After just 10 long days of existing within the confines of the Special Administrative Region, I think I can safely say that Hong Kong seems to be the truest dichotomy of man and nature; obnoxiously large skyscrapers exploding with light nestle snugly into rolling hills of beautiful greenery, against a calming backdrop of the deep blue South China Sea. The waves of the fragrant harbour create a frantic, frenzied roar, one which is almost indistinguishable from the pungent city hum – a cacophony of frustrated bumper-to-bumper car horns paired sweetly with the constant murmuring of overworked air conditioner units. The tap water is undrinkable, nobody recycles, and the weather during monsoon season is so tempestuous that the government sends us thunderstorm warnings and typhoon signals via a mobile app.<\/p>\n
Alas, between struggling to gather the necessary paperwork required by my host university, eating so much street food that I constantly feel uncomfortably full, and spending an embarrassingly large amount of time each day on finding the perfect place to take a picture for my Instagram (@Swannerrz, hmu hmu), I do believe that I am finally beginning to adapt to life in what I can only describe as the most objectively terrifying yet consistently magical area in the world.<\/p>\n
You may be able to tell what kind of an impact this experience has had on me so far by the fact that this blog post took me 10 days to write, even given its disappointing brevity; my next update shall hopefully be a lot less pretentious and a lot more informative (but you should definitely expect a similar amount of, if not more, semicolons).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After just 10 long days of existing within the confines of the Special Administrative Region, I think I can safely say that Hong Kong seems to be the truest dichotomy […]","protected":false},"author":1403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[269],"tags":[295,59],"class_list":["post-2648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-exchange","tag-dichotomy","tag-hong-kong"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4QQbz-GI","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5888,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/incoming-exchange-yin-yui-from-the-hong-kong-polytechnic-university-hong-kong\/","url_meta":{"origin":2648,"position":0},"title":"Incoming Exchange \u2013 Yin Yui from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong","author":"Global Opportunities","date":"March 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Yin Yui: International Exchange Student Home institution: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Subjects studied: Geography and planning What motivated you to take up a year abroad in Cardiff? 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