Bye, April.

Owh May is coming. I'm getting so excited. Cz I'm going to Gold Coast, and I'll watch Mayday's concert. It'll be the last month having disastrous Mondays till Wednesdays non-stop classes. Life is all of a sudden....better.

Anyway, I had a really laid back week. Too much laying back I think this time. Owh, am I slowly turning into an Aussie?? Hell no...it was just a week I felt like doing nothing. Well, it makes sense right? You had a nice weekend, and there was this nice public holiday no school on Monday thingy, and then you are excited and you keep waiting everyday for the interview, and you got so frustrated and depressed when you lost your room key, but luckily an angel found it and you got it back.....stuff like that. Sounds tiring, didn't it?

We had this great and extremely filling Taiwanese dinner at this crepe shop. Yeah, it was good, a nice reward in fact. And we girls had some long chat together for about I guess 2-3 hours.

It was a nice way to end April, and I'm really looking forward to a great great month of May!! =)

About programming and auditing

I never tell you guys anything about the courses I am taking over here.

Programming is the one I enjoy most, next would be auditing, not because the lecture or the topic is interesting , but I just love my tutor a lot.

My Programming class~

I love dealing with high tech stuff, well of course when I can understand it.

I always see lotsa job ads talking about some additional requirements to apply for those technical or IT jobs. Something about java, C++, and the list goes on. Can't believe I have the chance to learn it over here during my exchange. My instructor and the coordinator course as well as my tutor is this super young guy (he just looks like a student!!). He's from HK but I think he can't speak canto well (that's what people say). But he's a really good instructor. He deliver very clear and good lectures, and he is good in helping us to understand the materials. It could be frustrating at times, not being able to solve the java code just because of some tiny miney error. But, it made me feel so happy and successful when I am able to do the work by myself. I really learned something out of his class, and I enjoy lab sessions too....

As for the auditing course, my instructor was pretty boring. Although there is no doubt that she has very deep knowledge in the topic. On the other hand, I have this super coooool and cute tutor (owh she's female, don't get "cute" the wrong way, haha) But her 1 hour tute every week just makes my school week end sooo much better. The way she explains auditing is just so interesting, and she's so good at cracking jokes, even very simple ones. Yeah, I really like her a lot. And I'm really glad that I changed my tute to her class.

Well you may wanna ask.....how about your other classes? Hmm, not worth mentioning them at the moment I guess...most of the time? Not interesting.

Last 10 days. Randomness.

It's down to the last 10 days of April.

This dog is sooooo cute. I wished I could smile like him...Random~

Well, I can't believe time flew that fast.

A lot of things happened in the first three weeks. There was this 10 day holiday, and there were tonnes of exams, homework and essays due after the holidays.

My exchange life was pretty different from what I expected, and what perhaps other people expected as well. Exchange was supposed to be full of traveling around here and there, and activities everyday if not every week. That's what I heard before going on exchange, and people even told me that exchange was the best part of their lives. 

WOW.

Can I assume that it is because I kinda came to the wrong country?

Anyway, from the above, you can read that I am not having a SUPER GOOD exchange life. I thought that feeling will only last for the first 2 weeks or maybe a month...BUT, It has been really exhausting for the past week or so. My mood just wasn't right to do all those stuff, those stuff like midterms, textbooks, writings etc. I wanted to do well so badly in all courses over here, but that is just taking too much out of me.

Hmm, I KO-ed a midterm last Monday, another midterm last Saturday, sprained my ankle badly on the same day, stayed up wide awake on Sunday to complete my 10% database online quiz and 30% 2000-word law essay. What a good week huh. And another midterm is coming up this Friday. Luckily, this one doesn't require that much strenuous reading.

I am starting to wonder a LOT about life. The more I grow up, the more complicated it gets.

I wanna go to Blue Mountains, Hunter Valley and Port Stephens. I wanna have more good food of this country which might only be well known for Fish n Chips. I wanna take more nice photos. I wanna earn this currency which is currently doing very well, at least earn back the freaking expensive student visa application fee. I wanna get a good exchange transcript. But it doesn't seem to be possible to achieve all in the next 2 months right? 

