Mid terms, Partiels, Izpiti!!!

This week and the next are exam week. Everybody is stressed, exept for my roomate who was gone for 12 days in Tibet and just came back in the middle of the exam period. I am doing pretty good up to now. I had 3 exams and have 2 more left next week. I smell like my room , I obviously stay too much in it!!! I still swim often enough and keep myself fit like a bulgarian olympic champion.



The routine is pretty fixed now. I started shoping for what I eat instead of going to the restaurant all the time. It comes out a little cheaper but it is not the main reason. I just want to do things differently!

I entered a team accounting competition with my kazakh friend, Anvar Zhumagali. We are sure not to win since we have exams and enteredthe event at the last moment. But the case cracking challenge is interesting and brings good analytical experience. The paper is due in two days and I started working on it yesterday hoping we will do fine since our 2 other team members do not have any input in the project besides having their names on the presentation page!

Veselin Topalov became world champion in chess this week!!! This is beautiful, Bulgarians are going to rule the world pretty soon. Until then I will get the same story from my roomate: "You see Boyan, in the beggining there was France.........so that is why we are the one and only". As for me, I have the flag in my room and everybody knows that in fact Bulgaria was there first!! ha ha

Physiotherapy!!!

While going to the physiotherapist this week, I couldn’t but notice the beautiful scenery on the way there. I take the minibus number 11 to get to the Po Lam MTR station. The whole 20 minutes route is in between some small hills that contrast with the incredibly high residential buildings. These buildings remind me very much of the “Panel” blocks we have in Bulgaria. They have been built high, compact and cheap so that they can house many people. The view is so familiar that I am able to feel home for a couple of seconds sometimes.



The final stop is the Metro City Plaza II and III. They are huge commercial centers at the bottom of two huge residential plazas. Hong Kong is full of malls and shops and street sellers of any kind. The small nature of the city makes it profitable to open shops since many customers pass by at all times. The situation is the same in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the two closest Special economic zones in the mainland. Every week-end or holiday, people eagerly direct their whole families into the shopping centers which is part of the reason why the import/export environment in Hong Kong seems to be a very lucrative model.


This is a view from the entrance of my hall

Anyways, once at the physiotherapist’s clinic, I was informed the session would be all about Chinese medicine. He introduced me to Chinese cupping, which is called ventuza, in Bulgarian and Ventouse in French. The principle is to light up a fire inside a cup so that the air is consumed and immediately stick the cup to the skin so that it sucks the skin inside. The inward pressure exerted is very beneficial since it concentrates the blood pressure where needed and it is a good way to stretch the muscles. But while the doctor was moving the cup on my back I felt like I was dying. He did warn me about 9 times beforehand to tell me it is going to be extremely painful, but I kind of neglected the possibility that it might be so intense. I am stuck with 8 huge round shaped bruises on my back and leg now. Hope it will help me!!!!

Clubs!!!

I have joined 2 clubs in the university. The first is the Red dragon club. We basically gather up every Thursday from 6 to 8 pm and we play Mahjong. This is a very typical Chinese gambling game. The reason why we are not called “Mahjong Club” is because the connotation is bad. They see real players as loud, drunk people who only play for the money. But the club I am in is organized so that we can have fun with a typical local game. I am the only foreigner in it even though Simon, the French dude I happen to live with, dropped by last time.

The second one is a Spanish club. We gather on Friday night to basically practice our skills. There are some people that know nothing of Spanish and there are some natives and fluent speakers. I am in between the low to intermediate category. I hang out with the natives, especially with a very sympathetic MBA student named Julian. I understand practically everything that is said, but answering would need a little more practice.



During the whole night we speak, order food, drink wine and we nicely end the whole evening with an authentic Spanish movie. Last week we saw the “Mar a dentro” or “The sea inside”. Even if I had seen it previously, I still think it is the best movie I have seen this year. Spanish movie are very deep. My passion for them started with the Almodovar brothers, which many of you probably know already!!!

Giant Buddha!!!

This Saturday I went on Lantau island (abut 1 hour and a half from the university.) to see the Biggest sitting outdoor statue of Buddha in the world. The statue is named "Tian Tan Buddha" because its base is a model of Tian Tan, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. It is one of the five large Buddha statues in China. The Giant Buddha statue sits peacefully on a lotus throne on top of a three-platform altar. It is surrounded by eight smaller bronze statues representing gods or immortals.



We had to pay 23HKD to climb the 268 steps that lead to it. It was worth the price only once we understood that we can have a plate of noodles, desert and a drink for free at the neighboring Po Lin monastery. The place is pretty commercialized since the construction of the Buddha was achieved in 1993. But it was all worth it since I got the privilege to see about 100 resident monks and we saluted with a good 5 of them.