Three days of activity!! And all off campus! *gasp*

So let's see. Thursday started off with a bang: 9am PT session at the hospital. Then I had two workshops, one on pronunciation and one on linking words. The pronunciation one was hilarious...we were doing tongue twisters, and at some point we started 'rapping' them. It was good fun. Ran back to my dorm to drop stuff off and then to get the van to take us to our dinner with the US Consulate in Wan Chai. It was nice...we got to meet the rest of the Fulbrighters (who are here on research or lecture fellowships) and to chat etc. Had shark fin soup for the first time. It was interesting, not quite what I was expecting, but all right. I had to get up about halfway through the meal and walk around outside because my knee tightened up and hurt. After the dinner, we hung out for a little bit with some of the people we'd met, then took a cab back to IEd.

Friday started out with an oof, sometime around 4:45 in the morning. I was sick to my stomach, so that made for a fun however long. Had lunch and then took off to the hospital to meet with my doctor. Now, I've gotten somewhat used to certain areas of the hospital, mainly the Orthopedic Ward and the PT rooms. But this...this was crazy! Outpatient appointments are chaos! It took me about thirty minutes to find where I needed to be and what I needed to do. Then sat in a room waiting while they called off dozens of names and instructions in Cantonese. Finally, a voice comes on and says "Miss Laura Brymer please to go room 14 and wait." So I limp off to the general direction of a room. I see my doctor and he greets me, saying "Hello, have you seen your doctor yet?" Which stumped me. I thought he was my doctor...and he is. Anyway, finally found room 14 and he looked at my knee, told me to keep doing PT because I was still not at full range (to which I should have said, yes, well, I've been sitting in a chair in an incredibly uncomfortable position for the last hour and it's just tight right now, if you'd quit grabbing it and rotating the knee I'm sure it would work better), and then he told me to go get my stitches taken out. Something about following the red line to the blood something room and then the yellow line to make an appt. Apparently, there are colored lines on the floor which lead you places. Unfortunately, it led me to the wrong place, so I ended up waiting a lot longer than necessary. Anyway, finally got the stitches out. The wounds are in the shape of x's, two of them, and they're scabbing over. (Side note: I took my first non-plastic-bag-taped-to-my-leg shower today....so nice.) Then I waiting for twenty minutes in a line to make my next appt...and the surgery appt. November 6th. Assuming my knee is ready for it.
Anyway, Friday continues...with Cantonese class! Which I hadn't looked at the material since last Friday. And I showed up late and flustered because I was at the hospital a lot longer than I thought I would be. After that, I went back to my room, relaxed for a bit, then a friend and I decided to go out for dinner. We ended up going to SoHo for breakfast foods. Since we were going to be out out, I gave a friend from BMC a call, and she met us there. It was fun...just hanging out at dinner and talking for like, two hours. And we took the bus back, and I think I fell asleep on it. *shrug* The ride's a good forty minutes, and it was after midnight because we had to walk so slow on account of my leg.

Saturday started off ridiculously early, in my books. Out to catch the bus at 8:30 to go to Kwun Tong to pick up my Hong Kong ID card. It's interesting...since having to go out in public with crutches or just awkwardly and slowly because of my knee, I've noticed a lot more signs about 'handicapped' or 'people with disabilities'. At the bus stop, at the Kwun Tong office, etc. Anyway, we decided to go to a temple that was a few stops away on the MTR. It was a beautiful day, sunny and hot, but with a breeze so it wasn't stifling. Part of the temple included this area with pavilions, ponds, fish, turtles, a waterfall, bridges, etc. It was really peaceful, quiet, and I felt at ease, sitting on one of the bridges, watching all the turtles swim into each other. We went out for lunch afterwards: vegetarian dim sum. Some of them were really good...and some were a little odd. Then we got Starbucks. :) Haven't had that in ages. My friend got a call from relatives who were in HK, so we went to TST and met them at the Intercontinental Hotel. It has an amazing view of the Harbor (again, nice day so a very nice view), and we had drinks (I stuck to a mocktail, since my stomach hadn't quite recovered from whatever afflicted it Thursday night/Friday morning) and talked for a couple hours. It was quite swanky. We went back to their hotel (next to that one) and then out to dinner at a Korean barbecue place. I've been to Korean bbq's a few times since being here...and I love the fact that I can just eat a plate of meat. Or more, if I wanted. After dinner, they were all going to walk around, but my knee hurt a lot, so they got me to the bus stop and I went back to IEd. I did laundry, puttered around my room, and then got McDonald's fries at like 1:30 in the morning! We ate outside in this pavilion type thing on campus. The wind was really going and it was actually a bit chilly. Maybe the weather is dropping! *crosses fingers*

Anyway, went to bed last night/this morning around 4 after I read a few hundred pages (don't know why...I've read that particular book a dozen times). Woke up at 7 because my room was hot, fell back asleep and woke up at 11. Have taken a shower, am updating blog, and will then proceed to go out and get some foods and clean my room. My body's a bit sore from all the movement of the last few days, so I think I'll take it easy today, do my PT exercises, read, study Spanish and if I feel ambitious Cantonese, read the paper for the conference I'm going to next week, etc. Although knowing me, I'll probably only get to half that, and then end up napping. Ah Sundays.....