Exchange Diary (CityU Students)

Tomorrow is my last exam in Germany. Compared to other exchange students, I am the earliest to finish all my exams. That means after tomorrow, I can start my holiday here. Yo!!

Today I spent the whole day studying in my room. Such a mess in my desk. Except studying, I went to supermarket to buy some food. In Germany, all shops and restaurant would be closed on Sunday. Therefore Monday is my favorite day in a week. I am reborn.

Today’s meal menu is curry chicken and frozen fish. In Germany, they dun't sell fresh alive fish. Moreover, as Mannheim is a small town, everything in supermarket is from German. That’s a good chance for us to learn German.

The necessary item for going out: German dictionary and recyclable bag

Tuesday, 9 December 2008

After the 75 minutes exam, I went shopping in the downtown, celebrating my day in a Korea restaurant. What a surprise, the staff of the restaurant can speak Cantonese fluently.

At night, I went to my friends‘s home for pre-drinking and Crêpe dinner as we had a party at a bar later. We were making Crêpe with different ingredient. Such as cheese, ham, chocolate dressing and strawberry jam. Since we had 5 people with different nationalities, we made our own favors differently.

After dinner, we went to a bar at 12:30a.m.we chatted with those cool Scandinavian. We were pretty hyper, singing, dancing and drinking all night.

In the morning, Mandy and I went to zweibrücken outlet center and it took us 2 hours to get there. With my limited German, finally we got to the outlet safely. We shopped for a whole day, got some cheap stuff at the outlet including Polo t-shirt, Lindt chocolate, CK underwear and a bottle of wine which was later on broken by my carelessness. The wine was supposed for tonight’s party-devil or angel.

Anyway I bought beers instead later. The party was a costume party. It seemed that people like to be a devil more than an angel. I wore Chinese dress as a Chinese devil tonight.

I have noticed that the culture difference between China mainlanders and hongkongese is that mainlanders love spicy hotpot with many chilis. For those who are not from China, they were so excited to try hotpot and perceived this as an European cheese or chocolate fondue. I was so stuffed and satisfied.


Friday, 12 December 2008

I have invited 20 people in Facebook, finally it came 33 people. Everyone brought their drinks and food to my party. We drank and chatted in my kitchen, then we played firework and sky balloon along the river where is located outside my student residence. This is my first time to play such mini firework. I asked people to write down their wishes for new year on the sky balloon. After that, we tried to light up the balloon, and everyone got crazy and excited. Finally we lighted up 5 balloons with tons of wishes flew into the sky. I wish all our dreams can come true.

In western calendar, Sunday should be the start of a week. But in my world, Monday is the real beginning of all my actions to be done weekly. This morning I woke up at seven and decided to take a visit around the neighborhood, because I don’t have lessons on Monday. Lucky boy, am I not?

I had walked for some time until I reached a huge football field in which there were many youngsters playing football, with some of their parents watching their game. One of those parents told me that his son is a football player of the Copenhagen Primary Football League and there would always be matches against teams from outside CPH. He was from Iraq and had been living in Denmark for more than 20 years. During the conversation, he told me something about the Chinese people in Denmark, especially Copenhagen and he felt surprised for those Chinese about their knowledge in setting up businesses around the world, which made me kind of proud. After that I took a photo of them to memorize this interesting stroll round my place.

In the rest of my life I will never forget today, when I almost ruined my fingers! It’s doomed to be an unforgettable day since I took my first exam outside my motherland. I was always dreaming about today but in reality, things could always go the other way, like this one.

It’s an 4-hour open-book exam where guys were supposed to bring their own laptops and printers. We could either do the exam in the laptop and print out 2 copies or use hand-writing with the help of carbon papers.

We guys as international students would definitely meet trouble then, so I experienced the painful 4 hours afterwards. There was only one case study with few questions, but we were expected to answer for 10 pages. Eventually, most of us did answer in around 9 pages, including myself, but it was still less than the expected.

When I finally put those answers into two separate folders, I could hardly feel my fingers, especially those being too friendly with the pen during the exam. There are still 4 similar ones left, and I just want to say: God, help... I miss you so much, Hong Kong!!!

