hehe...it's been over a month since i last blogged....been so busy!! well... i headed off for hong kong 2 days after my finals ended and stayed there for a month... WHOA!!! let me tell u, it is HOT in HK!!! ahhhhhh... i could barely stand it, not that i was missin my canadian snow or anything, but i hated going out everyday in 30+ degrees weather... and in hong kong, i walked A LOT!! i've never walked so much in my life b4! hehe... a lot of shopping! and just after maybe 10 minutes of walking outside without air ocnditioning, i'ld feel sticky and gross all over~~ oh wellz... when i first arrived in HK, i was so amazed at the building structures everywhere~ the tall high-rise buildings were so densely built! and after about a week, i got used to it~ i really luv the public transportation system in HK... firstly, it is sooooo much faster and convenient to get anywhere in HK compared to Toronto. the buses and subways are so frequent and there are so many routes that can take u to the same place... thankfully, i didn't have to wait for the bus for long (all under 5 mins)... whereas in toronto, i could be standing out in the stinkin sun waiting for 30 - 45 mins b4 a bus came~ i luved the food and shopping in HK. it was awesome, some styles were way too fobby for me, but i made do. during my stay in HK, i also went to Shanghai, where i lived with my roomate Sally from Waterloo and also Guilin and Huangzhou. i absolutely loved Shanghai!!! hehe... i got the best tour guide! and also another totally differnet culture. the traffic in shanghai is defintely worth noting.. let's say this, if i drove there for just 5 mins, i can 100% guarantee you that i would have gotten into a car accident! the drivers there a friggin CRAZIE!!!! plus all the bikes~ they have no sense of what's dangerous and what's unacceptable! each time i hopped into a taxi cab, i was honestly scared out of my mind... and unfortunatly, there are no laws in shanghai regarding seatbelts...there weren't even any friggin seatbelts int he taxi. omg... the drivers literally scared me to death! i was sooooooo afraid of even crossing a simple road ^_^ i definitley needed to follow sally everywhere i went... yup yup, sally an di did a lot of shopping... and in shanghai, you can bargain for prices. if i saw something i really wanted, i asked sally to bargain for me in shanghainese... b/c if i event ried to bargain i would get ripped off sooo badly b/c 1. i dont' speak shanghainese. 2. i dont' speak mandarin. 3. i speak english and am a tourist. yeah.. and when the shop vendors asked wher ei was from,sally told them i was from Hong Kong... if she had said i was from canada, they vendors would charge me even more $$!!! so... consequently. this was the first time i fully enjoyed being called a fob! ~LoL!~... next, when i went to Huangzhou and Guilin, i found it extrmeely different that my nice lil Toronto. i was deifnitley not used to the ppl there. most of them spoke extrmeley loud and spat everhwere! it was disgusting... i was walkign in a nice famous garden in Huangzhou (Sai Wu) and the guy next to me spits rite in front of my feet... if i wasn't paying close attention, i would have stepped rite on his friggin saliva. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! yeah... and in general, these 2 towns were more dirty... i mean dirty....espeicially there washrooms... the first time i went into a washroom, i immediately went straight out. i couldnt' stand it... the washrooms weren't toilets i'm tellin ya.. they were like female urinals on the floor... a frigign hole in the ground basiclaly... that stuck like ****! each time i went to the washroom, i used a scented tissue to cover my nose and then used that same tissue to open the door handle, turn on the water tap (if there was one) and then finally leave it in the garbage. a job well done eh? well... now on to the nicer things about these cities... i really enjoyed the famous garden in Huangzhou...it was gorgeous... it consisted of 3 - 4 manmade islands that a long time ago, rich chinese ppl built their castles upon and made gardens.. also, in Guilin, the mountains and scenic caves were beautiful! upon returning to Hong Kong, i also get the chance to meet up with other frenz from Waterloo a couple of times and also got the opportunity to chill with my cousins my age! it was awesome!! they all brought me to differnet areas of HK and really made me feel welcome! thx guyz!!! well...this has already been one long blog... i'll blog about work next time =P