An ordinary and great day at HKUST

Many of our blog posts have been about trips, outings and special events that we've experienced during our exchange term. Those were indeed awesome, but I also wanted to share how a regular, normal day would be for us as exchange students at HKUST. There were days where we didn't go out because, yes, we had to study! Although I may have complained and grumbled about being stuck in the library, I still view every part of my experience as a luxury. We were able to travel halfway across the world to attend a great university, continue to learn and expand our knowledge base, meet new friends, experience Hong Kong culture, eat such delicious foods and see beautiful sights. So I would like to share, from my point of view, what a normal day would be like for an exchange student experiencing student life at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology :) I hope you read on and enjoy!

7:30am was still too early...in any time zone. But, I made a vow to myself to not sleep in and skip classes during my time here. After all, the grades I achieve here at HKUST still counts towards my GPA for graduate admission committees...

The room was dark; I would have love to throw the curtains wide open but I didn't want to wake my sleeping roommate. I sneakily took my toiletries and proceeded out of our room door.

I would say that my roommate and I probably have one of the best rooms on the floor. It was far away from the washroom so we don't get disturbed by students walking past our bedroom, slamming doors and showering at ungodly hours. In addition, instead of having a room directly across from us, we have a balcony that displayed crisp Clear Water Bay scenery and beautiful mountains. There would be times where, if I woke up early enough in the morning, I would enjoy a few moments out on the balcony, taking in the glorious view and feeling the morning breeze.

Library News!

Dear all,

Jordan and I have been spending quite a bit of time in the library, due to upcoming midterms, projects and assignments. Don't worry; we are still have lots of fun. We try to add to the amazing fun in the library with addition amazing fun of exploring, a couple times a week! We went to the Hong Kong History Musuem and Science Museum yesterday!

Anyway, the point of this post is to tell you about this amazing playlist of songs I have been listening to while I study: http://8tracks.com/thegirlnamedjedrzejko/my-ultimate-study-playlist. It has quite the mixture of songs, from classical composers such as Beethoven to epic movie soundtracks from movies such as Inception. For those who are stuck in the library like us, I hope you enjoy it!

Jan 26 - Flight to Hong Kong!

So on Jan 26th, we left our urban island paradise of Taipei, Taiwan. It was a sad feeling to leave a place where we were well fed and well exercised from scouring many areas in Taipei. The city ended up being a lot bigger than I expected. I initially thought that we'd only need 4-5 days to explore Taiwan and after that we'd want to go south on the island, or move on to other countries. Melody and her dad showed me so many beautiful places in Taiwan that I think we'd still have a list going if we did 2-3 things for 4 weeks.
But sadly, 10 days is all we had to give Taiwan on my first time there. It was a great time there, but only a sampling of the beginning.