Dinner after midterm!

I went to dinner with friends after midterm! Always eat in this restaurant called" sea front"! It is near my dormitory and close late at night. Most People in HK eat so little lunch, and they eat after noon tea with snack, then they eat big dinner around 9pm! I am just following the trend! Haha

Just finished my last midterm in HK

I have been doing midterms this past weeks, it is quite hard! Nearly 2 more month in HK then my study aboard journey will be ended, enjoy and work hard! Lol

transport during the spring festival in Mainland China!

Chinese New Year or sometimes it is called "Chinese Lu Nar New year" is extremely important for Chinese. It is the time for family gathering; everyone travels back to their hometown to gather with the love ones. In China, due to the highly competitive environment and lack of employment opportunities in the rural areas, most people had gone out to the big cities such as "Beijing", "Shanghai", and "Guangzhou" to seek employments for living and support family. They usually work for the whole year and go back to the hometown in the end of the year. You all know how crowded it is in China especially in the major cities, and imagine how crowded and tense it is when most of the people are desperate of traveling home for New Year. During the traveling period roughly started from Feb. 1 to 7, it is the most crowded period. The tickets for the transportation are short, which causes the dramatically increase in the transportation fee. However, if you are high- income class, it is probably not hurting so much. I am talking about the lower income class, these people are usually travel in the over crowded train and of course there is not enough seats for everyone, which means if you needed to travel long distance to home, you have to stand for 48 hours or longer.

I had to travel to Guangzhou from HK at that period, it was a bit crowded, but not very bad. However, when I arrive at "GuangZhou" east station, I was shocked. I saw there are crowded with people, kids, elders, and all kinds of people from the lower income class. These are people who work in the restaurants, factories, and people selling fruits, and barbecue snacks on the street under hot sun. They had to wait for the long distance train to travel home, and they had to wait there for days, which means they have to eat and sleep in the train station, and bear with the long waiting.

This is the phenomenon I do not see in any other place. Not in Hawaii, not in HK. I was thinking that I am lucky compare to those people. Should we be more appreciated to what we have? Should we be thankful to where we are at the moment? Should we stop complaining about life and start living a life? What do you think?

This is in Luo Hu station, the border between China and HK, that is how much people waiting to cross the border.

waiting to bord 

Again Luo Hu station

When I arrived GuangZhou East station.They were eating.

Waiting!

Still Waiting!

Sleeping!

This is the news, some people travel long distance with Motocycles, which I think it is very dangerous on the freeway!

Week 3 in HKUST!

I have to apologize for not updating the blog. To be honest, I have been thinking about how to writ this blog for a while, this is my first time writing a blog. I have decided to share my thoughts, my perception of HK, HKUST, and my study aboard experiences. 

About the school (HKUST)

UST is a nice school; there are many facilities we can use. Around the dormitory there is a huge soccer field, and running track around the field. I heard from one of my local friends that some one donated millions of HK dollars to build this one. Another cool thing is that the school has a gym, it is not big but enough for me. School also has indoor and outdoor swimming pools, basketball court indoor and outdoor ones as well. School has medical center, art center, and big library. It is a nice school.

The food in the cafeteria is not bad, but small portion. The price is a lot cheaper than outside. Another interesting thing is that HK local students often stay up very late, and when the weekends coming, the school becomes so quiet, local students often go back home during weekends. So only international students, Mainland China students, and exchange students in the school on the weekends. The school is very crowded, especially when the time one class end and another class about to begin, the stairway is always full of student rush to other classroom. 

Another interesting thing, HK university often has many societies (Clubs), new school year they would promote their society, they work super hard and to my opinion, there are lots of interesting and creative marketing ideas going on. They would think so many unique ideas to decorate their counters. I am sorry I do not have pictures to show; I will try to find some. 

Here is a link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_R0dDM0N1Q

They are promoting their society, each society has a song or slogan, certain hours in the school is the promotion period, every society will promotion their slogan just like the one in the video, it was super loud.

About HK:

 The school arranged several trips for all the exchange students to explore HK culture. I had the chance to see some very old local temples, tasted the local food in some village, and saw the city part of HK. HK is combined with old traditional areas and areas with newly constructed road and building. I more prefer the traditional part of HK. Because I do not like taking photos, so I have no pictures to show you. Sorry!

HK is very fast paced, you can tell from the MTR station and the street. I wen to Mong Kok and my perception was small street full of people. It was extremely crowded. HK is humid, you sweet a lot. My friend told me the coldest time is December, When I got here was already February. It was a lot warmer than I expected. 

