So here's something exciting, right now I'm sitting in the atrium of Hong Kong University of Science and Techonology, which is practically outside since it's like 80+ degrees and the entire school is all open-air stuff. I'm in Hong Kong for the Synthetic Biology 4.0 conference. I'm here with my advisor, sort of, we're staying in the same hotel but I never see her because she seems to think I'll be OK wandering around by myself even though I don't know where anything is and don't speak Chinese. They say everyone speaks English here but that is totally a lie. Anyway, I've only gotten lost once, in a MALL of all places, but the mall was fucking huge and there were thousands of people and i was the only non-asian. It was insane. And really weird.

Aside from that, Hong Kong is beautiful, well at least the scenery is, there are a lot of rivers and coastline (duh) but it's practically like a rainforest here, it's super humid and there are trees and random mini-mountains all over the place and a bajillion apartment buildings. It's crazy, these things are like something out of a sci-fi movie except they look really really gross and dirty. I haven't seen one house anywhere, its all these skyscraper apartments buildings, one after another, packed so tight that I was looking at 6 all right next to each other, in one complex, and then when we drove by I realized that the rows went three deep. Crazy.

As for the conference, my advisor is giving a talk in the next session but I have no idea where she is. I was going to tell her good luck but she's kind of small and asian and tends to blend in. I also skipped the first morning session because I needed to get miles in for the half-marathon next week. Kinddddd of a busy timeeee. There was a poster session yesterday and I only had to explain it to three people and one guy came buy and read it and nodded approvingly, which was good. And the other people didn't really ask any hard questions, one was this venture capitalist guy whom I had been talking to earlier, so maybe he'll give me money or something. There certainly are lots of interesting people here but most just want to talk about synthetic biology but I'm kind of sick about talking about that, also, I just started my project and I don't really have any results or know as much as most people here. Which is good for learning but not so much when people ask you questions you don't know the answer to, which happened at lunch yesterday so I just bullshitted some stuff. It was one of those "Why are you doing this instead of this other thing?" questions, and I'm like "Bitch, cause my advisor told me to! Bitch." She really was a bitch. Also kind of toady-looking. Anyway I have to stop writing because I am sitting outside and it is hot as balls.

Quick note on the food. Very strange, better than that shit you get in the states, but so far I've had way too many things fried or covered in other things and tapioca beans inserted into, like, every dessert. But it's mostly free so, eh.