Sunday, March 29, 2009
Eddie Ng @ University of East Anglia, UK (from CityU) 23 - 27 March 2009
Monday, 23 March 2009
I have joined the HOST family for 3 days and today is the last day to stay with the HOST family. Stuart Robertson and Eunice Robertson are my HOST and they treated me like their son. In retrospect, we had a great time travelling around the countryside in Norfolk, southeast part of England. We went to a beach where there are a lot of seals lying on. We went to a musical concert enjoying beautiful sound of piano, violin and cello.
Abbey is so beautiful a historical town and it is so different from London, which is more modern. When it comes to talking about the food, I am so surprised that traditional British eats potato rather than rice for dinner. Most surprisingly, potato is said to be the main dish for a day. For lunch and breakfast, bread is usually served. Nevertheless, I am still full with the traditional British meal and overjoyed with it.
The house where I live in is not a tall building, the same as other houses in United Kingdom. A garden is situated at the back and there are many flowers and plants. The Swallowtail butterfly is unique in Norfolk having a special tail.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Today, I went to the city centre of Norwich to look around. Norwich is the second important city to London and it is a historical town. The scenery of Norwich is very beautiful and my host university UEA is the only university in Norwich. I went to “Poundland” and bought some snacks to eat. Things there are all 1 pound, so most of them are cheaper than anywhere.
At night, I joined a Disneyland party at University of East Anglia (UEA). People participating in this party, including me, dressed up as characters in any Disneyland movie. I myself dressed up as “Peterpan” and one of my Korean friends said I don’t look like “Peterpan”! Haha! Anyway, the party is great and I saw different kinds of characters including Micky Mouse, Woody, Lion King etc. People in United Kingdom always drink beer and so everyone drank beer in the party! I drank many beers and so I looked drunk. Yet, I can tell that I was not drunk! Haha!
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Today, I went to my friend’s home to work with the presentation I have tomorrow. We spent a lot of time discussing the powerpoint in English and I found my English listening and speaking have improved a lot! Anyway, we spent 6 hours on the discussion and I left there to meet my friends at Hall at night.
We met in the common room at Hall and I played guitar and sang Cantonese song to them! I sang my favorite song from a local band “beyond” and they all praise the song and my performance! They are so interested in Cantonese and so I taught them some. I taught them some basic Cantonese such as “How are you?”, “Good morning”, “ Hello” etc. They found Cantonese more difficult than English is and said I am so great in English and Cantonese speaking!
Thursday, 26 March 2009
In the morning, I had my presentation in the congregation hall. I was so nervous about that because this is the first and the only presentation I have here! I have to present in front of so many British! Fortunately, the presentation was alright and I saw the professor smiling at me.
At night, I went to the Union Bar to meet my friends. We again drank so many beers. This night I met two new friends and they are so friendly! I shared something about Hong Kong and CityU to them and they found Hong Kong and CityU so reputable! They have heard about Hong Kong and CityU but have never gone there. I told them that I would act as a tour guide if they came to Hong Kong and CityU. Haha!
Friday, 27 March 2009
Today I did not have any lessons and I went to a City near Norwich. It is Cambridge, which is a famous City in England. University of Cambridge is a Collegiate University and there are 31 colleges. I went to the most famous three colleges, King’s College, Trinity College and St.John’s College.
Among these three, Trinity College is the most famous and there are many famous people graduated from this college. Many Nobel prize winners graduated from this college, too. King’s College has a river called “River Cam”, which is so famous all over the globe. I took this opportunity to take a picture with it. Haha!
I have joined the HOST family for 3 days and today is the last day to stay with the HOST family. Stuart Robertson and Eunice Robertson are my HOST and they treated me like their son. In retrospect, we had a great time travelling around the countryside in Norfolk, southeast part of England. We went to a beach where there are a lot of seals lying on. We went to a musical concert enjoying beautiful sound of piano, violin and cello.Abbey is so beautiful a historical town and it is so different from London, which is more modern. When it comes to talking about the food, I am so surprised that traditional British eats potato rather than rice for dinner. Most surprisingly, potato is said to be the main dish for a day. For lunch and breakfast, bread is usually served. Nevertheless, I am still full with the traditional British meal and overjoyed with it.
