Union Restaurant

Okay I think it’s time to write something about my university life. If I’m given the ‘food’ topic, what comes to mind must be the Union Restaurant, or ‘SU Canteen’ as most HKU students called. Not only does it sound like an authentic ‘HKU restaurant’, but also brings back some nostalgic memories in my freshman year. Well I do think that I’m much older both physically and mentally than the Yolanda one year ago, and I did experience a lot in this canteen. So the word ‘nostalgic’ is quite appropriate in this case!
There are two main reasons why I always have my meal in SU Canteen. The first one is its location. As I get off the bus at West Gate, the first building I reach is Haking Wong Building, and the canteen is just next to me after taking the lift. If I have lesson at 12:30, I may arrive early to have lunch here. What’s more, most of my lessons are in the Centennial Campus. Getting to the canteen just takes less than 5 minutes. Thus it’s really convenient. Another reason is the price of food. After the orientation series I was almost cash-​strapped. Here I can find the cheapest meal which can make me full up — I just need to pay $ 10 (now $ 10.5) for it! Of course you can’t expect high quality — it’s just rice with a bowl of chopped meat and mushrooms in sauce. I’m fine with this kind of simple meal. But to some picky people they’ll find it cheesy, if not atrocious. Anyway apart from the $ 10 Special Meal, there’s still a diverse range of food for you to choose, like rice with Chinese-​barbecued meat, steamed rice with minced pork, etc. A popular choice is two-​dish set with drinks for $ 21. If I’m fed up with the Special Meal or I have a strong craving for veggies I’ll opt for the set.
Speaking of the memories, nothing beats a meal with your dearest buddies. Many people said we won’t find genuine friends in university, but luckily I’ve got some. I had some lovely classmates whom I met in the orientation camps and had lessons with. I remember in the first semester, we both had Linguistics and History lessons together. We sat in the second row together. We studied together. We chatted with the professor together. And, we had lunch together — we RUSHED to have lunch together! As our lesson ended at 12:30, which is always the peak hour of school canteens, we needed to buy the food and grab the seats as soon as possible. Otherwise we had to queue up for period of time and might be late for the 13:30 class. Why did I say I was lucky? Because these two buddies even had the Special Meal with me! They didn’t think it’s kind of cheesy, or ‘hea’ in Cantonese. So we had it TOGETHER in this SU canteen. It’s funny to look at the photo of having three sets of Special Meal on the table. I’m so glad to have these two people existing in my university life. What made those simple meals enjoyable was what we did here. We shared everything during our lunchtime. We shared some crazy thoughts, aka FF, about some people in class. We shared the same ideal in our freshman year. We shared the enthusiasm towards Linguistics. That’s what I want in my life, the things that I can’t live about — sincere people, or, genuine friends. Though we didn’t have the same class in the next semester and didn’t see each other frequently, we still care about each other. Sometimes when I had a quick meal here on my own in the next semester, I thought of them and suddenly felt lonely in some sense, haha. So I want to make a wish here — may we have a meal together here when our sophomore year starts!