Ley ho from Hong Kong

Hello everyone,

I'm safely in Hong Kong and finally settled. I arrived on Sunday to find out that the place that I'm staying at messed up my reservations and didn't leave a set of keys for me with the security guard. Luckily I printed out a copy of my communications with the office and the guard let me put my stuff in the room. I ended up staying at my grandmother's that night because the next morning I had to go get my Chinese visa at the office closer to her house. Even though Hong Kong is a relatively small island area, it still takes a while to get anywhere. It took me a little over an hour to get from HKU to my grandmother's house. I got to have dinner with my maternal family still in Hong Kong so that was really nice.

Today I went to the Department of Anatomy to start my work. My hosts spent the whole day showing me around and going over the procedures and protocols so I get to start work tomorrow. The department is really nice and I'll be working in the gross anatomy lab which doesn't smell at all!

I haven't taken any pictures of Hong Kong yet, but I will soon. I'll include some of my remaining Taiwan pictures with this post and I'll talk to you soon!

So here we begin with the Asian obsession with Hello Kitty. This is an actual Hello Kitty gate at Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei.
This is a Hello Kitty Sweets store in Taipei where they have Hello Kitty shaped hamburgers.
This is the stained glass ceiling at the Taiwan National Museum. It was a pretty small but fascinating museum.
This is outside the National History Museum and the site of those nasty midges that bit me.
Here's a picture of the food at a good tonkatsu (Japanese fried pork cutlet) place in Taipei. There was weirdly a pig outside the restaurant which I felt a little guilty about eating pork inside the restaurant.
Here's a picture of a famous 100+ year noodle restaurant.
Here's a picture of people making Din Ta Feng's famous xiao long bao (dumplings with soup).
Here's a picture of one of the famous Maokong Tea plantations where they grow Taiwan tea.
So that's it for now. I'll write more soon.

Last Day in Taiwan

Hi all,

It's been a hectic two weeks and my last day here has been pretty relaxing. However I discovered a little biting insect that won't stop pestering me so I have over 50 bites from these tiny biting midges and they itch like hell.

Tomorrow I have a 6AM flight to Hong Kong, then I will be collecting data for 3 weeks there and my parents arrive after that.

This past week my aunt and cousin came to Taipei and we went around to see the sights. I have lots of pictures of our adventures, so I'll post some here now. Here's a picture of the MRT here in Taipei. It's really clean and cheap!
Right before they came, I went to visit the Miniatures Museum of Taiwan and took a bunch of pictures. Here are some pictures of the museum.


Here's a picture of us at a Crab Shabu Shabu restaurant, which was yummy and a lot of food.We also went to Taipei 101 one of the tallest buildings in the world.
We also hit of Yeliu Geological Park, where there are all these interesting rock formations that were formed by geological processes. This is one of two dogs kissing, can you see it?
This is the famous rock formation everyone comes to see. It's called the queen's head. The park is next to the water, so I thought I would take a picture of the park.
Here's me on a boat on the way back from the Museum of Archaeology.
Here's the first exhibit in the museum of archaeology.
Here's me in front of the museum.
After sightseeing, we would often go to night markets and get some yummy food.
This is us in front of the National Palace Museum. It's one of the alrgest museums in Taiwan.

I have more pictures to post but I'll do it when I arrive in Hong Kong. Talk to you all then!