The house where I live in is not a tall building, the same as other houses in United Kingdom. A garden is situated at the back and there are many flowers and plants. The Swallowtail butterfly is unique in Norfolk having a special tail.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Today, I went to the city centre of Norwich to look around. Norwich is the second important city to London and it is a historical town. The scenery of Norwich is very beautiful and my host university UEA is the only university in Norwich. I went to “Poundland” and bought some snacks to eat. Things there are all 1 pound, so most of them are cheaper than anywhere.At night, I joined a Disneyland party at University of East Anglia (UEA). People participating in this party, including me, dressed up as characters in any Disneyland movie. I myself dressed up as “Peterpan” and one of my Korean friends said I don’t look like “Peterpan”! Haha! Anyway, the party is great and I saw different kinds of characters including Micky Mouse, Woody, Lion King etc. People in United Kingdom always drink beer and so everyone drank beer in the party! I drank many beers and so I looked drunk. Yet, I can tell that I was not drunk! Haha!
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Today, I went to my friend’s home to work with the presentation I have tomorrow. We spent a lot of time discussing the powerpoint in English and I found my English listening and speaking have improved a lot! Anyway, we spent 6 hours on the discussion and I left there to meet my friends at Hall at night.We met in the common room at Hall and I played guitar and sang Cantonese song to them! I sang my favorite song from a local band “beyond” and they all praise the song and my performance! They are so interested in Cantonese and so I taught them some. I taught them some basic Cantonese such as “How are you?”, “Good morning”, “ Hello” etc. They found Cantonese more difficult than English is and said I am so great in English and Cantonese speaking!
Thursday, 26 March 2009
In the morning, I had my presentation in the congregation hall. I was so nervous about that because this is the first and the only presentation I have here! I have to present in front of so many British! Fortunately, the presentation was alright and I saw the professor smiling at me.At night, I went to the Union Bar to meet my friends. We again drank so many beers. This night I met two new friends and they are so friendly! I shared something about Hong Kong and CityU to them and they found Hong Kong and CityU so reputable! They have heard about Hong Kong and CityU but have never gone there. I told them that I would act as a tour guide if they came to Hong Kong and CityU. Haha!
Friday, 27 March 2009
Today I did not have any lessons and I went to a City near Norwich. It is Cambridge, which is a famous City in England. University of Cambridge is a Collegiate University and there are 31 colleges. I went to the most famous three colleges, King’s College, Trinity College and St.John’s College.Among these three, Trinity College is the most famous and there are many famous people graduated from this college. Many Nobel prize winners graduated from this college, too. King’s College has a river called “River Cam”, which is so famous all over the globe. I took this opportunity to take a picture with it. Haha!
Labels: 2008/2009 Semester B
Connie Tam @ Warsaw School of Economics, Poland (from CityU) 9 - 13 February 2009
Monday, 9 February 2009
The public transport is convenient as it reaches every district extensively, we only need to buy a pass to take all public transport. When we walk around in the city we explored some of the historical buildings and then we went to a megastore inside a shopping mall and I wish there is such a big and cheap supermarket in Hong Kong.
Tonight we started our real exchange life by playing hard! The buddy club has organized a karaoke party for all exchange students and finally we got a chance to meet everybody. I always thought Karaoke is something unique in Hong Kong or in Asia, but there it is! Although there aren’t any music video for each song, but the way it works is that people write the name of the songs they want to sing on a piece of paper and hand it to the DJ, so the DJ will open the file from a large bundle of songs in her computer and everybody looked at the screen of lyrics and sing out loud. So we drank and sang and sometimes even danced together on the dance floor! Although I’m tired, but it’s just so much fun!
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Today is the first time for us to take the metro, which is the underground in Warsaw. There is only one route in Warsaw and so it’s pretty easy for us to go to the places we want. So we took the metro towards the very end of the route, Kabaty as we heard there’s a super big supermarket so we went to shop for necessities. Many students here always like to go to this supermarket as it’s really big and cheap. This big supermarket, Tesco is really big and we have a wide choice even for a single category of product. The ice-cream sold is really cheap and delicious too! It costs only 1.7 Zloty, which is around 3 Hong Kong dollars but the quality is much better and there are such a wide choices of icecream!When we today come back to our dormitory, Sabinki, which is for exchange students, we started to meet some more newcomers and it’s so nice to see so many people from different countries gathering around. I really look forward to enjoy this exchange journey!
