As I said in the previous post, my sight-seeing had to stay very brief due to the fact that I needed to cross the city to attend a conference. Rather than going to the original lunch spot I had chosen (which didn't open for an hour), I opted to stumble into any place that looked yummy and welcoming. I did indeed find such a place, and the owners very kindly welcomed me in and advised me on what to order (in very good English). Since they specialized in noodles and fish balls (essentially just balls of processed fish), I got a soup with wide noodles, fish balls, and wontons.
It was super delicious. The noodles were a very lovely texture, though extremely hard to pick up with chopsticks. I think it took me about four times as long to eat my bowl as everyone else in the restaurant. I also had milk tea with my meal, which is a very famous beverage around Hong Kong. It's simply English black tea with milk, but it's quite yummy.
One thing that surprised me is that at casual establishments like this, you share your table/booth with other people. A young couple (locals) sat down with me and we ended up having a really great conversation about things to do in the city. They gave me some good tips on food and bars, with an emphasis on places that were most "legit" (that word is a great American export). I was additionally surprised that when I asked for a glass of water, I was given a glass of near-boiling water. It seems like it's very common to drink cups of hot water, likely because everyone boils the water that comes out of the tap and it takes a lot of effort to cool it.
Once I was full of noodles and fish, I hopped on the tram (once again, ridiculously easy to navigate) back to my hotel to pick up my bags and head to the nearby ferry station. The Star Ferry (which actually encompasses a number of ferry lines that cross Victoria Harbour) is one of those things that you're supposed to do while in the city, since it affords some pretty spectacular views of both sides and is affordable and efficient. After a short wait at the pier, our boat arrived:
The ferry had a very spacious upper deck that allowed me to get amazing views of Hong Kong Island as we made our brief trip across the water.
Once we arrived at Tsim Sha Tsui, I quickly made my way to the MTR station. After a very easy ride out to the Diamond Hill MTR station (where the conference people recommended we catch a taxi from), I thought I'd be getting to the conference with plenty of time to spare. However, I faced the very first language barrier of the trip when my taxi driver knew zero English and also didn't know where the university was. It was incredibly stressful and involved lots of phone calls and frantic pointing, but I eventually made it to HKUST right before the start of the conference. The location is lovely, albeit inconvenient:
And even though they have me in a very crappy little undergrad dorm, I can't complain because this is the view from my bedroom in the morning:
There probably won't be too much to report for a few days, since I'm mostly here to attend scientific talks. I'll update once I have some more pretty pictures!
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