Back at City U: IAWE conference in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Day 2)

When I woke up, I was in one of the first housing tower blocks visitors to Hong Kong witness on the way from the airport to the city.

Lantau island is full of nature. Good hiking trails and pristine beaches (no kidding).

Lantau island has a large South Asian community, and thus there are good Indian restaurants. But in the interest of time, the breakfast had to be at Fairwood...

Lunch was much better. And free as well! Enjoyed conversation with scholars from Singapore, India and China attending the conference.

I will write a separate post about the conference itself later. I just want to get done with all the photos I took first, before years pass.

City U not only is connected to a mall, the university campus (can it be called so?) itself looks like a mall, with indoor concourses and escalators and stuff.

The tuition fee is very expensive, so the most students are from affluent families in mainland China. Most courses are monolingual in English.

The Christmas tree of the mall connected to the City U. Reminded me of SM in Manila.

I love all the road signs in Hong Kong. So clear and systematic. Not many cities in the world do a better job.

My usual stop in Tsim Sha Tsui when I don't have time to attend mass in the morning. They use the same missal as in the Philippines.

I forgot to bring my phone on this day, but saved by the free phone at Mariner's Club and the fact that I remembered the phone number of Alan, which has not changed since I first met him in my student days.

The Christmas decoration at Heritage 1881. Most people there were rich tourists from mainland China.

My usual postcard shot from Star Ferry Pier.

Sat on the wrong side of Star Ferry, on the way to Wanchai to meet up with Alan.

This is the classy mall in which we celebrated Alan's mother's birthday. But even in such posh places, you see some Sanrio characters. That's Hong Kong.

Late night, Alan and I stuffed ourselves at Fat Kei.

Very nice, but also quite expensive compared with Taiwan standards. Not many people would pay NT$200 for dessert alone except for tourists. But this wasn't a touristy place.