Class of 2009
Major: Biology and Biotechnology, PreMed
Project Center: Hong Kong, China
Interactive Qualifying Project: Develop a list of alternative livelihoods re-employ a percentage of Hong Kong’s fishermen to help control over-fishing.
Shannon Brooks
February 4, 2008
We had our last weekend of going out the ports to survey the fishermen. Unfortunately, the weather was horrendous and we didn’t really get many surveys completed. On Friday, we had planned to go out to Lamma Island to conduct surveys. Lamma Island is a beautiful island about 3 km south of the main island. We went there once already when we first got to Hong Kong and we had an awesome day. But, the weather was so cold and rainy that our sponsor cancelled the trip. Hopefully the weather will get better and we can reschedule for some day soon. Saturday, we went to Tuen Mun (a port about an hour and a half away from where we live) to conduct surveys but the weather was so bad again that even all of the fishermen had gone home! Sunday, we went out to the island of Cheung Chau and we were able to get a few surveys and we had an awesome seafood lunch at one of the restaurants out on the island so at least we were able to get something done this weekend.
One of the most amazing and interesting things that the city of Hong Kong does is a free harborside lightshow. All of the skyscrapers that are located on the central side of the harbor on Hong Kong Island are designed with lights and lasers. At 8pm every night, the buildings light up in order and shine lasers into the sky so that people can watch the entire light show from the other side of the harbor. I had seen glimpses of the light show from the central side of the city but I had never watched the entire thing from the harbor front. The other night a group of us decided it was finally time to go watch it so we went down. It is a really awesome show and it is accompanied by music so that the lights shine in coordination with the beats. I hope that we can watch it a few more times before we leave!
A group of us decided that we really wanted to go out to watch the Superbowl since the Pats had played such an amazing season. We had gone out for a few of the playoff games that they showed by satellite over here and it was always really early in the morning because of the time difference. The kickoff was at 7:15 AM! We all got up at about 5:00 that morning and ordered taxis to be sure to get there in plenty of time for the game. I took the first of the three taxis so we got to Delaney’s at about quarter of six or so and the pub wasn’t even open yet so we went and grabbed some breakfast at MacDonald’s around the corner. Of the three taxis full of us that went to the game, all but one of us were Patriots fans and were rooting for them to win. When we got into the pub, we were surrounded by fellow Americans that all seemed to be rooting for the Giants. It was a tough game to watch since the score was so close and we all were pretty shocked at the final outcome...the Patriots had played so well all season that we all just expected them to win. Even though they lost, going out that early and catching the game was a fun experience. It was awesome to be able to hang out with a bunch of other Americans and for those couple hours it almost felt like we were back at home!
We are all getting ready for the New Years celebrations later this week. We are all so excited to experience such a huge part of the Chinese culture. Our group has lots of different plans for the holiday. Some of us are staying here to catch the parade and fireworks display, some are traveling to different places and I’m going with a group up to Beijing to get a tour of the city. I think all of the project teams are starting to realize that after our vacation is the start of crunch time. We all thought of the Chinese New Year as our big halfway mark and now that it’s almost here, we are realizing that it’s time to really get going to make sure we have finished collecting all of the data we are going to need to analyze over the next few weeks. Hopefully, we’ll all have a relaxing week celebrating the New Year’s and we’ll come back refreshed and ready to keep going on our projects!
