Well folks, it’s Tad Light here again. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about anything, so you’ll have to forgive me if my blogger’s a little rusty. I meant to do a blog about a week or so ago! I remember I had it typed up and ready, it was actually probably my finest blog to date, but at some point when I was writing it our internet connection went down and stayed down for the rest of the day and all that I had written was lost. So here I am, making my triumphant return!!

My last blog was meant to preface this fact: I’m in Hong Kong right now and I’m attending a small liberal arts school – Lingnan University. I’ve been here for nearly a week now and it’s going alright so far. I’m not gonna lie to you folks, the adjustment has been rather hard for me. Really, the difficulty of the adjustment hasn’t been due to the cultural differences – people have been extremely nice and helpful to me over here (and from this experience I’m determined to do the same to anyone visiting the US, because it means a lot). The difficulty has come just knowing how far away my active support system is. It’d be hard to just pick up and leave your family, friends, lady, and comfort zone in general, wouldn’t you agree? Well that’s what I’ve been going through. I thought I was going to be able to handle it a lot better, but I was just being delusional or something; I’m not immune to emotional distress. Luckily though I’ve been able to have strong communication with my family, friends, and lady while I’ve been here so far. So that’s helped.
I didn’t even mention the physical stress of it all, but since the time change from home to here is 12 hours forward I had to turn nocturnal, more or less. hahaha

But anyway, the adjustment is underway and after some time I’ll be straight. In the short time that I’ve been in Hong Kong I’ve had some time to get out a little bit and see some things thanks to the orientation programs led by the Office of International and Mainland Students. Sometimes I complain about the stuff I have to do around here, but it’s good that I have to do some of that stuff, or else there’d be a risk of me turning my dorm room into a prison I built for myself. As I was saying, I’ve had a chance to see some stuff. Like Victoria Peak for example, which offers a beautiful view of the Hong Kong skyline. Here’s a picture of me overlooking the scene there. Notice the orange and green bracelets on my wrist there. Oh yeah…..representing 4-H worldwide baby. I got that orange one at OMC, where I first started my blogging career. hahaha

I tell you what, I’d better get some SWEET feedback on these pictures because I had to spend some time dealing with this blog thing getting it to where they’d show up. Hey moderators, might it be possible sometime to directly insert an image?

Well America, I just want to let you know that from time to time I intend to use this blog as a sort of journal of my adventures here in Hong Kong. I can’t be sure of how often I’ll be able to blog, but I imagine I’ll be able to do it with rather good frequency. I’ll try to provide everyone with entertaining accounts of my experiences here as well as telling about all the subtleties of HK society. For example, I went to McDonald’s today for a small taste of home. I knew walking in that the food was gonna be different and I didn’t quite know what to expect. I got a crispy chicken filet combo, a #3 here. It cost roughly the equivalent of $2.90 I’d say. The portions were smaller, which was surprising and kind of disturbing. It was disturbing to me because the discretion between the portion sizes here and in the US was HUGE. I mean, my fries were probably comparable to a small fry in the US, if that. No wonder we’re a fat nation. Anyway, the sandwich was terrible. The fries were really good though. How how for good fries though.

I think that’s all for now. I’ll be in touch. If anyone’s got any questions, feel free to leave them in comments.
Peace!

-Tad “Mr. International” Light