Transfer to Hong Kong University (HKUST) and activities during the free Sunday

By Kevin Sin July 22, 2018 Discover Flowlin project

Departure from Shenzhen and arrival at HKUST

Saturday, we had to transfer from Shenzhen to Hong Kong. For this, we had the meet up at 10am in the lobby of the hotel. For some people it was difficult because of Friday night šŸ˜‰ To leave the Marco Polo hotel, we had two minibuses for 30 people and luggages. It was a bit tight but nonetheless funny anyway. After waiting at the two customs, one for leaving China, and one to enter in Hong Kong, we took the subway. The subway doesn’t serve the university directly so we finished the journey by bus. We arrived just before noon so we just dropped our luggage and went to lunch inside the campus. The rest of the weekend was free so every team did different things.

The campus is quite big and just in front of the ocean. The beachfront didn’t seem that hospitable, so a team tried to go to the swimming pool on campus, however the pool access is not easy as we do not own a student card from HKUST.

Journey to Lantau Island: Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery

The CORE Team split a bit. One of them had to get a rest so he just slept the whole afternoon. Another one went to a trip around the Hong Kong city. The four others played cards in the common room. For the evening, they met all of them to the Manakamana Nepali Restaurant, an indian restaurant in the center if the city. As they were five taking a taxi would be too expensive and no Uber was okay to come to HKUST so they decided to move using the public transportation. The restaurant was quite good as all the indian restaurants they tried before and came back to the university at 10pm and finished the evening with a small informal meeting in of the room.

Sunday, they decided to visit the Big Buddha. They left in the morning the university for an one hour and a half of travel to the other side of the island. We had to take a cable car for 210HK$ but was worth it. At the top of the hill they observed the big statue, a monastery, and an abandoned village that looked like a scene from an apocalypse movie and then they ate in a really good vegetarian restaurant. On the way back, we stopped in the center of the city and we fell in the street where was the beer festival.

 

Hiking at dragonā€™s back

Another part of the CHIC group took the opportunity of the free Sunday to hike around Hong Kong beautiful nature. We left HKUST at 7 am and went to the Dragonā€™s back. The start of the hiking was on one side of the mountain then it is necessary to go up to the summit which is at 285m of altitude then to go down on the other flank of the mountain. The arrival of the walk arrives on a small village where one can get food and water and, more importantly, on the ā€œ big waveā€ beach to refresh oneself. However the waves were not so big … the beach was beautiful though.

In the middle of the afternoon, the group that went on the hike took a little rest after this intense trip in preparation for the last week of the CHIC. But also to train for the next and last pitches at Brinc.io, maker-spaces and HKUST.

Boat trip to the trio beach

A third group of CHIC students (who get up after midday…=))went to the port and bought boat tickets to go swimming at Trio Beach which is located on the Sai Kung district. The trip was very short. They were many asiatic tourists, so they decided to go a bit further where there were fewer people. They then bath in the ocean.. Then they walked along they the rocks and some of them did a quick nap on a small raft.