The Blog of Jasmine Sadler

Philippines February 20, 2009

I’m back in my dorm after a weekend vacation to the Philippines.  It was a pretty nice trip.  However, the weather kind of forced us to change our plans in the middle of the day.  The first day, we just walked the beach with water coming up to our knees so we could have all day Saturday to lay in the sunshine and play in the water.  However, right as we lather on the sunscreen and open our door, it’s pouring rain.  So, we went to eat while we waited for it to stop.  Then, we realized that we didn’t want to waste a whole day waiting.  We end up taking a boat tour with this guy, Joe, that we had met the day before.

He was really cool and took us around the island of Boracay to a nice snorkeling spot.  I actually got in the water and it was so beautiful to see all of the fish down there.  And luckily (or not) Joe brought some bread out there with us.  We broke the bread up and hundreds of fish came up to us.  There was a point when he threw a whole piece of bread in there for me to break up, but before I could get it, all the fish were already on it.  So I tried to pick it up, and it felt like they were trying to eat my hand off!!  but I still have it, don’t worry.

Later that night, we ran into some American guys that we me at the airport on the way.  They requested that we have a ‘San Miguel’ beer (brewed in the Philippines) with them.  One of them is married to a lady from here and I guess they had another girl tagging along for his brother.  Unfortunately, we saw a lot of couples like that.  As we were eating at the delicious buffet, we saw what looked like a lady with a European man and her 16ish year old daughter for his brother.  It was really disgusting for me to see that.  I felt like I wanted to rescue her and just have her come hang out with us.

After we took the rocky ferry back from the island and an airplane to the mainland, we explored the city of Manila.  We spent a lot of time just observing the culture and the remainder of the time at a historical museum.  Right before our flight, we took these little jeep-buggys to the Mall of Asia, which was really huge.  It had an ice skating rink that snowed every 15 minutes or so.

It was a really nice trip and I’m glad that I went.  It was great to see a white sand beach, but I probably wouldn’t go back again.  There is still so much to see in the world and honestly I wasn’t too impressed.  However, if you are ever on this side of the world, it is definitely something to check out.

Cultural Differences already noticed February 8, 2009

I just started class last week and I have an American professor who is hear for a year to teach the B-school kids something on ethics.  I can tell he wants to teach like profs at home, but he has even admitted to me that he can’t.  1. he can’t bring up a topic and have everyone divide into groups and 2. he won’t ask the class questions.  Maybe it’s a cultural difference, but a lot of the local kids just feel this urge to talk in class.  Usually it isn’t a low murmur either, it’s really disruptive.  So now I usually choose to sit in the front so I can hear amongst the talking.  However, it has been admitted to him by a student (through email) that when he stops talking, the class stops talking and that no one likes to stand out.  For that reason, when he asks questions, he’ll stop in the middle of them and be like “well you all won’t answer anyway” or we can’t break up into little subgroups because they won’t discuss at all.

Most sources said it wouldn’t be too difficult to find people that spoke English in Hong Kong, but oh it’s a struggle.  I feel kind of like I discriminate when I need directions and I’m trying to find someone on the street that speaks English.  We usually resort to the youngish 20-30 year olds that look like they are in hip and educated.  It usually proves to work, but sometimes we still get rejected.  Not really sure if: 1. they don’t know the location we’re talking about, 2. really don’t speak English, or 3. just really don’t want to help us.

I just thought this was funny

There is such an emphasis on exercise and being fit.  Even during our orientation, there was an entire segment on how to work out and where and all the extra details.  Along with that, the food never really fills me up!, which is quite irritating.  On a positive note, I have found a great deal of places that serve ‘American cuisine’ usually meaning delicious cheeseburgers, french fries, pizza, lasagna, omelettes and deli sandwiches.

Eating Spaghetti with Chopsticks

For some reason, the horse racetracks are such a big deal.  I think it’s because gambling in any other form is illegal in HK so everybody goes to the races to give away their money.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of fun, but not nearly as big of a deal as all the locals make it.  They have newspapers printed with stats and probability and it seemed like everyone studied that backwards and forwards.

At the track

Go 8!!

It’s not too bad though.  Nothing that I can’t deal with for the next couple of months.

My first –from the other side

So I know I should have written this one long ago.  I’ve been in Hong Kong for 2 whole weeks now and have barely talked to anyone from home let alone give an update.  I think my main rationale is because I’ve been surprisingly keeping up with my journal entries.  I think these have been the most eventful consecutive two weeks that I have experienced.  I didn’t really believe the director of the program when she said that I would have a roller coaster of emotions.  I started off in Arizona with the boyfriend where I was really enjoying, my time, the weather and his company.  My last two days there, we went snowboarding with some members of his family.  I get home at like 2am Monday morning knowing that I have to unpack, repack, get my hair done, handle school and financial business and visit a lot of people before my flight leaves early Wednesday morning.  I get through all that, then I am here.

The 16 hour flight wasn’t as long as it seemed, but it was definitely long, especially when I had a window seat and I kept wanting to get up to stretch my legs, but out of courtesy waited until the old couple next to me got up to go to the restroom or wherever.  The food wasn’t too bad: chicken teriyaki in noodles, ramen noodles, and some lasagna.  I wrote most of my family and friends an email in the airport and finished setting up Skype so I could call them.

I’m going to do a quick run-through of some main highlights then maybe do a blog later that will go back in detail.  I’ve been on two tours of some cool places in the city where I met a lot of other exchange students.  I’ve gone to see “The Big Buddha” which was really cool because we had to take cable cars to get there over mountains and water.  Inside there was a museum on Buddha and some other cultural things.  I also went to Ocean Park, which is like their version of Sea World with big roller coasters and panda bears, but no Shamu.  There have been many different temples, churches and monasteries to visit especially during New Years.  That was also great because we got to see some of the traditions as well as the big parade and fireworks.  We’ve also done a lot of shopping and a lot of partying.  Surprisingly the clubs play some really great American music like Chris Brown, Neyo, Beyonce, Rihanna, etc.  I just got back from Macau last night.  We had to take a ferry to get there and they have a strip like Vegas.  There, we went to the Ventian Casino where we also saw a Cirque de Soleil show ‘Zaia’.

Everybody seems pretty cool, but for most it seems like they want to meet and please as many people as they can so it seems like they are just easy-going and will go along with the crowd even if they don’t want to.  I think I’ve pretty much found my crew that I will hang out with for most of my time here.  I have definitely been concentrating more on my studies than I thought I would, but it keeps my mind off other things and missing people too much.  We are supposed to be going to the Philippines this weekend!!  I will try to do more of a weekly update; until next time.