thetrekkingmcgillian

May 1 - I was shocked to get a text on my phone from Lars saying, “Bin Laden is dead.” Osama Bin Laden has finally been found and killed. Parties in front of the white house and on many university campuses. Why do I bring this up? A funny incidence with my finance professor. For some reason, my CRAZYY finance prof was discussing Bin Laden’s death. Then he starts discussing terrorism and Muslims. “These muslims, all of them, they just go and shoot everybody, everybody… And then they make sure to shoot themselves after too!” Repeated 2 times. “They just attach bombs to themselves and blow up everyone. All the muslims. I don’t know why.” This prof is just completely unprofessional. I have no other words. Funny side note: One time when he was showing us ... read more

FUNNIEST NIGHT IN HK! Definitely the funniest night I’ve had in Hong Kong. And it’s a story for me to remember, a recollection for myself. Don’t even bother reading it yourselves, it will just sound strange and you won’t understand it whatsoever. Save the time, and skip this entry. It all began with a predrink, just Dibs and I in his Hall I room. Making jokes, watching videos, having some convos, all while shotting 29% cheap Chinese vodka from TASTE. Our objective was to pick up Joel and his twin from their hotel in East TST and then get to the Jazz bar in time to meet the rest of the boys. Although I was also wrong, we were told to get off at the wrong MTR station. We were supposed to transfer to another train ... read more

May 5- Farewell Dinner for all the business exchange students was very nice. We STUFFED ourselves with the delicious buffet dinner and played a few games. I got an honorary mention for being on the yearbook committee, even though I did nothing for it. The yearbooks were distributed and looked rather decent! I dragged my bloated stomach out of the restaurant a little early with a few friends as it is Cinqo De Mayooo, and we wanted to celebrate it. Tequila shots, coronas, mexican music, and tacos... happy hour all night at Tequila Jack's in TST. When we arrived there we saw that there were no mexicans and they weren't even playing mexican music. I requested mexican music and we started our tequila shots, lime, and salt. We all had a great time together, but after ... read more

April 25: I met up with Mike Conrad and Sarah Chow, friends from McGill, who are visiting HK… it’s their last day! Kathleen and her boyfriend joined us as well. We got a dim sum breakfast at a nice restaurant. We began by ordering the typical shrimp dumplings, custard dim sum, chicken with mushroom and rice… and then we started to get a little creative. We ordered chicken feet, ox tongue, and ox tendons. The chicken feet is all skin and bone, I don’t understand how people can actually like it. The ox tendon was just like cartilage… it looks and feels like you’re eating fat. The ox tongue was actually pretty good! April 26: I got all of my exams back today! Let’s start with the worst, and make our way to the best. Finance, ... read more

Last day in Thailand :(. Our last delicious museli fruit & yogurt + iced coffee from the woman next door. It’s sooo filling, sooo fresh, and sooo good… our group signature dish! I asked the tuk-tuk driver in front of our hostel if he could take us around for the day. I told him that we needed a red taxi bc we have to drive up the mountain to the temple and he said he has one that he’ll go get. 25 minutes later he returns with a red, run-down, stick-shift, 2-door car. Hilariousss! The cabby’s name was David, and he was a nice guy. Didn’t speak much English, but he was polite and tried to add in a few useless sentences here and there. He had make up above his eyes and his hair was ... read more

An extra early morning it was today, we couldn’t even get any museli for breakfast :( . We left at 7:00 AM for a FULL day trip to Chiang Rai province, even further north than Chiang Mai. This was basically the trip that the old Australian woman at the airport recommended organized by a company tour. I had a feeling I knew what the tour was going to be like… and I was right. We started in the car for 1.5 hours and go to a hot springs, extremely touristy and commercialized. Water from the ground, 120 degrees! After another 1 hour drive, we got to the white-silver temple, Wat Rong Khun, a modern temple made all in white and white glass. Still a work-in-progress, the temple began construction 14 years ago by an artist, Chalermchai ... read more

A large tub of the most fantastic and cheapest museli fruit and yogurt I have had thus far for breakfast (all the most amazing fruits) made by a woman in the market next door to the hostel, we were stuff on the pickup truck taxi that picked us up for our day trip to Baan Chang, literally meaning Elephant Home, but more appropriately, Elephant Camp. We would be spending the day with the elephants, learning how to ride them, feeding them, and cleaning them. Woody was our guide and we got to know him a little bit on the long ride to the Baan Chang. 34 years old, he told us about how he has 4 jobs—farming, MuayThai (Thai boxing), elephant training, and trekking. He was in the army for 1.5 years. Apparently, the way it ... read more

Finally arrived to Don Sac, safely thank gosh. After hearing the stories of sinking ferries in Vietnam and in some other Asian countries, we were happy to be alive after our ferry ride, overjoyed that our didn't sink while we were sleeping. A small pick-up truck car was waiting for us. The ferry was almost an hour early, but the car drove us and 2 other guys to a small restaurant for us to wait at. We got some deliciously fresh tuna sandwiches, made with care and love by the staff person! Alexa, Juliette, and I put our heads down on the table, our bags between our legs and just slept for an hour or so. Then another car picked us up and dropped us off at a second, even more dodgy restaurant. No longer any ... read more

3 hours later I was up and awake, the bottom of my foot hurting due to a cut; max with the same cut on his foot, Juliette with a toe nail hit off, large with a stubbed big toe, and alexa with an ear infection. I soon discovered my eye infection… in both of my eyes. I must have rubbed them a lot during the full moon party due to the neon paint over my eyes. My eyes were red and had tons of green excretions coming out of them allll day long. When I woke up in the morning, one of my eyes was literally stuck shut by all the hardend guck excretions from my eye. Alexa had some stuff from the pharmacy that I started to use, helped a bit! The least important thing ... read more

An early wake-up accompanied by a lovely museli with fruit and yogurt at Jaya + an ice coffee, what a lovely morning. We all have to leave our flip flops outside the hostel to keep the hostel somewhat cleaner. Let me put it this way: My flip flops weren’t anywhere near where I left them the night before… I had no choice but to just use someone else’s’ then :S . I wanted to shave before going to the beach today… I got my shaver out of my toiletry bag, found an outlet, plugged it in, only to find that one of the 3 circles is messed up! How could this have happened, it had the case on it. I opened the shaver up and everything fell apart. My shaver is BROKEN!!! :( :( . We ... read more