Sunday, September 19, 2010
Charlotte Rye, from Leeds University, England @Cityu
I am Charlotte, an exchange student from Leeds university in England. I study Economics and during my year here I am taking mostly business related courses as well as some cultural modules. Having been in Hong Kong for four weeks now, I am starting to feel much more settled and like this is home. The first few weeks were really fun but very busy! There is no such thing as a typical day here since there is so much to do and the variety of these things is huge. Hong Kong is great as there is a different thing to discover about it everyday and always something for everyone. You can get anything you want here.
Being a student whive living here is great and you get to meet so many people from every corner of the world. CityU has been brilliant at making the exchange students feel welcome and at ease and showing us some really great places to go and to eat.
Monday. So I do have to do a bit of work, even though there is plenty of time to play as well! Today I had a three hour class - three hours seems a lot and is different to our one hour only classes at home but it goes fast and a lots can be done in this time. I then had a class for my Mandarin module which is really interesting but very hard! After this I had lunch in the Garden café on campus which serves really good and cheap food like salads and sandwiches. In the evening I went to my Hall Orientation evening where everyone gets the chance to meet others in the same hall. There were some activities and a meal afterwards, it was nice meeting all the local students and they are really enthusiastic and good at planning events for people to feel welcome and get to know one another.
Tuesday. I don’t have classes on Tuesdays and Fridays off which is really nice. Today I went with some friends to Wan Chai to apply for a Chinese visa as we are planning to visit there is a few weeks. It is a pretty long and boring process, with lots of waiting but it is worth it to be able to travel to China! After this we had dinner in Food Fest which is a really cheap and tasty food court very close to our halls. We then met some other friends and got to MTR to see some Cantonese opera. This was quite an experience and unlike anything I have seen before. The costume and set design is really impressive, however not being able to understand the words made keeping up with the start a bit difficult
Wednesday. Today I just had one hour of lectures, after which I went to Mong Kok to visit the market there, this is a great place to pick up bargains - you have to haggle. After this we went to the island and went up Victoria Peak, where you can see one of the best views of Hong Kong, the harbour and Kowloon. We came here on our first week but this is something you can do over and over again as it is so amazing. We wanted a chance to take our time and appreciate the views better.
Thursday. This is my busiest day at uni, I have two 2 hour classes and one 3 hour classes, so I am tired after! I went for a swim in-between classes, having an outdoor pool on campus is brilliant - its so cheap and really convenient. In the evening, a big group of us went to LKF to have some drinks, since Thursday night is ‘ladies night’ there and many bars have free drinks for girls! This is a great way to save money and have fun! We then went to a club nearby and stayed out dancing until quite late..
Friday. After a long lay in we went back to Wan Chai to collect our China visa and had lunch there. We then came back to CityU and took out some DVDs from the brilliant media library which has every DVD you could want and watched in in a common room.
Labels: 2010/2011 Semester A
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Alina Hoffmann@CityU
My Name: Alina Hoffmann
My Home University: Maastricht University, Netherlands
My Home Country: Germany
6th Sept
Today was the last day of the add/drop period, a period in which you can try different courses and still have the chance to drop them and add another class. Fortunately, my courses were settled and I am happy with all my classes. I am lucky because I can sleep in on Mondays. My first class today (Business Negotiation) was at 11.30am and I could have my breakfast at the “Homey Kitchen” in residence. In class, we discussed negotiation techniques and try to apply them in a simulation. I went to the library during the time between my first and second class. At 6.20pm my second class (Regulation and Management of Financial Institutions) was finished and I could meet some friends from my floor for a spicy Sichuan dinner and delicious mango dessert.
7th Sept
No classes on Tuesday for me, so I visit one of Hong Kong’s many sights and study. This week I took the metro to the MTR station Diamond Hill and walked through the beautiful “Nan Lian Gardens”. In this garden you can find a very quiet temple surrounded by ponds with lots of pretty fish in them. They are very nice to look at and the atmosphere in this place is especially peaceful even though it is surrounded by busy Hong Kong streets. I also went for a walk in the shopping mall and had lunch there with two other exchange students from Mainland China. The rest of the day I spent at the library studying for my classes on Wednesday.
8th Sept
On Wednesdays, I usually don’t have a lot of time because I have three classes in a row. My day began at 9.30am with a Finance class called Advanced Security Analysis and Portfolio Management. It is a lecture and usually very hard. Afterwards I had a tutorial for the course Economies of China. In this class we discussed the recent economic history of China’s past since the 1980s. It is a very interesting class, especially for exchange students. After having lunch, I still have a three hour lecture for the subject Financial Institutions, Markets and Instruments. After such a long day I am happy to go to my room, speak to some friends or family from Germany and go to bed.
