The last piece of the trip, the budget Jetstar flight, was half an hour delayed, but more frustrating than that was that the check-in desk only opened just before the estimed boarding time (which was later delayed, of course), so I couldn't get rid of my huge suitcase during those 6 hours I had to stay at the HK airport.
The Jetstar flight had very inexperienced cabin crew, but it didn't really matter as nothing was served for free anyway, just like on Ryanair flights. Next to me was sitting a Singaporean who had graduated from NTU just some time ago. She told me that the last MRT train had gone before midnight, so I was going to have to take a cab to the hostel.
The people at the Footprints backpacker hostel were really friendly indeed. I had developed a nice hunger during the last few hours, so I really had to get something to eat. The problem was - almost nothing was open at 2am. A guy at the hostel directed me to a nearby Thai restaurant that was still serving food and even pretty cheap pints of Tiger after midnight. There was a western-looking woman from Masqat, Oman also having a beer, and she told me, she was almost freezing because it was so cold, only like 30 degrees.
The hostel night indeed was cold because the air-con was too strong for that little room and you couldn't adjust it more than in "on-off" manner.
In the morning, that is like 11am, I had breakfast in an Indian-style café and proceeded to check-out from the hostel. I then took a short walk to the MRT station to experience the best subway I have seen so far. It is just fast, clean, air-conditioned, relatively inexpensive and goes often.
At the Boon lay station I met a swede who was looking a little bit lost. That was not really a miracle since the directions provided by NTU were simply non-existent. Nevertheless, we managed to find the correct bus and after asking for a local NTU student for some help we alighted from the vehicle in the (almost) right place. Then, once again after begging for help from the extremely friendly locals, the international student centre finally stood before us.
Completely exhausted from dragging the suitcases across the campus, I just filled in the forms and paid the fees to receive the official student pass. The swede left to lunch with his country-mates, and I headed to Hall 7 for accommodation. The rooms in hall 7 are accessed from the corridors outside (like luhti-houses) and the buildings resembled me of a tourist resort. All-in-all, it's a beautiful place -- from the outside.
The room itself, quite frankly, is just bad. It is indeed cheap in absolute terms, but regarding the price per square meter, I wouldn't call it a bargain anymore. Anyway, I could've gladly paid some more to get a better one. Since there's no air-con in the room, I will be really excited to see how I'm gonna do the first night. I'm seriously now considering renting a room from the private market.
My roommate turned out to be a finn from TKK as well. After meeting each other in the afternoon we blitzed the Jurong Point mall (next to Boon lay MRT station) to buy some necessities, like pillows, which had not been provided by NTU. It was in fact a pretty large mall, comparable to the size of a couple of Sellos or Jumbos (Finnish malls). Virtually anything can be bought there.
As for the dinner, not many canteenas were open anymore at 8pm. This time the guidance to a still open place was given by Chinese students.
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