By Sloane Pasini:
The night life of Hong Kong was very fun to see. I’m surprised that even outdoors you are required to wear masks, however, I can see why their COVID cases are extremely low. I did not think this city would be as safe as Crystal said it was. I’m used to cities near us not being that safe and wouldn’t want to walk around at night. Another thing I learned was that Hong Kong has a strict law on guns, which are not allowed. The night life, prior to COVID, use to be open much later in Hong Kong than bars and clubs in America. However, restaurants and stores seem to be open similar times to here in the states. One thing that I found very interesting was the different languages that people speak in Hong Kong and how most people know a few languages. I only speak English but I think it’s very beneficial to be able to speak other languages and I wish I knew another one.
By Ariana Janus
On the second day of our virtual tours, we had two separate tours, the first of which was led by Crystal Chan. Ms. Chan brought us on a night tour of Hong Kong and showed us the nightlife, travelling through Causeway Bay and Central. We began at a restaurant with Ms. Chan and her friend as they finished eating dinner. She showed us the dumplings that they were having, one of which was a soup dumpling, “xiao long bao” (which looked absolutely delicious, by the way). It was certainly enough to get you hungry for lunch, even at 9:30 am! After their dinner, they walked us through Causeway Bay to the MTR (their subway system), which brought us to Lan Kwai Fong (LKF). They took us on a tour through LKF, which is where most of the nightlife and clubs are and it was remarkable to see how many people were still out and about at that time, especially considering that it was still early in the night and not much of the “party atmosphere” was beginning yet. Being able to see the nightlife of Hong Kong through the eyes of a local was beautiful and brought a new appreciation to a side that not many tourists take the time to see.
After we finished our tour with Ms. Chan, we got to immerse ourselves into the experience even further by being able to have some dumplings ourselves, which sated the hunger that I mentioned earlier! Being able to have dumplings with this group that I was travelling with made it all feel just that much more real and brought a new dimension to our experience.
By Bailey Carden:
Day 2 showed us Hong Kong at night along with different sides that tailor to certain age groups. We also saw a famous restaurant and got to see some of the food that they serve. As a group we met on campus for dumplings and got to immerse ourselves together. It was nice to be able to ask questions and hang out with everyone else who is also within this experience. One thing I enjoy seeing is the use of the “octopus” card. I’m very jealous as I wish we had them here. It would be so much quicker to go shopping and pay for certain things. The fast pace of travel in Hong Kong seems intimidating but for someone like me who does not have much patience it must be great!
By Jordyn Nelson:
I had the opportunity to go on a virtual night scenes tour of Hong Kong with Crystal Chan. The nighttime looks just like how New York City would look at night, bright lights, lots of foot traffic and tons of cars. One of the first thing’s that she said was that everything in Hong Kong is very fast, which is why she was walking so fast. This brought me back to my interview with Ms. Lee because she told me that everything in Hong Kong is fast and efficient, nothing is ever slow. As she was walking through the train station, she said that her WIFI was very good, which was true. I know when I went to the train station the other day, I had no service. When she was going through the train station, she used a card called the “Octopus”. Crystal could use this card for anything, transportation, food, clothes etc. Here in America, we could only use a MetroCard for train transportation. If we tried to use a MetroCard to buy clothes at the mall the cashier would probably laugh at us. She took us to 7/11 where there was no door. I found that very interesting because that is not something that I see often. She said that it was common in Hong Kong but not too common.
It’s November and almost every person that I saw was wearing shorts or some sort of short sleeve shirt. So clearly it is still hot there and she also mentions that it never snows. She also mentioned that Hong Kong was very safe, one of the safest places in the world. Safe enough that you can walk alone at night and not have to worry about what could possibly happen to you. She mentioned that guns are not allowed in Hong Kong, and she made a joke that she only sees them in movies. Only the police officers carry guns in Hong Kong. She believes that it is so safe because everyone is so happy and is at peace with one another. This is because of the culture and how people are raised in Hong Kong. Here in America almost anybody can purchase a gun and freely walk around with it. I would love to be able to walk the streets of New York at night because it is so beautiful, but unfortunately, I can’t do that. Maybe I need to take a trip to Hong Kong and experience life there because it seems so amazing.
Dumplings On Campus:
