Mong Kok, Hong Kong on a Monday afternoon before rush hour. And I just climbed out of a 4×2.5 elevator with approximately 20 other people. I only had to do it once, and I was ‘this‘ close to losing it.

Hemingway’s By The Bay. Location: D-Deck, Discovery Bay, Lantau Island. The best nachos, great bartenders, and to my surprise not one person had read one of Hemingway’s works. I actually just read The Sun Also Rises, while I was there. I figured it was only fitting, not that I had anyone to discuss it with.

Pretty high end drink stop in Peng Chau. A very small island with a massive population, I believe it was something like 6,800 people lived on that island. Basically the most traditional Chinese village I’ve been to so far. By ‘traditional’ I mean, families farming and small shops, etc. It is NOT Hong Kong, that is certain.

Nightfall over Kowloon (where I live), but I’m standing on the Central side (where Victoria’s Peak is). The city is brighter at night. In this picture I was at the ferry docks. I have hundreds of pictures I want to upload on here but it takes way too long. SO - I’ll give you a few of the better ones. I just left Hemingway’s and took a ferry over to Central then took the MTR to Kowloon Tong then walk through Festival Walk then walked past bus station up some stairs, around the corner, down some stairs, and vu-ah la.

SHARP PEAK - 30 km hike from the start of Stage 2 MacLehose Trail. This was easily the most amazing hike I’ve ever taken in my life. I will actually do something along the lines of this again shortly. This picture was taken when we were almost to the top of the peak (yes, the pointy tall one). We left to meet at the MTR at 8:30 am and I walked into my bedroom at 9:45 pm. There was actually a point in time where I was fairly certain I was going to never make it home and quite possibly die out there. The trail NEVER ended, but that was the part I liked most I guess. The views made you feel like you could ‘change the world’. Truly breathtaking.

Part of the hike to Sharp Peak. We were working out way down to the ocean/beach at this point. Hello Pacific! What better place to sit and catch a glimpse of everything than right on the edge. Beautiful.

The most remote beach in all of Hong Kong. You can only get there by taking one of the many hikes, such as the one we did that day, or by your half billion dollar yacht. Your choice. It has a flat, smooth profile, shallow waters yet theres enough surf. Amazing - Have I mentioned I love Hong Kong?

Resting. It had been a long day.

Resting. Again. Don’t judge, I had nine bottles of water and never once had to go to the bathroom. I ate a warm cheese sandwich, so bread cheese half melted and bread. My iPod died, that was devastating. I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to just…rest.

I also have been exploring, I’m really familiar with TST and Mongkok and Central. Now I’m moving to the outlying islands. There are some even MORE exciting and beautiful sights and places to go and see and things to do and learn. Too much to do in just two months. But I have my corals! SO excited. 6 Lobophytum depressum , 2 large samples and 4 smaller samples. Instead of the 8 tanks, because the divers were only able to get 6 samples, I’ve now re-organized. 4 tanks, 2 filters in each tank (increasing water movement), 2 tanks with 1 large sample, 2 tanks with 2 small samples each. There now on a 12 hour light, 12 hour dark cycle, salinity is almost stabilized 2 tanks are a bit high about 2 ppt too high. So I’ve been adding fresh non-chlorinated water to decrease in 2 tanks but needed to add fresh seawater to the other 2 tanks. Stopped filters for about 10 minutes today to clean the green/brown algae out. Nutrient levels are still high but there isn’t much that can be done. We’re trying to keep the environment as natural as possible. Temperatures are only supposed to fluctuate 1-2 degrees C at the very most. 2 tanks are approximately 26 C which is acceptable, but the other 2 are approximately 27-28 C which is getting rather high. pH is stable, 8.1, and chemical concentrations are stable. I will not be able to conduct physical measurements until Friday so for now I tend to their every need (smile).

It has been thunder-storming all day today - so that influenced me to take a run. It may not seem logical to you, but lets take a minute and asses the situation as it really is. 32 C on a low day, 78% humidity on a low day, 100 % pollution/car fumes/2nd hand smoke….. I went for a run in the rain.

I’ve been reading Sun Jin’s paper (he’s getting it published) to correct any spelling errors or grammar in his English. I’m almost through and as I figured, it is just about perfect. Spelling,grammar, set up, the whole 9. His research is so in depth and so interesting. I cannot wait to see his final results.

Seawater is a fabulous conductor. Take caution when working closely with electricity and seawater.

Soon,

Nikki

All of which are unique and beautiful in their own way. The parks that I have visited so far include High Island, Sharp Island, and the Ung Kong Group. The Ung Kong Group consists of Wang Chau, Bluff Island, and Basalt Island which all have columnar jointed volcanic rocks. Because of location, intense wave and wind erosion takes place, and the Ung Kong Group has some magnificent landforms such as sea caves, sea arches and steep cliffs. Wang Chau was the smallest of the islands that I visited just 80 meters above sea level and 500 meters wide. There was an amazing sea cliff on the Northern side of the island. Basalt Island had a lot of sea stacks, island reefs, and wave cut bays, it was absolutely beautiful. Bluff Island is a great place to go if you want to study rhyolite with a large sea cave that passes directly through the island, it is big enough for small boats to sail through. We did not get to, obviously, there were 40 of us on this boat. I don’t believe I mentioned it earlier, but Paul, my lab mate got an invite from a chemistry professor here at HKBU and she in turn invited me to join. It was an amazing trip and I got to see some of the most breathtaking geological formations and ate what I thought was amazing seafood. There was only a temple and a restaurant on this island that we stopped, the food was as fresh as it gets. We ate fresh scallops, flash fried octopus, crab, steamed fish, abalone, and a few other things I cannot even remember it all! It was delicious. The sangrias downstairs is in reference to the professor that invited us on the trip - she was a riot. We went with the entire chemistry department and their friends and families. They thought I was a professor and I went with it for the extent of the trip hah! Anyways, an amazing trip to say the least!

My other lab mate Sun Jin is working with some of the undergraduate students teaching them about the apple snail and it’s defense mechanisms. Shortly he is going to be doing some DNA sequencing and hopefully he’ll be allowed to let me observe along with the other students! A bit ago I helped him to check the juvenile snails which were all exposed to different concentrations of heavy metal. It was actually odd and this is what Sun Jin is trying to figure out; the juvenile snails were the most reactive to the low concentrations of copper. Their heart beats would almost diminish completely in 24 hours where the rest of the heavy metals used took more time and greater concentrations. Interesting. I just recently bought some soft coral to run preliminaries. I’ll do two 24 hour observational measurements, taken every 3 hours so LOTS of coffee and LOTS of shirts. I’ll be in the greenhouse as if it isn’t hot enough outside where there may be a breeze. Checking concentrations of chemicals in the water as well as temperature, pH, salinity, changing out the water constantly because the evaporation rates are exceedingly fast in the greenhouse, obviously. Then I’ll do the physical measurements - touch, contract, and measure. There are different techniques for different species and structures of corals. I’ll update as I go!

I have a million pictures that I took from the boat trip but here are a few. Now you can really understand what I am saying when I say truly amazing and beautiful geology & scenery in Hong Kong. Tomorrow I will be hiking the most famous mountain in all of Hong Kong & I’ll do the second portion of this blog when I get them loaded into the computer.

Until Then,
Nikki

….Continued

It is now JULY 4th in Hong Kong and I am in lab working. Today I cleaned the algae out of my tanks (which has to be done daily every day that I am working with them), I went to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) today to get 8 more jugs of fresh seawater because that has to be changed every other day. Took some pH, Temperature, salinity, and chemical concentration readings. Nutrient levels were a bit high causing the excess of green/brown algae, but that is fixable. Right now I have two species of soft coral in the tanks, but they were purchased from the Red Market or “Fish Market” in Mongkok to test water quality and make sure that when it is time for Lobophytum depressum they will survive. I got my underwater camera and materials prepared to run the experiment on the temporary soft corals and I will re-run it again later in the week. Hopefully Sun Jin (lab-mate) will let me know when he does the DNA sequencing so that I can observe/participate. Very interesting stuff.

I went to the Hong Kong Museum of History yesterday (July 3rd) and loved it. They had a small but interesting exhibit on the formation of Hong Kong over the last 400,000,000 years. So LOTS of Geology : ), fun stuff. Actually, I went on a 30 kilometer hike on Saturday and discovered that continuous exposure to sun despite the caliber of SPF you are wearing (130) will result in awful sunburns. So I was able to rock climb, hike, walk a breathtakingly beautiful beach (the most secluded and remote beach in all of Hong Kong) and then hike some more, found a freshwater stream coming from a waterfall further up the mountain. I am telling you, the city is amazing here, but there are some absolutely stunning views, you just have to get up higher in elevation. I’m going to post some more of the pictures in a separate blog, most likely tomorrow. So if you are following this, you’ll be able to see a part of what I was able to see on Saturday.

