In the South - HK

I flew into Shenzhen a couple days ago, then crossed the border to Hong Kong in order to abide by the terms of my visa. From the Shenzhen airport, there is a bus that takes you to the border for 20 RMB. I helped an old woman with her luggage and she in return protected me when others accused me of cutting in line (which was untrue anyhow). We then chatted on the bus as she talked about her life in Shanghai as an accountant and her 30-something year old son, who went to Jiao Tong University and had also wanted to quit after working just 3 years.

When we arrived at Luo Hu bus terminal, near the immigration checkpoint between HK and PRC, it was initially a bit confusing figuring out where to go to get into Hong Kong. It was a bit of a nuisance with all these people trying to offer you rides to HK. Furthermore, it was understandably difficult to get cell phone signal on my Chinese cell phone after I crossed into HK. Luckily, I was able to get signal in the Lo Wu Metro Station once I stepped outside the building. From there, I was able to take the train to a friend's house where I stayed the night.

The next day, we had a very tasty lunch at the Aviation Club, before heading to Mongkok for some mango dessert. We then snacked on cold noodles in a bag mixed with octopus and other random ingredients:



After that, we headed to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. There was a Cantonese Opera section on display, and it was there that I realized I still didn't know very much about the diversity of Chinese musical instruments. For example, the only stringed instruments I had heard of were the erhu, pipa, and yangqin, but on display were more than 10 different instruments beyond that (e.g. the Zhonghu, Yehu, Zhutiqin, Sanhu, etc). I now feel compelled to dive into Chinese music a bit more, as my forays into musical composition thus far have all been based on Western music.