Oh, hello Hong Kong

Day 5&6:  This is a long post, brace yourself.... Now unbrace. Last night we slept at Blaine's aunt's house in Stanley (without our trusty laptops), therefore today's much (self-)anticipated blog entry will cover both day 5 and 6 of our Hong Kong stumblings. Day 5: Probably ate my bodyweight in everything Breakfast cake The number one suprise of the morning was a celebration at the doctors' breakfast table because there is cake (Hong Kong loves cake; in my opinion it has the highest cake shop per capita density on earth). And so much of it. This is because sadly one of the nurses are leaving. The cake was delicious and I guiltily wished more nurses would plan to leave in the future. The cake was obviously shared with more ricey breakfast pieces, dim sum, dumplings and other funny delicious pastries. Note:  I may or may not have had the most cake of anybody at the table. And it may or may not have been ridiculously delicious. Cake, Hong ...

Day 4;  This morning we had rounds this morning at 8am sharp in the ENT wards. Saw some interesting cases, from tonsillectomy to quite a large number of these are cancer patients. After this, one of the Chinese doctors bought Blaine and me breakfast and we sat and chatted with them in the canteen. More riceyness! My bed last night. Only a real man can sleep in this. Breakfast: Pork Dim sum served Shanghai style. With some nice red foodliquid Something I learnt today Toiletpaper is replaced on Tuesdays, Toiletpaper Tuesdays. We had been assigned to take one of the professors flying through for a conference from South Africa on a tourist day. This was great for us and him. I persuaded Blaine to use a taxi to get to the hotel to pick Johan up because it was definitely over 10km far, which turned out to be a slight blunder because it turned out to be only a 2.3km walk. 27HK$ charge. We immediately set off to the MTR underground at Sha Tin station and set off...

Day 3:  Wake up and breakfast.! Great as always! It was ricey :) R9 later ;) Steamed rice rolls with sesame seeds, soy and ??liquid peanut butter?? So Blaine and I have been assigned to the Prince of Wales hospital, department of o torhinolaryngolog y . Our first task as medical elective students was to: Pass a test on handwashing We knew we had it in the bag because our varsity is all about  hand washing We didn't meet the requirements But that's  OK , because we're really good at washing hands (+sterile procedures) Prince of Wales Hospital, we stay in the quadrangular shaped building on the right Let's go watch a quick op After not passing our test, we were moved to a new room. Now both Blaine and I have beds, previously we had been playing Rock,Paper,Scissors to see who doesn't have to sleep on the mattress. We can log into some free WiFi outside on our balcony. People are very generous with their WiFi here because...

Day 2 After a 13 hour slumber, we woke at 10am to seize the day. After a ricey brunch in the hospital caf, the first thing on our agenda: go buy ties for the hospital introduction tomorrow. We saw in one of our city guides that the place for this was the Ladies Market. It sounded like a bunch of dresses and flowers but Blaine assured me that it was for everybody. It later clicked that it was named as such because all the market stall clerks were female. Ironically  Tai Wai station is where we had to climb off to find ties. This market street is probably 1km long  At the sight of the sheer size and height of the market, I fell into market mode – wanting to buy every Angry Bird shaped plushy for my dad. Blaine kept me sane, thankfully. My first haggle was a fail, where a saleswoman got 120HK$ out of me for 4 skinny ties, a price that Blaine assured me would have gone for 5$ per tie. Life is lived through your mistakes. My 2nd haggling attempt succeeded when I b...