-Nikki

It is time for a DID YOU KNOW.

Did you know that it rains in Hong Kong- frequently. Weekly. Daily. Hourly. In mass quantities. It rains SO much in Hong Kong (especially during Typhoon season, so now) that the ‘umbrella’ becomes apart of your fashion statement. If your umbrella doesn’t match your outfit for the day you are totally not ‘IN’. Hah. Also, hold on to not only the handle of your umbrella BUT the actual top part as well. Tropical depression Kiama stole my umbrella today - needless to say.

Research - My research project is on it’s way. I’ve started all my tanks today. Got them cleaned, set up, bought filters at the Red Market in Mongkok (very cool place, pretty much anything you could ever want for extremely cheap- counting puppies, I was devastated. The also have hair ties which pretty much makes it the best place in HK) - on that note, don’t forget your hair ties at home because it’s almost as difficult as finding a CUP to buy. Anyways, the set up of the tanks was fairly straight forward, just very HOT in the greenhouse. And tropical depression Kiama was not letting up so my options were 90 (plus) degree greenhouse OR monsoons outside. Currently, I have four tanks running with fresh seawater and for the 10 gallon tanks (25 mL) of cultured bacteria were added to the circulating water, in the 20 gallon tank (50 mL) cultured bacteria was added. Tomorrow I will go to Sai Kung Pier via van and gather 8 more jugs of fresh seawater (I am not using reverse osmosis water because we’re trying to keep the corals environment as natural as possible) and then take it back to HKBU to the greenhouse and set up the other four tanks. I have 8 tanks total. Sunday Dr. Qiu planned a boat trip with the local fisherman (I’m not invited because I cannot speak Cantonese AND I’d take up room ha ha) so my lab mate Paul is going to take the boat trip and I’ll wait on the pier, then well bring the corals back to the greenhouse and I’ll set them up into their new temporary homes! That following week all of my experiments will start. Measurements and photographs will be taken. At some point I will figure out how to add photos to this blog & you can start to see what I am actually doing and seeing here in Hong Kong!

I was fortunate enough to witness one of my lab mates (Yanan) master defense presentation. She did great! How nerve-wracking. Poor girl, she thought I was going to go in and ask questions during the conversational portion of the presentation! Besides, her presentation was approximately 30 minutes and then it opened for questions in which one of the four individuals on her panel asked majority of them. She did her study the past 2 years on the Phylogeny of Polycheates in the NE-R of Hong Kong. Which is where my samples will be coming from. The NE-R of Hong Kong is the most “oceanic” if you will. The Pearl River pushes a lot of fresh water lowering salinity as well as increased sedimentation which all have negative affects on coral populations. Ultimately, the NE-R has more stable abiotic variables including salinity, temperatures, water clarity,etc. According to somewhat recent research (Fabricius & McCoy 2003) coral cover has declined in Hong Kong due to impaired coral recruitment and erosion by borers and sea urchins. Borers are agents of bioerosion that are located inside dead or live coral making it more susceptible to erosion (Fonseca et al. 2005) (Fonseca, A.C., Dean, H.K., Cortes, J., 2005). This causes azooxanthellate octocoral communities to be the dominant groups found on substrate below 5 meters deep. The octocoral communities include gorgonians and soft corals. These conditions make Hong Kong a favorable place to study soft corals amongst some of the more major reefs in the world, i.e Great Barrier Reef.

I’ll tell you more about my experiment when the observational & physical measurements actually start. It’ll be really interesting to see what the variability amongst the different measurement techniques turns out to be if any (even though I know there will be some variability already due to previous research). Manipulating their environmental conditions to see how that affects growth patterns/rates maybe even reproduction and mortality and comparing THAT to the variability between the observational and physical measurements to see WHICH holds the greatest and least variability and maybe giving some reasons as to WHY. Basically, I have a lot of work to do still! : ) Good stuff.

Still sitting in Charlie Brown Cafe - I’ll probably never leave. Where is the waiter? I want some apple cinnamon grande hot ‘mm goy’ (<- this is the not Cantonese spelling but the “english” spelling you’d see under the word to actually pronounce it properly…so mm goy… thank  you or please).

Soon Enough.

Each day is a gift and not a given right.

Music, food, studies, and boy the stories I have to tell. A few days ago Dr. Qiu asked if I would like to join some of his ‘elite’ undergraduate students to take a boat trip out for the annual Reef Check. Of course I took this opportunity to not only learn some more about the reefs of Hong Kong but also to see some more of the beauty that this region has to offer away from the big city. The group took out a two story boat (the boat was owned by a friend of Dr. Qiu), it was equipped with two flat screens, beds, three wet decks, two dry decks, a kitchen, fridge, freezer, tables, chairs, and a grill for the Chinese version of BBQ. We snorkeled while the professor’s and some of the local experts did dives into the reef to count fish population and check coral, both hard and soft. Then we were able to sit in the “dry deck” with booths and beautiful hardwood floors and a pull out movie screen. The man whose boat we were on was also a expert diver and professional photographer. He talked about the reefs while showing a slide show of his images from the past few years. If you think that the images you see in National Geographic or Discovery Channel are amazing, you have not seen this mans work yet. His photographs are purely for educational purposes but he takes some phenomenal photos. I’m in the process of trying to get his e-mail to see if he would allow me to have some. Even though the whole speech was in Cantonese I still understood just from the reaction of the crowd and the pictures that he took. In just two short years we were able to see the extreme visual changes that took place at just one small location of reef. At first there were just rocks with very small coral formations and no fish species. The next year the coral had almost doubled in size with fish, and that third year the coral was flourishing with several fish in comparison to the first years photographs. He also showed images of several plastic bottles resting on the ocean floor and fishermans nets with more than just turtles caught in them. I’m not sure that anybody or anything could get out of one of those nets. Very sad. But that is what the Reef Check is for, not only to check on the status of the local species of corals and fish, but to educate the youth about what is happening and what will happen if the steady increase in anthropogenic causes continues to rise. After letting anchor down the professors started up the grill and brought out a big pan of rice mixed with pork bones & some seasonings. They cooked ‘hotdogs’ , ‘chicken wings’, and flat sausage on the grills & had some lettuce. So their version of bbq, and it was very good. Actually sitting in the middle of this beautiful little bay area on a very nice boat eating chicken wings and rice after a day of swimming/snorkeling was the most relaxed I have been in a long time. The rock of a boat puts me to sleep instantly, it always has. Very relaxing. Anyways, after we ate we took a dingy to the shore and were able to walk around one of the very secluded beaches on that side of the island. I believe we were close to the New Territories, but don’t take my word for it. We walked across a rock path to one of the several Geo Parks in Hong Kong. That path wouldn’t be there under any other circumstance besides low tide. High tide is about 1.4 meters in that particular area so it covers the path to the Geo Park making it a tombolo.

Yesterday I tried a snack from Macau, I cannot remember what it is called but it was the most conflicting taste that I’ve ever experienced. It was equivalent to a sugar cookie on the outside with dried fibrous pork chunks on the inside. Because I love food and cannot resist to at least try things, I ate one. It was, like I said, a conflicting taste! Also, walking the streets of Mong Kok last night I ran into street performers. One man was shirtless and very sweaty so of course I went to see what was going on. Well he was actually in a state of deep concentration and ‘jumping’ landing with his back on shattered glass. I asked a local and I guess because the glass does not hurt him he is at a state of peace. This is supposed to be very beneficial. He was bleeding and had chunks of glass sticking out of his back but I guess it was not hurting him. Then were was another performer, he was an elder, wearing a white tank top fit for a 5 year old girl, bright pink fiesta style pants and singing karaoke in the streets. I fell in love. Needless to say, I stayed for a song. Amazing.

I helped one of my lab mates finish up some transects for a future project. Basically we cut 3 x 0.05 mm^2 300/300v PVC cable and marked it into sections by meters (1-30) with red tags, and in between each meter 50 cm with blue tags. This would basically constitute an underwater marker/measuring tape for a year long project. The idea is to nail the pvc into the sea floor and form a perimeter around the research area and every time a dive takes place the transects will serve as a marker & a measuring tape to see what and if any movement or activity has taken place. I also was able to observe as one of the students used the SEM or scanning electron microscope. This microscope is actually a really interesting machine. It uses electrons instead of light to form it’s images. It has a lot of advantages over a regular microscope, some including a larger depth of field allowing for more of a specimen to be in focus at one time. It has a much higher resolution so that closely spaced specimens can be magnified at much higher levels and also because electromagnets are used instead of lenses so we have the ability to better control the degree of magnification. And of course, the images are strikingly clear. You have to prepare samples completely differently than you would a regular microscope which is interesting in itself, you have to use something called a “sputter coater”. I won’t get into the whole process but basically it places a very thin layer of gold over a originally non-conductive sample making it conductive, because the SEM requires samples to be conductive. Anyways, hopefully I will get to use the SEM once or twice before the end of my stay!