Time is flying. And I kept repeating this. I kept telling people around me that we're ending this exchange so soon. It's true right? See....you do some essays, you take some exams, you cook at home everyday, you receive the drafted exam timetable, you take more rest after not resting to meet some datelines, then you get a shock as the finalized exam timetable is so different from the drafted one (ya, I really don't understand the purpose of having so many versions of tt-s), you go marketing every Sunday evening for cheap one dollar stuff, you top up your expensive prepaid sim card, you pay rental, and you pay rental again, you start studying, you start to think about disposing some big items that you got for this 4 months plus exchange, you start packing, you went in for the exam, you either came out smiling from the exam because you don't care or you really did very well, you add a few more friends on facebook, you keep checking facebook, you keep uploading photos on facebook, you start eating a lot of junk food because without them you can't concentrate studying, you finish all exams, and you start thinking: does this feel like a third home to me?

Maybe not. 

Well, I'm goinna try to have more fun this coming week okay? I promise?

At the same time, I'll ensure that I really work hard for what I am studying.

Good luck and chill!

Owh ya, I wanna tell you guys about Easter Show! Will do that soon ya...=)

Whooosh. Half of April is gone.

Well, I'm still hanging in here. A lot of things happening and a lot of things to do lately. I wanna blog. But I just heaps (The Australian word, it means lots!) of things coming up non-stop that makes blogging something that has to be on the waiting list.

So, a quick quick quick update.

I started Easter Holidays the day after April Fool. I had one day rest on the first day of hols, and started all the fun the day after. I went to the Hoopla Festival on 3rd April, left Sydney for Melbourne on 4th April and stayed there till early Thursday morning, came back home like a deadly tired person on 8th April, went to Easter Show on 9th April, and became a good student on the last 2 days of my hols, just because I have a midterm on the day school resumes, which is 12th of April.

Why is my break sooooooo short la?

A photo I took during my Melbourne trip. I love this a lot. Randomness....haha.

Okay, I'll tell you guys more in detailed. Erm, when I finish these 2 crazy weeks of exams and essays and assignments.....

Cheers!

Easter is coming.....

 

Easter is coming coming coming.....

I never thought Easter could be such a big thing, in Hong Kong as well as in Australia. We have a week long holiday in Hong Kong, and 10 days holiday including Good Friday in Australia. We call that Easter Break, or Easter Holiday.

I never really noticed what Easter is like in Hong Kong. But in Australia, there's a lot happening during Easter. First of all, there has been a lot of sales regarding Easter. All supermarkets sell a variety of chocolate, some a lot in the rabbit shape, and others in the huge egg shape. They are sooooo cute, and definitely tempting. Owh, and some sell rabbit fluffy toys as well....

Other than that, there are a lot of events happening throughout Easter. I shall update you guys when I attend those events.

The Unimates Students Association had their coffee and cakes session themed as "Pre-Easter Coffee & Cakes". It was a fun session with some cute food serving a lot of people. Too bad, I didn't have enough time to spend there making more friends as I only had my 10 minutes break of lecture for this....

Another tutor of mine gave us eggy chocolates during tutorials too. How sweet is that!!

given by my tutor ^.^

So, yeah, it seems like a huge celebration that I've never experienced before....Happy Easter everyone!!

And a lil update over here, I will be spending time at Melbourne for 4 days 4 nights this Easter! =)

The Malaysians Meet-up

When you're at a foreign country, it's always glad to meet with people from your own country~

I remember myself getting really excited to know the Malaysians when I first reached Hong Kong, and we are like a small lil community. It's always comfortable hanging around with people who will make you feel like home.

When I came to Australia about 6 week ago, I was excited about meeting Malaysians too. (As I heard that there are a lot of Malaysians around here) Perhaps, I got too excited. During Orientation Week of my uni, I went to a booth called SUAMS (Sydney University Association of Malaysian Students), and when they asked if I were a Malaysian, I "excitedly" answered "Yeah, yeah!". But all I got back was just some "Owh kay, would you like to join our association then? We have a lot of Malaysians here......" And from that kinda reaction, I just realized that, well, it's really not something unusual to see people from your own country. And when it's not something unusual, it won't be exciting anymore. A little disappointing at first, but I got used to it not long after. Now I realized that Hong Kong is so much less diversified compared to AUS. They have tonnes of Europeans, Americans, Africans and Asians (including Japanese....I'm saying this because there are ZERO Japanese in HK) in one uni (excluding faculty and staff). We have? 40 Malaysians, growing to 50 or 60 maybe, 30 Europeans, no Americans, 10 Africans....err. Well you get the picture. Perhaps it's because my university is still too young, and HK does not use English as their first language, hence not much people will opt HK for tertiary education.