‘Jungle bell jungle bell jungle all the way…’. When it’s December, the theme could only be the enjoyable Christmas. When I was a child, I loved Christmas because I wanted to receive gifts from my parents. But this year, it means much more than that. What I want for this year is the feeling of Christmas… It snowed today. Amazing!

When I woke up, I was so excited to find a fairy tales world decorated with pure white snow. Through the window, I saw my neighbor, an old man from Germany, who was taking his retriever for a walk again, so I ran fast to take out the camera and quickly shot a photo of them to memorize this moment. They looked so cute in the photo and I couldn’t help to play with the retriever in the evening.

Oh, God, it’s really enthusiastic and cutie. Celebration of Christmas in a snow world is the way I love and the dream come true… I love Denmark.

One benefit of living in a local private house is that you can always learn the traditional food from the typically local persons. David and Heidi are both my housemates. David is now working in a local firm but Heidi is just a freshman of the Copenhagen University. They are both fairly kind, though actually Danes are all very friendly.

Today I joined David and Heidi to cook, though actually I was just standing beside during the whole process. They made pancakes, salad and desserts which are all tasty. After having been eating Chinese traditional food for a long while, I finally found a chance to try something really traditional of Denmark. I know I was always lucky. What a meaningful day.

Last night I received a message from a friend inviting me to her birthday party tonight. I was so happy since it’s my first time to join a birthday party in Denmark and it could be really cool when celebrating with local friends.

The place is just two stops away from where I live but it’s not easy to go there because of the everlasting rain of Denmark. When I arrived, I found a lot of different desserts and snacks. Surprisingly, those were all made by her friends! Foreign girls are always so good at making food or desserts by themselves. So cool.

During the party, we played Uno Cards, ate and chatted. At around 12 o’clock I came back home and turned to my revision for the remaining 3 exams again. Play hard and study harder. Exchange exam is not just a piece of cake when you are supposed to read the whole textbook to understand the questions. I mean, no PPT materials for most of the courses and what you can count on are those solid books only. Don’t be lazy, man.

Monday, 17 November 2008

After the mid-semester exam, I decided to go traveling to Xinjiang with my friend who is an exchange student from Taiwan to Xian. The train to Jiayuguan will take 23 hours, so we need to sleep in the train overnight. This is the first time that I need to sleep in the train overnight.

The condition of the train is better than what I expected before. During the trip, the view outside the window is really beautiful, unforgettable and wonderful. I enjoy the first day trip in the train and I am ready to enjoy more various experiences in the coming day.

However, most of the frescoes are stolen and broken by people for different reasons. Now only ten caves are open for the visitors. Most of the frescoes are about the Buddhism and the Buddhist story. All the art of the frescoes are amazing and unbelievable for me. How the Chinese people in the past can create and imagine something great like that. Amazing!!


Thursday, 20 November 2008

The third day of the trip, we go to Turpan which is a key stop on the Silk Road. We arrive at 7 a.m. Since we do not plan to stay here overnight, we decide to hire a car which can bring us to all the scenic spots within a day. We spend 500 RMB for hiring the car. In Turpan, there are eight famous places including flaming mountains, Jiaohe, the Baizeklik Thousand Buddha Caves and etc.

We two spend most of the time in Jiaohe because it was a valuable and historic ancient ruined city in China.

It was founded some 2,000 years ago. The site retains clearly distinguishable temples, pagodas and other buildings, including a Buddhist monastery at the center of the city. It is physical evidence to show the life of the people lived in 2000 years ago. Today, not many tourists come visit here because the peak traveling season is over, so we two can walk slowly and look carefully. It is really enjoyable for me to follow the steps of the people lived in 2000 years ago. Moreover, I find the people in Xinjiang are very beautiful and handsome. They look like Europeans such as Turk.

Today, we need to spend 24 hours to Kashi by train again. Kashi is the farthest city where the train can reach the west of China.

This trip on the train is the hardest experience during the traveling. The place I sleep on is very short so that I am unable to sit normally on the bed. The condition is terrible for a tall gay such as me. I can not enjoy a good dream over the night and feel very sick after three hours… TERRIBLE!!UNCOMFORTABLE!!UNFORGETTABLE!!