For now,

To the right of my computer desk out my window is obviously tall buildings but there is also the landscape in the background. Every morning and night working at my desk I get to sit here and see that. In the short time that I have been in HK so far I’ve done several different things. A couple of the adventures so far that really have stuck include the hike up to the Garden after the stop at Victorias Peak. Did you know that the police man at the Tram station stands in a box still with no movement for the entire day - no a bead of sweat?! It is truly astonishing. It could be because he is made of wax but we won’t make any assumptions! From the garden sitting on the ledge you can look over the open water and see faint misty islands in the distance, that is what I call true serenity. I’d rather be no other place.

Has anyone heard of The Stanley Buzz? Let me know when it gets around to you - I’ll elaborate. I actually had the pleasure to meet the creator of The Stanley Buzz, very interesting stuff. The Dragon Boat Festivals in Hong Kong are a massive get together of boat racing teams, their fans, locals, food vendors, t-shirt vendors, fabulous beer, whole pizza - they don’t sell it by the slice if you’re ever here for the DBFs, and many other things. The Dragon Boat Festival is a celebration. (proceedings courtesy of chineseculture) Like other Chinese festivals, there is also a legend behind the festival. Qu Yuan served in the court of Emperor Huai during the Warring States (475 - 221 BC). He was a wise and erudite man. His ability and fight against corruption antagonized other court officials. They exerted their evil influence on the Emperor, so the Emperor gradually dismissed Qu Yuan and eventually exiled him. During his exile, Qu Yuan did not give up. He traveled extensively, taught and wrote about his ideas. His works, the Lament (Li Sao), the Nine Chapters (Jiu Zhang), and Wen tian, are masterpieces and invaluable for studying ancient Chinese culture. He saw the gradual decline of his mother country, the Chu State. And when he heard that the Chu State was defeated by the strong Qin State, he was so despaired that he ended his life by flinging himself into the Miluo River.Legend says after people heard he drowned, they were greatly dismayed. Fishermen raced to the spot in their boats to search for his body. Unable to find his body, people threw zongzi, eggs and other food into the river to feed fish, so hoped to salvage his body. Since then, people started to commemorate Qu Yuan through dragon boat races, eating zongzi and other activities, on the anniversary of his death, the 5th of the fifth month.

To make a long story short- The Dragon Boat Festivals are a great representation of deep past Chinese culture, but it is also by far much more than that. I will try to post a video of the festivities on this blog, no guarantees. Aside from all the fun sight seeing I’ve just figured out what my project will be while I am here and now I can get started on preliminaries at HKUSD a separate campus from where I am staying (At HKBU) and after I fabricate a semi-natural environment for the soft coral to survive in and I’m sure they will make it I will start the actual experiment at yet another spot called SWIMS. It is on the South East corner of the island way away from cell phone service or internet! I will have to re-fabricate that same environment in the out door tanks provided at SWIMS and stay to do 24 hour measurements as well as daily and nightly from day to day depending on what and when. It will be very exciting & will give me the opportunity to not only work with Hong Kong Baptist University but also two other universities and their facilities.

I’m currently reading a book by a Chinese author named Xinran. The novel is called Chinese Witness- Voices From A Silent Generation. She is a Chinese journalist who moved with her sun PanPan to Britain but still followed absolutely everything taking place in Mainland China, especially for the years after the “Mao Liberation” took place. Her special interests were in interviewing older generations that have lived through so much to see if they would open up and describe to the younger generations what really has been taking place in China. As Xinran says, it is very uncommon for the Chinese to open up and speak as individuals for many reasons, including that their vocabulary at times does not permit them to. They may only know how to answer political questions or questions that they were taught to answer growing up even if it wasn’t what they believed or thought. I’m far from finishing the book but I plan on keeping anybody updated on what it actually says. She does get some good interviews, even from Mao’s Chief Executive at the time - which is astonishing.

For Now,