Nevertheless, I managed to contact some friends from Penang, who are doing full time in Sydney. The funny thing as we only heard of each other during high school (diff high school somemore =.=), and we never get to know each other. This time, we got introduced by another friend whom I'm not any close to either. Haha.

I was glad to be invited to his place for dinner. It feels.......sooooo much more like HOME. Cause they cooked CURRY CHICKEN! =) And we can speak Hokkien, and most important of all, Malaysian Chinese!! Hahaha... I had a great time in their beautiful unit, and thanks for the hospitality. Thanks Sheng Yu!

I still do hope that I could meet Malaysians who are excited to meet other Malaysians though. Haha ~~

Career Fair

I accidentally noticed that there is Career Fair in USYD yesterday. In their advertisement, there are 7 big prizes to be given away, and one of them is a 1TB HARD DISK! Haha, so craving for all the prizes, I tried attending the fair despite having full day classes~

As I was in a rush, I forgot to bring my student ID there during my first visit.

And ya, the weird thing about a huge career fair is, it only starts at 12pm, and ends at 4pm. ONLY 4 HOURS.

But anyway, I managed to get in the second time. There were quite a lot of companies recruiting, mostly business related, and quite a lot of people too. I had a lot of fun getting lotsa free gifts from different companies, pens, notepads, chocolates, even a shampoo!! And I realized that a lot of them give out stress balls, so I guess Australian people have stress too? Hahaha.

Anyway, back to careers in Australia. Well, Big4 firms only hire people who graduated from local uni-s. As for the rest, they'll require you to have Australian Permanent residency before you apply for the grad job. Hmm....so it seems not possible for me to work here at all? But the salary package here is so attractive!!! One of the positions offered, a trader, earns you AUD100,000 per year!! Another job that I was really interested in was the Management Trainee like position by Qantas Airways. It is a two-year program and I really think that it will be fun. But still, the condition applies. I have to be a PR before being eligible to apply for it. Aih~~

And so, these are the freebies that I got from the fair. Haha....Owh, but I missed the free cup of coffee given by Deloitte (or 1 of the Big4 firms...)~

Emergencies Everyday

Something REALLY extraordinary here!!

You will hear emergency sirens all around the place every single day, especially during night time. This means accidents or perhaps fire happen here everyday. Well, no wonder people think that this is not a safe city, or a safe country. But to be honest, I don't really know what kinda accidents are those. But the sirens just made me feel so uncomfortable. Police cars, fire brigade, and ambulances. It's just so weird to see them around everyday. =.= Haha.

And today, it happened in my uni. The fire alarm rang in the building after I finished my tutorial class. Luckily it was AFTER the tutorial class because I seriously hate interruptions. But I just walked out slowly as though nothing is going on as I thought it was just another false alarm, or perhaps fire emergency practice? Apparently, most people vacated from the building. And the THREE fire brigades came =.= But, I still don't see any fire or smoke or any scenario that seems to need help from them. Oh, this is weird. 

Haha, but anyway, just to tell you more about life here.

Week 3 @USYD

Things are getting tensed up. I am currently settled down with 6 course, 36 credits, while normal people only takes 4 courses with 24 credits. I managed to arrange my timetable and am currently enjoying a 4 day long weekend. Yippee.. However, I do have 2 clashes in such a timetable, and I will listen to the recordings of those classes that clashes. One more thing, I don't really have any lunch time for schooling days from Mondays to Wednesdays. This means....STARVE! Yeah I'll only be having breakfast, and then dinner 9 hours later.

I have been interviewed by the Starbucks manager and he likes me and he said that he's goinna give me a reply by today or Monday (either to work at his store or other stores, but amazingly, in this huge NSW, there're only 9 Starbucks in total =.=). I have tried making sushi at a Korean-run Japanese Sushi place in Broadway Shopping Centre, one place across the street from where I stay. I would have to say that making sushi is definitely fun but.....making sushi at a korean place just doesn't sound right, owh ya, and the pay is freaking low.

Other than that, I just got accepted into the Internship Program for Study Abroad and Exchange students of the uni, which means that I MIGHT end up with 7 courses (because the internship is credit based), and that will kill me, and people thought that I am insane. It's an internship working with Sydney Observatory - a project on planning a holiday program for kids. Well, it definitely has nothing to do with my future career, but I supposed it will be a good experience for me, working with people that are extremely laid back? I haven't decided, as I'm kinda stuck with the number of courses I am allowed to be enrolled into. This is pretty much what happened throughout the week I guess?
One more thing, I have been really trying to study these few days, but I guess all my attempts weren't that successful. Oh gosh, can someone just gimme some suggestions on how to be more diligent? And how to extend my concentration span?
Being too busy during exchange definitely isn't good. I need some free time to hang out with people, to visit more places that I am supposed to, and to explore as much as I could. Hmm, how am I goinna achieve that?
I'll have a busy weekend again I think. Well, I guess this is what an exchange is supposed to be like.....there's never ending stuff waiting for you to do!!