9th Spet
My last school day of the week is Thursday. I only have one lecture and then my long weekend starts…not really, because I had to go to the library and discuss a paper that I have to write for one of my Finance classes with one local student from Hong Kong and an exchange student from Canada. We discussed our ideas for the paper and separated the work.
At night, all the exchange students went to the Ladies’ Night in Lan Kwai Fong. Lan Kwai Fong is a place with many bars next to each other and when there is Ladies’ Night, all the girls can get drinks for free. I had the feeling that there were many more western people dancing and partying but we also brought two girls from Hong Kong with us and had a great night.
10th Spet
Friday is my second day off in the week but I usually use the morning to read for my classes next week. I took my books and sat in the park near Cornwall Street to read for a while. When I was finished, I went to the Campus and had lunch at the canteen. After lunch I met with my ELMS group. ELMS is a program for local and Mainland students who want to learn better English. In this program, proficient English speakers are matched with a group of seven students and do all kinds of activities while speaking English. I like my group a lot and we had a lot of fun watching a movie and discussing it later.
In the evening I went to Tsim Sha Tsui. From Harbor City, my friends and I caught a ferry to Macau. Spending the evening and the night there was a very special experience because we could enjoy the entertainment in one of the many casinos on the one hand and the feeling of being in Europe on the other hand while walking through the Portuguese style streets of Macau’s city all the way to the ruins of Sao Paulo church.
My Home University: Maastricht University, Netherlands
My Home Country: Germany
6th Sept
Today was the last day of the add/drop period, a period in which you can try different courses and still have the chance to drop them and add another class. Fortunately, my courses were settled and I am happy with all my classes. I am lucky because I can sleep in on Mondays. My first class today (Business Negotiation) was at 11.30am and I could have my breakfast at the “Homey Kitchen” in residence. In class, we discussed negotiation techniques and try to apply them in a simulation. I went to the library during the time between my first and second class. At 6.20pm my second class (Regulation and Management of Financial Institutions) was finished and I could meet some friends from my floor for a spicy Sichuan dinner and delicious mango dessert.
7th Sept
No classes on Tuesday for me, so I visit one of Hong Kong’s many sights and study. This week I took the metro to the MTR station Diamond Hill and walked through the beautiful “Nan Lian Gardens”. In this garden you can find a very quiet temple surrounded by ponds with lots of pretty fish in them. They are very nice to look at and the atmosphere in this place is especially peaceful even though it is surrounded by busy Hong Kong streets. I also went for a walk in the shopping mall and had lunch there with two other exchange students from Mainland China. The rest of the day I spent at the library studying for my classes on Wednesday.
8th Sept
On Wednesdays, I usually don’t have a lot of time because I have three classes in a row. My day began at 9.30am with a Finance class called Advanced Security Analysis and Portfolio Management. It is a lecture and usually very hard. Afterwards I had a tutorial for the course Economies of China. In this class we discussed the recent economic history of China’s past since the 1980s. It is a very interesting class, especially for exchange students. After having lunch, I still have a three hour lecture for the subject Financial Institutions, Markets and Instruments. After such a long day I am happy to go to my room, speak to some friends or family from Germany and go to bed.
9th Spet
My last school day of the week is Thursday. I only have one lecture and then my long weekend starts…not really, because I had to go to the library and discuss a paper that I have to write for one of my Finance classes with one local student from Hong Kong and an exchange student from Canada. We discussed our ideas for the paper and separated the work.
At night, all the exchange students went to the Ladies’ Night in Lan Kwai Fong. Lan Kwai Fong is a place with many bars next to each other and when there is Ladies’ Night, all the girls can get drinks for free. I had the feeling that there were many more western people dancing and partying but we also brought two girls from Hong Kong with us and had a great night.
10th Spet
Friday is my second day off in the week but I usually use the morning to read for my classes next week. I took my books and sat in the park near Cornwall Street to read for a while. When I was finished, I went to the Campus and had lunch at the canteen. After lunch I met with my ELMS group. ELMS is a program for local and Mainland students who want to learn better English. In this program, proficient English speakers are matched with a group of seven students and do all kinds of activities while speaking English. I like my group a lot and we had a lot of fun watching a movie and discussing it later.
In the evening I went to Tsim Sha Tsui. From Harbor City, my friends and I caught a ferry to Macau. Spending the evening and the night there was a very special experience because we could enjoy the entertainment in one of the many casinos on the one hand and the feeling of being in Europe on the other hand while walking through the Portuguese style streets of Macau’s city all the way to the ruins of Sao Paulo church.
Labels: 2010/2011 Semester A
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