coming to visit during Easter, is Irish [I think she told me he’s 12 years her senior?], so I’ll hopefully get to meet him sometime.

Both of my roommates are open and easy to get along with, so I don’t think we’ll have any troubles this semester. They also have a good balance between talking and sleeping, which I appreciate.