In case you are wondering what the hell is the photo doing in the middle of my blog, this is one of my meals that I made here. It is a sort of instant food, and it took me around 105 minutes to prepare it. It only costs....I guess AUD1.50 the most? Haha, a great way for poor people to save money huh~~

People here

I am goinng briefly talk about the people here.

Well you've heard of them being laid back, and to me that's a huge issue!!!

Things normally get delayed for 1-2 weeks, such as....

1) My scholarship!! - I have submitted all relevant details by 22nd Feb, and finally I just got the money yesterday. It took them almost a month. And within that period, they keep telling things such as "I have already done this and that, and it should be there by XXX". Owh, it was pretty frustrating.

2) Internship! - I applied for the Study Abroad and Exchange credit-based internship 2 weeks after I came here as I was not sure whether I get to enrol into the courses that I really want to. I got a reply for a meeting with them in one sunny day, and when I emailed them regarding my free time to meet up, there was no reply until after the day was over, I then only got a reply from them the day after, after I EMAILED them AGAIN. Ok. They still met up with me anyway, and we discussed about the internships that I might be interested in. Then I was told that they will be keeping in touch with me soon. And so I waited and the add course period was over last Friday and I have yet to hear from then, and poop all of a sudden, this Monday, I was sent an email regarding the first training we are supposed to attend for this internship course. The whole thing was weird. I did attend the training which was extremely boring, and after the traning when I asked about the internship, their best answer they could give is just wait, because they haven't receive a reply from the employer yet. In my mind I was thinking, can't you inform me that you have already sent my application to the employer and we are awaiting for their decision soon after you have done so? I was about to forget about this whole internship thingy as I managed to enrol into the courses I wanted to and out of the blue, I am involved in it again. And so I waited for the employer's reply. The coordinator called me today, and told me the "good news" that I am accepted by the employer. But I'm in deep trouble. I am now enrolled into 7 courses, while I am supposed to be in at most 5 courses. She asked me to drop my other courses, which I really don't want to. And she told me she'll be sending the details of the internship to me immediately after we hang up on the phone, and I have not received any reply up till now. What a thing =.=

3) My courses! - This was quite some time ago, when I just arrived and start dealing with my enrolment. I was supposed to get someone to approve me for taking higher level courses. I was referred by my advisor to go to the Student Information Office of the School of Business and Economics. And so I went there and the lady asked me to see/email the ACCT UG coordinator in charge. I went to his office and he was not there. His colleagues doesn't even know when he will be coming back. And so I emailed him, and there wasn't any reply. And so I contacted the SIO again, and she said that I could refer to the professor teaching the course I wanted to enrol in. I emailed the professor and he said that I should be going back to SIO to start the application of approval process all over again. And meanwhile I still haven't got back any reply from the SIO guy. And so it dragged on and it frustrates me a lot. People in HKUST at least replies in 1 day the latest for such urgent matters. But people here, they just push you around, as they don't really care what other people is supposed to do, they just do what they are supposed to do.

I guess I have much more stories about them being extremely slow, not responsive and definitely inefficient. Most Asian people including some Americans have the same complaints too. I guess this is the culture shock that I am experiencing. Haha. In conclusion, this might not be a good place if I wanna live a rapid and efficient life. I will just be kek ki all the time...haha.

Changes

Things got better in my 2nd week of lectures. I'm settling down with classes. I am not attending random lectures anymore. I am starting to plan for a perfect timetable, perfect as in having a 4-day weekend. I am maximizing the opportunity of taking courses here and transferring it back to HKUST, taking 6 courses, 4 of them are my core courses.

It was still a busy week for me. Some of my classes are scattered around the day. One at 9am, and the other one at 3pm. So I tried really hard to swap and play around my schedule. It was a really tough process, as people here generally do not know clearly what they are doing, and what they are supposed to do. I nearly gave up by the end of the week. 