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Today is the first official orientation day and we starts to meet the school officers and professors. It’s the first time we have some kind of lectures here. We learnt something about the history, geography and economy of Poland. Then we took a tour around the school buildings and some of the buildings are situated across different street in between shops, residential buildings and parks. Our school is over 100 years old so the building is pretty classic, in the beautiful European way. The way their libraries works in quite a systematic way and everybody are assigned a seat before entering it and it was really very quiet there!
Then we finally got our student ID card and the school has given us a mobile phone SIM card and an information pack.After the orientation, some friends and I went to the city centre to take a little walk around. And we got a chance to chat and learn more about each other’s cultures like different kinds of naming in families. It’s interesting to know for Germans, they can choose to have a family name following the mother’s, instead of following the father’s like what we do for Chinese.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
It’s another day of orientation. Today we mainly focus on the academic issues. It’s funny to learn that in this school there’s a tradition called “Academic Quarter”. It’s just so surprising to learn that if we are late for class within 15 minutes, it means nothing to the Professor. After the first 15 minutes, then it means you are really late. Besides, if the professor does not show up in the first half hour, it means the class is cancelled and we should go back to our places automatically.
And my roommate has finally arrived! She’s from South Korea, called Hyo-Jin. It’s so nice to have her as my roommate as she is a very kind and caring girl. Other than her, there are a few more Korean students coming to exchange in SGH too. At night, the five of us, students from Hong Kong and Korean cooperated with each other and made the dinner together. We were so happy in the dinner as we are talking about all sorts of things. We also had some kind of language exchanges, I know a few sentences of Korean and they have also learnt a few Mandarin sentences in the past too!
Friday, 13 February 2009
Today the school has organized a bus tour to Warsaw for us. We went to the Royal Lazienki Park, the Ghetto Square and my long-awaited Old Town. As it started snowing in the morning, when we went to the Royal Lazienki Park, the scenery is even more beautiful as most of the upper surface is covered by snow! Part of the surface of the lake is covered by snow, some of the ducks were swimming in the water and some were just standing or resting on the ice. They looked so funny. I’m so amazed by how the Polish retain all their historical monuments, especially the Old Town. Warsaw is almost completely destroyed after the second world war and all these “old” buildings are all newly rebuilt according to their original outlook. I think it is kind of action that they are showing respect to the history of the Country. I think if these buildings are rebuilt into new modern skyscrapers, the history will completely lost, there will not be any meaning and there will not be any famous old town or tourists spots. There will only be an empty soul in this city. This problem is really worth thinking especially in the case in Hong Kong.
The public transport is convenient as it reaches every district extensively, we only need to buy a pass to take all public transport. When we walk around in the city we explored some of the historical buildings and then we went to a megastore inside a shopping mall and I wish there is such a big and cheap supermarket in Hong Kong.Tonight we started our real exchange life by playing hard! The buddy club has organized a karaoke party for all exchange students and finally we got a chance to meet everybody. I always thought Karaoke is something unique in Hong Kong or in Asia, but there it is! Although there aren’t any music video for each song, but the way it works is that people write the name of the songs they want to sing on a piece of paper and hand it to the DJ, so the DJ will open the file from a large bundle of songs in her computer and everybody looked at the screen of lyrics and sing out loud. So we drank and sang and sometimes even danced together on the dance floor! Although I’m tired, but it’s just so much fun!
