I am terrible at keeping a blog

First, and most importantly, you need to listen to this song. :) It is amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPHqf9qw-GU&feature=channel_page

And secondly, I am just going to update you as much as I can about the past 2 months because that is about how long it has been since I posted a message.

I started practicing with the Hong Kong Water Polo club. We have practices 3 times a week and sometimes scrimmages on Saturdays. The level of play isn't too high but they are all very strong swimmers. There is one kid named Andrew, he looks 20 at least but is only 17 and he is quite strong, next year he will be a senior, and I think he has a promising future in either swimming or water polo. His 100 free long course is under a :55. Quite fast.

I am also playing quite a bit of volleyball, which is very fun. I am getting much better. I can spike on a 243cm net, which is International and College height. I just need to work on my form. There are some good players here. Right now I am sitting in a coffeshop on campus called "Pacific Coffee Company" it is this super-Western coffee chain in HK and China. It is inspired by Seattle type coffee places. It's a nice place to get things done in.

I have visited quite a few places. I still didn't write about the Phillipines. I took a week long trip to the Phillipines. It was quite fun, but I got very sick and ended up in the hospital. A hospital run by nuns of course. But they were very nice and didn't pray for me or anything so that was good. I had a parasite. But I am better now. I also traveled to Macau, which is a city about 2 hours boat ride from here. It is the Las Vegas of Asia and actually makes more money every year than Las Vegas does. I did not gamble at all there but have been playing poker once in a while with some other exchange students. I win most of the time. :)

I am learning some cantonese, which I would write to you in right now, but I can't write or understand any of the characters. Learning the spoken language and written language are two completely different and very difficult things.

My other classes are going well as well. I just finished a presentation of Death Rituals of Emperors in Imperial China and a paper on Taoism and Confucionism. I am working on a presentation due this week about Homosexuality in Modern China.

I love House music. And I can now tell a difference between house music and techno music. I am learning the differences between techno, trance, minimalist, jump, hardstyle and electronica.

This morning I just applied for my visa to mainland China. I should be getting it by the end of the week and hopefully I received a multiple entry. There are three different kinds of visa's: single, double, and multiple entry. With single and double you can only go into the mainland that number of times but with multiple you can go as often as you want. I hope to get the multiple, but usually only HK residents can receive it. I also pay about twice as much as the Europeans for the Visa. Message to the US government and travel embassy people: lower your price for Chinese to get US visa's and then they will lower their price too. (hopefully). Yvan, Julia, and I are going to Beijing, Shanghia, and Xi'an during our easter break which is the second week of April. I'm excited. :)

Let me know if you have any questions.

Love, Sam