I think people in HK are nice, even though they do not look warmhearted. If you ask for help, they will try to help you. This is a lot better than Mainland China. 

 I have not yet explored the full HK culture, so I will stop here.

About study aboard:

I would suggest if there is chance, come out and see the world. Everything you perceived will become part of you eventually. You will meet many new friends; it is a great chance to network. Most the exchange students are from Europe, which is a different culture too. More importantly, I think people tend to think more when they are alone. What I mean by "alone" is away from family, from friends, from the comfort zone. When you think more, you will figure something out. Something like what you really want to do in the future? Or small thing like how to manage your time and money more efficiently.

I think the most important is you are constantly exploring and maximizing your abilities, building your confidence. The more you achieve, you better person and newer person you are. If you are looking for perfect yourself, this definitely is part of the journey highly recommended. 

Of course, it is not easy to be "alone". You have to deal with your emotion first, I thought that I will not feel homesick, but when you are alone in the dormitory, your roommate had gone home for the weekends, you begin to feel homesick. Also many things are so different from where you were, things going out of the way from what you expected, you will have to manage and control the changes. It is a process, definitely you will grow a lot, but there are huge challenges waiting for you. The important thing is if you know the reason of doing something, about how to achieve it become clear.

It feels like has been a long time since I left Hawaii, oddly at same time it feels like it was just yesterday!

More posts will be up, sorry for the grammar errors. 

HKUST- I am here!!

I arrived HK, Hung Hom Station on 25th, around 7pm. It was not as cold as I expected. I was supposed to meet up with my exchange buddy, but for some reason the train was delayed and my exchange buddy was not available after 5pm. I went straight to the taxi station and headed to the HKUST. Luckily the taxi driver was very nice, when we got to the school, he asked the security and found out where exactly the dormitory is, then dropped me off in front of the UG Hall II( the dorm was assigned to me). 

By the time I checked in to the dorm was about 8:30. The aunty in the front desk was really nice. We chat a bit in Cantonese, and she told me that I was the only exchange student she had met who can speak Cantonese. I told her that she is the first friend I met in HK. After I have done the paper works, I took the room key (#515) on the 5^th floor and ready to see my room. I was shocked when I enter the room, it was really small. I think it was only 20 square meter, about 200 square foot. In my hall, two people share one room. There is nothing much to say about the room, it was a small room without a bathroom. However, it makes sense since HK population is very dense. By the time I finished unpack my stuff. It was already 10:30pm.

School has ocean view!

Waiting for the train to depart!

Boarding!

Arrived, Hung hom station!

The photo was taken by the doorway. Picture how small is the room.

This is my room.

HKUST ENTRANCE:

Meeting the Freeman Family

My first impression of the Freeman family was: " wow, all the great people are so nice!" Mrs. Freeman, she is lovely and easygoing, she has a great sense of humor. Mr. Freeman, her son, he is caring. He asked questions regarding the housing while we are aboard, he shared some of his experience about each countries that students are going aboard. His concern is to make sure scholars are able to study aboard safely and smoothly. The whole meeting was easygoing and we had great chat with the family.
I have great respect with what freeman family are doing for the community, with students. Freeman organization has been providing thousands of student the opportunity to gain Asian culture experience over the years. I am very grateful and at same time motivated by the freeman family. Big thanks to the Freeman organization!

Freeman Scholar

 This is actually my first time applying for scholarship. Also my first time writing a blog!
In my first year at college, I have always wanted to go study abroad one day. For many reasons, I did not put the thought into action. This fall, I read a email about MIX program, and decided to give a try. I applied for the program and tried my best to organize my thoughts in my essay. Fortunately, I was nominated for studying abroad to Hong Kong, China. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason as long as you believe in what you believe . I did not plan to go study abroad at all, nor did I know I can get the freeman scholar. I would say that, always give it a shot, you have nothing to lose.

Interview with Dean Vance Roley!

This is also the first time I am interviewed for scholar. It was totally different experience compare to be interviewed at work. I was well prepared for the interview, even though I have been kind nervous over the weekend. I believe success is where the preparation meets the opportunity. I treasure this great opportunity and truly appreciate for the freeman family's generous support to make all this come true. Also thanks to Rikki, I was able to obtain sufficient information from her. It is only the beginning and I am already gained many different experiences. I believe it will be exciting in HK, and I can't wait for this new adventure.