So it has been over 3 weeks since I landed in Hong Kong and I\u2019m not even sure where I should begin? My arrival to Hong Kong was pretty surreal as the airport is located on Hong Kong Island and City University Hong Kong is located in Kowloon. The whole bus journey from the island I starred googly eyed at the sun reflecting off of the clear blue water surrounding the island. But to my surprise as we approached Kowloon there was a dynamic change from tall trees and the ocean breeze, to tall skyscrapers and groups of people rushing around to the Metro station.<\/p>\n
I settled in quickly after arriving at student accommodation in CityU. Luckily I was in one of the newer halls which provided ceiling fans- I would have melted away otherwise! Fast forward to 3 weeks later I feel like I have seen and experienced so much. Just to name a few things I have done already, I went to Victoria Harbour to see Hong Kong\u2019s famous skyline, I visited the Big Buddha on Lantau Island and I also went to the famous \u2018Ladys market\u2019 in MongKok. Hong Kong as a city has so much to offer! The different aspects to this city are absolutely insane and tranquil at the same time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But let me tell you\u2026 My first two weeks here I couldn\u2019t tell the difference between the different places in Hong Kong. The only reason I figured out Hong Kong Island was a separate place to Kowloon was because of an outrageous taxi fare. Let me explain, one evening me and a group of exchange students found ourselves in Wan Chai near Lang Kwai Fong on Hong Kong Island. After a relaxed evening of sitting in a tall glass building drinking mocktails and sharing stories, we thought it was time to make our way back home. As the Metro station closed at 1:00am we thought it was a good idea to get a taxi. Once in the taxi we asked the driver to take us back to student accommodation at CityU, and when the driver named a shocking price my first thought was \u201cthis is the price for foreigners!!\u201d but, soon after we exchanged some negotiating words in broken English\/Cantonese I expressed to the driver \u201cWe are really close though! We are in Kowloon!\u201d The taxi driver just chuckled and said \u201cWe\u2019re not in Kowloon anymore dear\u201d. And from then onwards I realised the difference between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.<\/p>\n Aside from all the sight-seeing and fun I have been having, there is something else I have been doing\u2026 What\u2019s it called again? That place where you, you know? Study? Yeah! University. That\u2019s what it\u2019s called haha! I have been attending classes at CityU and I must say these 3 hour seminars I have are pretty intense. I never would that thought I could concentrate for that long! Also I didn’t anticipate how hard it actually was to be an international student. This is because it is so hard to sit in your dorm room and study when you know you could be outside hiking a mountain or taking a train to Shenzhen in China. But I must remember I am here to study!!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2026 But mostly have fun haha. Talking about fun, I\u2019m taking a spontaneous trip to Taiwan next weekend to celebrate the mid-autumn festival. Bring on the moon cakes and sky lanterns!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n See you guys when I\u2019m back,<\/p>\n Sara<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So it has been over 3 weeks since I landed in Hong Kong and I\u2019m not even sure where I should begin? My arrival to Hong Kong was pretty surreal […]","protected":false},"author":815,"featured_media":442,"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":[93,87,85,89,59,90],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-exchange","tag-asia","tag-cityuniversityhongkong","tag-hongkong","tag-victoriahabour","tag-hong-kong","tag-studying"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4QQbz-7i","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1205,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/a-quick-summary-of-7-weeks-in-hong-kong\/","url_meta":{"origin":452,"position":0},"title":"A quick summary of 7 weeks in Hong Kong","author":"Anna Ingram","date":"October 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi everyone,\u00a0my name is Anna and I'm a second year Psychology student currently on a one-semester exchange\u00a0at the University of Hong Kong. I love to travel and see new places, so when the Psych department at Cardiff said this exchange was available, I was sure I wanted to go for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Placements"","block_context":{"text":"International Placements","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/category\/international-exchange\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/281\/2016\/10\/20160823_075139-450x253.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":414,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/paris-before-hong-kong\/","url_meta":{"origin":452,"position":1},"title":"Paris before Hong Kong","author":"Sara Rahman","date":"August 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"My name is Sara Rahman and I am a student going into my third year of University. Within my third year of university I will be studying Philosophy at City University Hong Kong. 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The first shock occurred as we stepped out of the cool air conditioned airport, and into the hot and humid weather. The sweating had begun. Something you have to get used to in China. 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I visited Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Asia, it\u2019s a crazy place I tell you. Each country I visited in Asia brought something new to the table, every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Placements"","block_context":{"text":"International Placements","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/category\/international-exchange\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sara Rahmen standing on a cliff near the ocean.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/281\/2016\/02\/thumb_IMG_9621_1024-768x432-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/281\/2016\/02\/thumb_IMG_9621_1024-768x432-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/281\/2016\/02\/thumb_IMG_9621_1024-768x432-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/281\/2016\/02\/thumb_IMG_9621_1024-768x432-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/281\/2015\/09\/DSC_0509-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/815"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2455,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions\/2455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/globetrotters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}