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Today is the first time for us to take the metro, which is the underground in Warsaw. There is only one route in Warsaw and so it’s pretty easy for us to go to the places we want. So we took the metro towards the very end of the route, Kabaty as we heard there’s a super big supermarket so we went to shop for necessities. Many students here always like to go to this supermarket as it’s really big and cheap. This big supermarket, Tesco is really big and we have a wide choice even for a single category of product. The ice-cream sold is really cheap and delicious too! It costs only 1.7 Zloty, which is around 3 Hong Kong dollars but the quality is much better and there are such a wide choices of icecream!When we today come back to our dormitory, Sabinki, which is for exchange students, we started to meet some more newcomers and it’s so nice to see so many people from different countries gathering around. I really look forward to enjoy this exchange journey!Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Today is the first official orientation day and we starts to meet the school officers and professors. It’s the first time we have some kind of lectures here. We learnt something about the history, geography and economy of Poland. Then we took a tour around the school buildings and some of the buildings are situated across different street in between shops, residential buildings and parks. Our school is over 100 years old so the building is pretty classic, in the beautiful European way. The way their libraries works in quite a systematic way and everybody are assigned a seat before entering it and it was really very quiet there!Then we finally got our student ID card and the school has given us a mobile phone SIM card and an information pack.After the orientation, some friends and I went to the city centre to take a little walk around. And we got a chance to chat and learn more about each other’s cultures like different kinds of naming in families. It’s interesting to know for Germans, they can choose to have a family name following the mother’s, instead of following the father’s like what we do for Chinese.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
It’s another day of orientation. Today we mainly focus on the academic issues. It’s funny to learn that in this school there’s a tradition called “Academic Quarter”. It’s just so surprising to learn that if we are late for class within 15 minutes, it means nothing to the Professor. After the first 15 minutes, then it means you are really late. Besides, if the professor does not show up in the first half hour, it means the class is cancelled and we should go back to our places automatically.And my roommate has finally arrived! She’s from South Korea, called Hyo-Jin. It’s so nice to have her as my roommate as she is a very kind and caring girl. Other than her, there are a few more Korean students coming to exchange in SGH too. At night, the five of us, students from Hong Kong and Korean cooperated with each other and made the dinner together. We were so happy in the dinner as we are talking about all sorts of things. We also had some kind of language exchanges, I know a few sentences of Korean and they have also learnt a few Mandarin sentences in the past too!
Friday, 13 February 2009
Today the school has organized a bus tour to Warsaw for us. We went to the Royal Lazienki Park, the Ghetto Square and my long-awaited Old Town. As it started snowing in the morning, when we went to the Royal Lazienki Park, the scenery is even more beautiful as most of the upper surface is covered by snow! Part of the surface of the lake is covered by snow, some of the ducks were swimming in the water and some were just standing or resting on the ice. They looked so funny. I’m so amazed by how the Polish retain all their historical monuments, especially the Old Town. Warsaw is almost completely destroyed after the second world war and all these “old” buildings are all newly rebuilt according to their original outlook. I think it is kind of action that they are showing respect to the history of the Country. I think if these buildings are rebuilt into new modern skyscrapers, the history will completely lost, there will not be any meaning and there will not be any famous old town or tourists spots. There will only be an empty soul in this city. This problem is really worth thinking especially in the case in Hong Kong.Labels: 2008/2009 Semester B
Chong Chi Shing @ University of Groningen, The Netherlands (from CityU) 9 - 13 February 2009
Monday, 9 February 2009
This day we have a really good day because our semester starts. We met lots of new international friends from Italy, Portugal, Greece,etc. They are really nice and their English is really fluent. We learn some Italian like “Bravo”=”Good”. Italian is a really funny language and I love it really much. During the lecture, everyone is so active. Every student keeps chatting and makes the lecturers so angry.
At night, we go to pub and dance with the girls. I love it. I met many girls and have a hot dance with dance.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
The weather today is not good because it’s snowing. I hate snowing because it makes the street become so wet and it is dangerous to ride bikes on the street. I have to ride really slowly. The weather changes really fast and also strange. It snows in the morning and the sun comes out in the afternoon.
After I go home, I drink beer again and again with the Finland guys. They really drink a lot like water. They can also cook really well, especially the spaghetti. I love it and I think I can cook for my family when I return hong kong.
At night, we go to Ruma, a very famous pub in Groningen, having hot dance again with the dutch girls. They are really nice and I love to stay here. They are so different with the Hong Kong girls as they are not shy. Everybody here is willing to make friend with you. Almost 3:00a.m, we go home and sleep.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
It’s snowing again and is really cold. In the morning, we cook the breakfast for the girls from Luthania. We live in the same floor with the girls and we just look like a big family. We support each other and we always chat. We chat everything, especially their countries’ culture. Our culture have lots of difference. They always wonder why we Chinese eat much and I teach them how to use chopsticks. They also want us to talk with Mandarin. They said that our language is so funny and the words we write just look like a picture. I tell them their language is also very funny and it’s also difficult for we Chinese to learn their language as it’s difficult for us to vibrate our tongue. At night, we go to pub again.=.= The local students always invite us to the pub and drink with them. They love drinking very much.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Our introduction week starts. First, we go to buy our own bikes. It costs for 75 euro and I can save 40% refund when I leave here. It’s really funny to ride our bikes in the Netherlands and it’s my first time to ride the bikes on the street with the car. In the afternoon, we go museum. There are so many pictures and the art atmosphere there is really strong. However, I hate the art drawing because it’s really boring for me and I don’t understand what their drawings want to tell me.
