Xi’an: Day 1 | 西安：第一天

5月23日 – 5月24日

Left Ningbo super early on the 23rd (day after my exams!) because I had an early flight to Xi’an! Thought it’d be nice to ‘treat myself’ a little after exams, and also because I felt like, after being in China for so long, I still hadn’t been to a lot of places in China? Except for my hometown or Shanghai. I’ve been to quite a number of cities in the Zhejiang, Fujian area of China so I wanted to try go somewhere much further than I was used to. Sue and I had been talking about taking a trip together and in the end, a week before we decided to leave, we booked our flights to Xi’an (super last minute).

I’m grouping the first half-day in Xi’an with this post otherwise it wouldn’t been a super short post. We were both pretty tired from waking up really early and Xi’an was a lot more humid than our respective cities so we took a reaaalllly long nap before even doing anything. We left our room around 8/9pm to check out the Muslim Street Market which was also close to the Bell/Clock Tower (钟楼／鼓楼). The place we were staying was right in the city centre and opposite the City Wall 西安城墙 so it was really centrally located, which is something that really saved us in last 2 days but we’ll get to that later.

City Wall 城墙

Clock/Bell Tower

Check out that SK-II promotion

Muslim Street Market

Yoghurt Rolls?

(Official) Day 1 in Xi’an:
We were very ambitious on our first full day in Xi’an. We decided to hit up 3 places – Shaanxi History Museum, Giant Wild Goose Pagoda and Tang Paradise. I actually really enjoyed myself this day!! Most likely because it was quite chill and the weather was slightly bearable and also because a lot of the times, we were just strolling around under shade or inside air-conditioned rooms HAHA. I really liked the Terracotta Warriors exhibit of the museum :B

Shaanxi History Museum 陕西历史博物馆

Shaanxi History Museum 陕西历史博物馆

Shaanxi History Museum 陕西历史博物馆

Second stop was the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda (why such a long name when the chinese is 3 characters?). This place was also really nice!! We climbed to the top of the pagoda and the view was pretty damn great.

Giant Wild Goose Pagoda 大雁塔

Giant Wild Goose Pagoda 大雁塔

The view from the top of the Pagoda

♡♡

Third and final stop of the day was a bit of a last minute decision. We were actually going to head to Beilin Museum which is a museum of stone carvings(?) I believe as this place was really close to where we lived but on the bus to that place, we passed by Tang Paradise and we made a last minute decision to get off here and check it out and I’m so glad we did!! This place is so beautiful and it’s right next to the Pagoda, so I’d highly recommend checking it out after visiting the Pagoda if you go to Xi’an.

Most of the garden is man-made but (according to Wikipedia, always a reliable source, I know), the garden is at or close to a garden complex in the Tang Dynasty. The entire park is built to replicate the buildings and style of the Tang Dynasty and it is so so so beautiful. I really really loved this place. There are also lots of shows, light shows etc at this place but we didn’t stay long enough for that since we were both pretty tired towards the end of the day haha.

Tang Paradise 大唐芙蓉园

Tang Paradise 大唐芙蓉园

Tang Paradise 大唐芙蓉园

Tang Paradise 大唐芙蓉园

~Candid~

#deepthoughtsonly

Tang Paradise 大唐芙蓉园

Tang Paradise 大唐芙蓉园

Tang Paradise 大唐芙蓉园

Journey to the West characters 西游记

That’s it for Day 1! Stay tuned for Day 2: Fancy Baths & Mountains, Terracotta Warriors & Tombs.

End of Exchange｜交换结束啦

Time Period: April – May

Semester 2 at UNNC has gone by super quickly. This semester has felt super short and I can’t believe it’s over already (probably because we didn’t have much of a study break this semester).

In the last 2 months, there has been a wedding…

So cute

10 past alumni couples held a joint wedding on campus for the 10 year celebration of the alumni association (?) (It was something like that). I had to help out filming and interviewing for the Business School and let me tell you – even though it was only mid-April, the weather seriously felt like summer. Not fun.

During one of my lessons, the mother of my student took me from the school where I usually taught her daughter to go to a park for her lesson since that day the classes at the school were all conducted at this park? Slightly weird but the park was super nice and the weather was good so can’t complain.

