irizzz

After a whirlwind of excitement, I finished my 3-week-trip in Singapore. For me, Singapore is just like home, the food, the shopping malls, the people there, not much difference from everything in Hong Kong. The 3-week summer course in NUS was too good. I did live in the food and shopping paradise for a while. Finally, I was able to enjoy the summer breeze after the long and cold winter in Canberra. During a short span of 3 weeks, I walked past tall and modern architectures on my way to shopping areas every day and mingled with students who are from all over the world. I was saying no to the smell of durian, but yes to the colourful ice cream sandwiches outside Ion shopping mall and Japanese omelet rice in the NUS campus, and a ... read more

The exchange experience officially started when we moved into the student dorm in NSTU. We had the chance to live with other Russian students in a student residential hall together for a 5-week-period. Food was provided in the accommodation. We had the chance to taste traditional Russian breakfast, lunch and dinner. Even though the meals were similar everyday, we enjoyed them a lot. We felt like home every day when the staff in the canteen gave us a big warm smile before we got our food. For breakfast, we usually had bread and butter, congees, porridge, yoghurt and eggs. For lunch, we usually had minced beef and rice, salmon fish or baked chicken. Sometimes when we were lucky enough, there would be cheesecakes as dessert. Dinner time was not the best of all. It was not ... read more

I didn’t know what to expect when I decided to go to Novosibirsk in Russia. All that I had was all the research information that I’ve got before the trip: tourist attacks, robbers, and thieves. All I had in mind was to be careful about strangers who tried to come close to us. Yet, little of it reflects what I have experienced in the 6 weeks trip in Novosibirsk! The city is not as dangerous as people have said! Our first job was to visit an orphanage in a rural area. It took us almost 2 hours by train and bus to go there. After the long bus journey, we had to walk for about 15 minutes in the Siberian coldness, on the slippery and icy ground, before we arrived at the orphanage. The 15-minute walk ... read more