Happy New Year from Singapore! After 4 long months of being apart from my loved ones, I finally got to see my boyfriend and family again! Once I finished my last final exam, I hopped on a plane and met my boyfriend in Osaka. We toured the Kansai region, starting in Osaka then traveling through Kobe to Kyoto, and finally spending our last day in Nara. Japan completely surpassed my expectations; I absolutely fell in love with Kyoto especially. You could walk for hours there just viewing all the different temples and shrines in the region. We did a ton while in Japan, so I won't bore you with all of the details. Below are a few of the highlights of our trip.
I got back to Hong Kong from Japan in time for Christmas, which is when my brother, sister, uncle, and grandpa arrived! It was so nice to see my family again, and I was so grateful to be able to spend the holidays with them. I spent a few days showing them around Hong Kong before we traveled to Singapore, which is where we are as I'm writing this. Singapore is the most different of all of the places in Asia I had traveled and by far the most diverse. There are different sectors for different cultures (like Chinatown, Little India, Arab Quarters, etc) and tons of different types of religious centers. I had never visited a Hindu temple or a mosque before, but I was able to visit both within one day here! The architecture of the old shophouses found in many of these sectors is also the cutest thing I've ever seen. While I've loved just wandering around Singapore, there are a few must see attractions, like the merlion statue and the Gardens by the Bay. The merlion statue was lit up during the light show the night we went to see it, so it was even more beautiful than usual! You also can't visit Singapore without visiting a Hawker Center, which is like a food court for street food. My personal favorite dish was black pepper crab. Don't forget to bring napkins, hand wipes, and an empty stomach! If you happen to be in Singapore for New Year's, they do an amazing hour-long New Year's celebration light and fireworks show at the Marina. I heard that you have to get to the Marina pretty early if you want a good spot. My family and I didn't want to deal with the crowds, so we were going to head over to Gardens by the Bay East (which is across the Marina) because I read online that you can see the fireworks well and that it is much less crowded there. On our way to the gardens, we ended up finding the best spot on accident! In my opinion, the best spot for viewing the fireworks is from the highway between the ferris wheel and the Gardens by the Bay East. There were a few other people who were sitting on the ground or leaning on the rail (the pedestrian area is separated from the vehicle area). It wasn't hectic and there were no crowds, but we still had a great view of the fireworks display! There was another highway that passed directly in front of where the fireworks show was taking place, but we saw a ton of people walking down from the highway after the show was over, so it may only be a good option if you're okay with crowds. Watching the show from the highway was probably the most unforgettable New Year's countdown yet. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to 2018 and hello to 2019!
0 Comments
It's that time of the semester again - final exams! I got lucky and only had two finals this semester, with short papers due in my other classes. Finals are different here in that rather than one or two study days we get a study week before finals, and the period for final exams lasts for 2 weeks instead of one. You can also technically have an exam during your study week, which is what happened for me, making the exam period more like 3 weeks. I've found this to be both good and bad: good because you have way more time to study, but bad because it drags out arguably every student's least favorite time of year. My final exams were spaced 10 days apart, so I've basically been studying for nearly 17 days straight (!!). It's a huge difference from our finals week at home. Another difference is that we won't find out our grades until the middle of January, versus the week after finals like at UH. I found out that this is the norm in most other countries, which I had no idea about!
You don't find out when your final exam is for most classes until reading week, so unlike at UH, you can't plan your classes around when finals are. I would recommend waiting until November to make any travel arrangements, or to make travel plans for after all finals are completed, because the finals schedule that is posted during reading week can be altered. This isn't very common, and it didn't happen for anyone that I know, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. If you find out that all of your classes are towards the end of the final exam period, or that you have finals that are very spaced out (like mines), then you can definitely fit in a weekend trip. This is something that I wish I did, especially because it can be nice to take a break from studying. If you are considering a weekend trip, plan it at least a few weeks in advance! Some of my friends planned a last minute trip and the airfare ended up being twice as much as it was just a week before. You can also consider traveling to Guangzhou or Shenzhen, since they're so close to Hong Kong. My friends who went to Guangzhou really enjoyed it, and they said it was easier to get around and do things than it had been in Shenzhen since it was more tourist friendly. While I didn't take any trips, I did take a fairly long bus ride to the other side of the island! At home I always go to craft fairs during Christmas time, and I wanted to continue that here. I decided to check out the Stanley Christmas Market, because I heard that it's really popular. It was also Finnish themed, with lots of Finnish food (like reindeer meatballs!). While I didn't buy much, I enjoyed the atmosphere. Stanley itself is such a cute seaside town, I would totally recommend visiting any time of year! The mall at Stanley is also dog friendly, so you're bound to see lots of adorable pups. It's hard to believe that my classes here are over! I still have one lecture tomorrow, because of a missed lesson due to the typhoon earlier in the year, but technically the lecture period is completed! I will have one final this coming Friday and one towards the end of the final schedule, on December 17. The weird thing about finals here is that they're conducted over the course of December, so you could have a final as late as December 23! You don't find out until they post the schedule around reading week, so I would recommend not making any plans for the end of the semester until then.
Since my time here is coming to an end, I wanted to reflect upon the way Hong Kong and HKU has met my expectations and the ways in which they have surprised me. Before coming here, I expected Hong Kong to have a lot more cultural elements, both from their British and Chinese past. It's been a lot harder than I expected to find cultural experiences, as most of Hong Kong has a similar big city culture to that of New York City. I was also surprised by how difficult it was to meet local students! The language barrier is definitely part of the problem, since local students almost always talk to each other in Cantonese. It's also likely that in group projects local students won't pick you because you're an exchange student. There's a stigma against exchange students that they don't try very hard because they don't care about their grades. My finance TA, for instance, was shocked that I did well on my midterm because I'm an exchange student. Due to this stigma, finding a productive group was really difficult. It's especially stressful because group projects can make up 50% of your grade!! I would recommend being really aggressive and approaching students who you think will be good group members to join their group. This was something I wish that I had done, versus waiting to be picked or to be grouped with everyone else who didn't have a group (this is probably a sign). While it's been really cool living in Hong Kong and experiencing such a different way of life, it's also been the most difficult semester yet. I think the hardest part is that I didn't have anyone here who understood why I cared about doing well in my courses. One of the people I used to hang out with a lot told me that he felt like we were really close when I was easy-going at the beginning of the semester, but then I became "intense" as I was worried about my grades. When I got the chance to talk to other Freeman scholars, it made me feel a lot better because I realized I wasn't alone. Despite having a hard time, there are many small moments that I will treasure. One of my favorite moments was when my group for marketing was going to have a lunch meeting for our project and the two local students in our group asked if we'd want to eat off campus. They took us to a noodle shop nearby that specialized in pork chop noodles, which were so tasty! It was nice getting to know them more outside of class, and it was something I wish we had done sooner. Another fun moment was the mass dance competition, where groups from other universities around Hong Kong came to our campus to compete against our dance groups. I was shocked by how good everyone was, and by how huge the crowd was that had gathered to watch! It made me feel like I was part of HKU as I cheered on our teams. |
Emily BallBorn and raised in Aiea, HI, traveling to Hong Kong to study Human Resource Administration. Archives
January 2019
Categories |