Again, I realized that I will go broke again towards the upcoming week, as that will be the time for me to pay my fortnightly rental. And my scholarship money is NOT HERE yet.....!! Awh. This is definitely bad as

1) I won't have money to eat

2) I can't go out and enjoy

3) I might have to borrow money from people who have just known me for a few weeks?

4) I just can't do anything without money!

And so....this week, I was desperately looking for a part time job as well. The bad thing is, most places either do not want to hire international students on a student visa (max working hours per week=20), or they will not want someone who will only stay here for a few months, OR they want someone who can speak Japanese (because I tried several Japanese restaurants).....

Ahh....so finding casual employment is definitely not an easy thing to do. I'm still trying hard, hoping that perhaps Starbucks will hire me.

What else happened this week?

Owh ya, and books here!

Well, one thing that suits me here is that most lecturers encourage a lot of institutional reading.

BUT, most of them require textbooks, and textbooks are EXPENSIVE over here. Most of the new ones are sold at AUD120 and above. Second hand ones will still cost AUD50 and above. Mahalnya =.=

And the worst part is, most of the textbooks selected are the latest editions. They don't put any copies in the libraries (although there are like 8 libraries here?), or even if they do, a lot of copies are stolen.

YEAH, you heard me correctly, stolen =.= The librarian even told me, accounting books are quite slippery over here....ahh. So they knew the problem.

Evening! Fisher Library =)

So I guess that's pretty much about uni this week?

I gotta study real hard next week onwards!

1st few lectures

Everything is pretty new to me.

Getting lost on my way searching for lecture rooms, meeting lecturers coming from different parts of the world, being in a fully diversed class up to a size of 400+ people and some sitting on the walkway, having a hard time trying to keep myself awake for the 2-hour lecture.....

This is something funny that the Professor posted within his lecture slides~~I dunno whether you guys can read it....

It was fun I would say. At least I'm not the one sitting on the floor. Haha.

I will be comparing what I have over here to what I had in HKUST.

One of the lecture theatres

Well I'll talk about the good things here. 

Lecturers and instructors generally speak good English. Those I had in Psychology and Sociology classes are pretty humorous. They conduct very enjoyable lectures.

I prefer how they have 2 hours lecture and 1 hour tutorial here. As I believe that tutorials are definitely important in the learning process (ya, I'm a tutorial person...haha). But perhaps, the 2 hour lecture should be split into 2 sessions, cause I have extremely bad and short attention span. Owh ya, the part that I like MOST! It's absolute grading!!  They have your marks printed on your transcript, so everything is very transparent~

And the bad things?

Hmm. I would say that they have way too many people in a lecture. Some of mine fits more than 400 people, and the whole course actually gets 2000+ students enrolled!! Amazing figure. Other than that, lecturers here prepare notes in a pre-set 3 slide or 6 slide pdf files, which I don't like as I'm unable to customize it for printing to save printing cost as well as paper. One other thing that I noticed here is that, quite a number of my lecturer are not PHD holders! (Hmm, how could that be....) And another issue that I notice might be there are 6 teaching staff (means you'll have 6 lecturers just for one course, taking turns to teach) and a few more tutors for a course~ This is so different from HKUST, well I guess this practice has its good and bad. Hmm, well instructors here like to get their students to purchase latest edition texbooks pretty much too! Well you know how much do they cost? Around 120-180 each!! Classes here are dispersed all around the whole freaking huge uni! And most classes dismiss at the hour and leaves you with no time to move on to your immediate next class (even worse, when you have to walk 10 minutes to another building for your class) And some of the lecture theatres are pretty old school with weird sittings and stuffy environment too =.=

From here, I noticed that HKUST is indeed a research university. My lecturers are all PHD holders, and they perform a lot of research (that's why most of their teachings are very boring!!!) I guess this made me realize the most suitable method for me to learn. I won't conclude now though...haha. I really wanna enjoy myself learning here, and to find back my momentum for studying.

Owh, one more thing!! There are like 85% Asians in the Economics and Business Faculty. And I hear people speaking Mandarin (Putonghua) all the time =.= This makes me wonder whether I'm in the right continent. Haha....

Well, I shall settle down with my courses soon. It's good news! I'm goinna get all the courses that I wanted to transfer! Yippee~~~

Exploration around the city

Have been busy with course transfers, bank, accommodation settling down these few days.

At last we managed to arrange some weekend activities!!