Ningbo Academician Sculpture Park (apparently)

Ningbo Academician Sculpture Park (apparently)

Took some photos with Amelia and some of the NUBS China interns (all credits to Jo and her professional af camera). I’ve actually really enjoyed interning with these people these past 2 sems – even though having an internship on exchange doesn’t sound the most appealing, but I’ve come to really enjoy my time and if anything, it has made my exchange more enjoyable. I’d say this is most likely because of the fact the people I’ve met during my internships have been A+.

Credit to Jo for making me look nice HAHA

NUBS China Interns

Annnd, I couldn’t leave UNNC without a photo with Sue (first and closest friend at UNNC) in front of the building, everyone has a photo in front of.

SUE ♡

Trent Building

April and and most of May were the times of deadlines and exams and I was also super lucky to have my last exam on my birthday (~_~) BUT, all good – it’s all over and it was a pretty…cool(?) feeling knowing that I’ve completed my 2 semesters abroad.

Next post – Xi’an travels!

 

April: Australia

March 28th – April 6th

“….but hey, I might blog when I get back to Hong Kong airport next week when I wait for my flight back to Ningbo?” – Julie, 28 March 2017

Biggest liar, I am. I’ve procrastinated/forgotten about this blog to the point that right now, it’s already June and I’m already done with exchange (whaaaaat). So, what I’m going to do is write up all the posts that I’ve been meaning to write (and pretend I’m writing them in real time lol) and schedule them to upload over the next few weeks.

So to start – Australia! As mentioned in the last post, I got the opportunity to go back to Australia to attend a few exchange/study abroad fairs at various universities in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Overall it was an interesting experience and it was so nice to see my friends in Sydney. Super thankful that the UNSW/USyd fairs were quite late after UniMelb so I got to spend quite a few days in Sydney before going to Brisbane.

Honestly it felt a little weird at first to be back in Australia – Melbourne felt really foreign and not just because I’m not from there but more so, the environment felt so different to what I was used to from people to the streets etc. This was only for the first few hours though! So it got better after that and when I went back to Sydney, it kind of felt like I never left? It was so strange not feeling like I had been away from home for almost 7 months. It actually almost felt like I’d never left?

Melbourne
I was only in Melbourne for a bout a night which was a shame because I would’ve liked to be there a little longer and tried more food. But, I’m definitely going to try go next year during Sem 1 since I have an UNNC friend who will be going to Monash for a semester! Also, I have other friends in Melbourne and it’ll be great to see them ^_^

Did a bit of “sightseeing” the first day I was there but what I really did was go to the places I had already been aka Bourke Street Mall. Melbourne’s H&M is still my favourite and I will always take photos when I’m there. The second day was the UniMelb fair and I’d like to think it went pretty well? But we’ll have to see depending on whether there’ll be more Australian students considering UNNC in the Autumn Semester next year.

Melbourne’s H&M

Melbourne

University of Melbourne

Sydney
One of the things I missed about Australia was salads, really good avocados and café food so I was on a mission to eat as much as possible during the 4 days I was in Sydney. I had a list of all the places/things I wanted to eat and I’m happy to say I’m pretty sure I managed to complete at least 90% of the list haha. Super thankful for my friends who came out despite their extremely busy schedule to spend time with me :’-) ♡♡♡

Brunch @ Four ate Five

Vic & Mish ♡

TC (minus Chris)

My loves :’-) (minus Chris)

HS Crew

Brisbane
Now, Brisbane was more ~new~ for me since I haven’t been to Brisbane since perhaps…primary school? So this time was probably the first time I’ve been in nearly 10 years? Since my flight to leave was at 1am, I had quite some time after the fair to ~explore~ the city and by explore I mean go to the nearest shopping district that was within walking distance because I’m directionally challenged and I didn’t want to take any public transport. It was still nice walking around the shopping area! Got a few last minute shopping done and had some good food but I got bored pretty quickly so I went to the airport about 8 hours early (lol) and used their free wifi to do my uni assignments (sadlyf).

Last note: Brisbane International Airport (the inside) is hella pretty

Brisbane

Brisbane Intl Airport

That’s it for Australia – I’ll be back…very soon.