Ha! At the night, we sing karaoke. I sing loudly with my friends and we have so much fun. We sing MAMAMIA. Really funny. We have buffet in the restaurant. The food there is really good and I love the salad and spaghetti. After the dinner, we ride the bikes and go home.
Friday, 13 February 2009
We waked up at 8:00am this morning because we have some workshops about the Dutch culture as well as some city tours. The pretty Dutch girls bring us to the city center, fresh market, post bank,etc. We see a lot of new things here and the food in the fresh market is really cheap. I think we can buy food here and cook on our own. Every people here is very tall, like Yauming. We have lunch in subway and the sandwich there is very delicious but expensive. It costs 5 euro. But anyway, I have to try it. At night, we go to pub with the international students. We have a great night. Everyone wears orange and I really feel that I’m a Dutch. Haha.
This day we have a really good day because our semester starts. We met lots of new international friends from Italy, Portugal, Greece,etc. They are really nice and their English is really fluent. We learn some Italian like “Bravo”=”Good”. Italian is a really funny language and I love it really much. During the lecture, everyone is so active. Every student keeps chatting and makes the lecturers so angry.At night, we go to pub and dance with the girls. I love it. I met many girls and have a hot dance with dance.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
The weather today is not good because it’s snowing. I hate snowing because it makes the street become so wet and it is dangerous to ride bikes on the street. I have to ride really slowly. The weather changes really fast and also strange. It snows in the morning and the sun comes out in the afternoon.After I go home, I drink beer again and again with the Finland guys. They really drink a lot like water. They can also cook really well, especially the spaghetti. I love it and I think I can cook for my family when I return hong kong.
At night, we go to Ruma, a very famous pub in Groningen, having hot dance again with the dutch girls. They are really nice and I love to stay here. They are so different with the Hong Kong girls as they are not shy. Everybody here is willing to make friend with you. Almost 3:00a.m, we go home and sleep.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
It’s snowing again and is really cold. In the morning, we cook the breakfast for the girls from Luthania. We live in the same floor with the girls and we just look like a big family. We support each other and we always chat. We chat everything, especially their countries’ culture. Our culture have lots of difference. They always wonder why we Chinese eat much and I teach them how to use chopsticks. They also want us to talk with Mandarin. They said that our language is so funny and the words we write just look like a picture. I tell them their language is also very funny and it’s also difficult for we Chinese to learn their language as it’s difficult for us to vibrate our tongue. At night, we go to pub again.=.= The local students always invite us to the pub and drink with them. They love drinking very much.Thursday, 12 February 2009
Our introduction week starts. First, we go to buy our own bikes. It costs for 75 euro and I can save 40% refund when I leave here. It’s really funny to ride our bikes in the Netherlands and it’s my first time to ride the bikes on the street with the car. In the afternoon, we go museum. There are so many pictures and the art atmosphere there is really strong. However, I hate the art drawing because it’s really boring for me and I don’t understand what their drawings want to tell me.Ha! At the night, we sing karaoke. I sing loudly with my friends and we have so much fun. We sing MAMAMIA. Really funny. We have buffet in the restaurant. The food there is really good and I love the salad and spaghetti. After the dinner, we ride the bikes and go home.
Friday, 13 February 2009
We waked up at 8:00am this morning because we have some workshops about the Dutch culture as well as some city tours. The pretty Dutch girls bring us to the city center, fresh market, post bank,etc. We see a lot of new things here and the food in the fresh market is really cheap. I think we can buy food here and cook on our own. Every people here is very tall, like Yauming. We have lunch in subway and the sandwich there is very delicious but expensive. It costs 5 euro. But anyway, I have to try it. At night, we go to pub with the international students. We have a great night. Everyone wears orange and I really feel that I’m a Dutch. Haha.Labels: 2008/2009 Semester B
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