Bondi Beach is the first beach I'd been to since arriving this slow paced city. No doubt it is an extremely beautiful beach. So huge and the water is so clear. Everything's just perfect. Except for the weather forecast was not too reliable, and I did not bring my swimming costume from Malaysia. 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself. It has been awhile since I made a sand castle with my friends. Those were the days.

The next afternoon, me and my housemates went to the Sydney Fish Market. It is a famous place for seafood, cheap and fresh, that's what we heard from people around. It took us about 25 minutes to walk there, plus some time looking at the map....haha. And there were a lot of people, definitely a lot of seafood too. But erm, it's not cheap actually. We still reward ourselves with a Seafood Platter, well, some good food before school starts...haha. And it was tremendously tasty!!! I love Calamari Rings the most! Owh, and I also bought a packet of Teriyaki Salmon for lunch the next day.

After Fish Market, we headed to the Casino. Well, it's nothing special to be honest, after I've been to Macau's casinos several times. Owh ya, and they don't serve free drinks!

That night, we went to see the Mardi Gras Parade. It is the largest annual parade they have in Sydney. People have been queuing up around the streets since noon to witness it. We went there pretty late, hence, we didn't really get to see the moving parade, instead we just went around the place they queue up. It was a crazy night, and well, I think perhaps I'll watch the parade online, Youtube maybe. Haha.

And we took a long rest on Sunday. Almost all day staying at home, even for meals.

To be honest, I can't wait to go back to study, and see what studying is like in Sydney!!

Updates in a glance

I think I HAVE grown fat~

I guess I have not been good in the past few months. It has been ages again since I updated my blog. I have promised to kinda tell stories about everything after I finish my final exams in HKUST, but it didn’t happen. And since then, I have been to Chongqing, Wuhan (just for a night), back to Hong Kong, done some winter courses, back to Malaysia, had my reunion “lunch”, boarded the cheap airflight to Changi Airport, and arrived in Brisbane for a few hours, and then Sydney Australia.

Well it has been a long long time.

(Haha, actually, I had this time because I don’t have internet access at the moment~~haha~)

This is the extremely beautiful campus of Sydney Uni

After being here for 8 days, I would say I really did not have a good start. Well firstly, coming from a HOT country, I would definitely not want to go to another place which is also HOT for the period I would be there. Yea, it has been sultry hot for the past week except for the first day I arrived where it rained cats and dogs. HOT-34 degree Celsius-sweat-sun burn….and what else. At some moments, I do feel stupid leaving Hong Kong with the weather at an average of 8-12 degree Celcius everyday? Haha.

I have yet to find anything that I would say is CHEAP here.

$$$EXPENSIVE$$$

This is so much like a No-Money-Don’t-Come-Continent. It’s not that I have not been here (Aus) before….but, you will just feel that our currency is so much undervalued after seeing the price of EVERYTHING over here. And yea, it definitely feels even worse when you know you’re goinna stay here for a semester. All meals on average AU$7-10 and bottled drinks (500ml) are at AU$2, well you should know that I am most sensitive about the prices of FOOD. Haha. Other than that, transportation cost kills you. To travel for like a less than 1km ride, it costs AU$1.60 by bus. For trains, most return day journey tickets cost about AU$4 for a 30 minutes ride. For raw food and fruits? Definitely expensive. AU$1.60 (I’m not sure whether it’s even 300gms) for a few pieces of vege, AU$4.50 for a kilo of red apples? Owh ya, the definitely not to be missed ONE…TELEPHONE COSTS!-it will cost you AU$0.20 per minute, but there is this CONNECTION FEE (they call it flagfall) of AU$0.25 once the line is connected. So imagine this, even if it goes to voice mail for 1 sec, you’ll still have to pay $0.45 for it!!!

It got so much harder for me to settle down here as compared to Hong Kong. Although there are probably the same amount of Asians and non-Asian students here, but I felt like I was the minority, and things are seriously out of my comfortable zone. You can definitely see a lot of stores operated by Chinese and there’s even a Chinatown near where I stay, but the atmosphere is definitely different.  Even a stick of HK curry fish balls costs you AU$3!! (That is HKD21—in Hong Kong, it’s around HKD per stick!) – whoops, I am back to “FOOD” again.

Well, overall, I don’t feel that I am settled down yet after so many days. It’s not that Aussies are not accommodating, but it’s the style people do things here and in Hong Kong is so different. I guess efficiency explains it all.

Am I experiencing a culture shock? Maybe. Haha….but I will definitely take this as a good experience of getting to know how can people actually survive in “such” a place….hmm.

More updates coming up.