I've made it to hong kong.
At 7:15AM when my plane landed it was 90 degrees and drizzling.

I spent the day walking up and down Nathan Road (imagine Broadway, but lined with Banyan trees), looking into shops and just reveling in the locale.
Then I took the ferry across the bay to Hong Kong island proper. I walked through the city (imagine Manhattan, but with a rainforest mountain in the middle, and slightly more asian people) and then took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak.
THere is a path that winds for 50 miles around the whole island; I walked for a while down this path until it started pouring rain (I could actually see teh squall coming across the bay from Kowloon).

I managed, in the evening, too meet up with two other people from Harvard. So while there's still confusion about where we're going (let's just say Harvard deans are now telling the program that if they send us to a leper camp the shit will hit the fan) at least I have people to stay with.

More to say later.

Leaving in 12 hours

My flight to Hong Kong leaves in 12 hours.
I land at 7AM on Saturday.
I will spend at least one night in Kowloon, at the north end of the bay. I'm staying with a couple of other people from school. Then on Sunday I may be leaving for Yunnan or Guangxi province. There's been some confusion about what we will be doing for the first two weeks. I'm supposed to be teaching in large cities--but the Chinese government changed final exams for high school students.

What I do know is that I'm going to be gone from now until August 29th. I will be in China, Taiwan and Japan.

I'm excited and nervous.