Taiwan Trip

This Easter Holiday my hostfamily took me on a trip to Taiwan for 4 days. We stayed in a hotel in Taipei and visited many places in and around Taipei.Here are some photos of my trip:

The building in the right picture is called "Taipei 101". It is the tallest building in Taiwan and one of the Top 10 talles buildings in the world.

One of my favourite places I have visited on this trip is a village called "Shifen". It is a remote village about 1.5h away from the center of Taipei by train. To get there we took a very old and slow train wich took us through a deep forest before we arrived.

Every hour the main road of the village needs to be cleard so that the train can pass the village.

These waterfalls can be found just a short walk away from the town.

This village is best known for the lantern-baloons which one can buy and write his wishes on.

Other great places we visited include the "National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine" which was buildt as a memorial for the fallen soldiers of the chinese civil war.

The brown stripes on floor in the first picture are due to the patrolling guards who walk the same route every hour to change shifts.

The suquare in the picture above is called "Freedom Plaza". It was built in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, a former president of Taiwan.

This is a picture of the hall in which a large statue of the before mentioned president is on display.

Me and myhostfamily visited the famous "Grand Hotel" in Taipei.

We also visited the "National Palace Museum" which is where all the valuable items wich used to be in the Forbidden City are displayed. The most important piece in the museum's collection is called "Jade Cabbage with Insect". It is extrordinary because the artist who made this piece used the natural colour of the jade to imitate the look of the typical chinese vegetable "Pak Choi". A poem posted next to this piece read:

"How fortunate we are

To share a commoon memory of beauty

even one originally not so perfect

One half green,  the other half white

the craftsman thought out of the box

He created a fresh and luscious cabbage

where fractures are not imperfections

but veins where moisture flows

and spot no defects

but delectable  dew drops

Planted deep in the palace

it needn't compete with other jewls

only wishing eternal purity and many descendants

to relish and enjoy this life"

恭喜發財! (Chinese New Year)

Chinese New Year: Year of the rooster

Kung Hey Fat Choi! (恭喜發財!/Happy New Year!)

According to the lunar calendar, 28 January marks the first day of the lunar year, which kicks off the Chinese New Year festival, the most important festival in Chinese culture.
In the following I will share with you my first time celebrating CNY.

Before the festival begins, many HK people like to visit flower markets, where you cannot only buy flowers, but also rooster-themed gifts and loads of traditional snacks.
Additionally, people start decorating their homes with traditional decoration like red banners with messages of good luck and fortune on them

These are the red banners I made for my host family.

The left one says "Kung Hey Fat Choi", wich means "Happy New Year".

The right one says "Hey Hey Yeung Yeung", which means "always happy".

The first two days of the Chinese New Year are traditionally spent with the familiy, where Children and unmarried adults will receive red pockets (called lai see), which contain money.

This is me with some of the red pockets I got from my hostfamily and their relatives

The third day of Chinese New Year is usually spent at temples, where people pray for good luck and good fortune for the new year.

Lion Dance 

Another important part of the Chinese New Year festival is the Lion Dance, which is a dance performed by two people in one Lion costume

During the Chinese New Year, Lion Dancers will visit homes as part of a traditional custom called "cai qing" (採青), which literally translated means “plucking the greens”. In this custom, the lion dancers will visit peoples homes and pluck vegetables hanging from a rope in front of the premise. This custome is believed to bring luck to the family living is the home.

A lion eating te vegetables in front of our house

My Hostfamily and my hostbrothers cousin (right) in front of our house 

I wish you all good fortune, good health, wealth and safety. Thanks for checking out my Blog.

Happy New Year!

2016 was an awesome year for me, especially because I started my exchange year in August. Four amazing months of my exchange have already passed and to this day I’m extremely happy that I chose to come to Hong Kong. I made many new friends and had many great experiences, some of which I shared with you on this Blog. However, these four months have been so eventful that I couldn’t share all the things I did so far. That’s why this post is about some of the smaller thing I did in these four months.

Taking pictures in an old estate in Tai Koo, wich captures the
living conditions in Hong Kong very well.

My friends from school brought me to this place. It is called "Choi Hung
Estate/ 彩虹邨", which literally translated means "Rainbow estate"

Hanging out with my friends from school in Yuen Long

This photo was taken on sports day. There are not many pictures from my school life, because my school doesn't allow us to bring our mobile phone to school. But on sports day I took many photos with my friends from school

This is a photo from my school camp. Me and my classmates had to build a boat as part of the camp activities, which are ment to improve our teamspirit

Me and my hostfamily at the Ladies Market in Mong Kok

Me and my hostfather went cycling in Sha Tin a few times. This photo was taken at the end of our tour on the dam in Sha Tin

Exploring Central with my friends from AFS

Visiting the "Deutsche Bank" in the ICC with AFS

These three photos are from a hike on the "Dragon's back". The view was really amazing

Typical Hong Kong graveyard

Hong Kong's skyline by night

Big Buddha and Tai O

This weekend, me and some AFS friends visited the Big Buddha and Tai O fishing village on Lantau Island. The Big Buddhas construction began in 1990 and was finished three years later. Today, it is one of the five largest Buddha statues in China. Here are some pictures from our trip:

Taking the cable car to Ngong Ping Village

Cows are everywhere in Ngong Ping Village

Tai O A is a old fishing village

One week in Beijing

In this post, I’d like to share the experience I had on my trip to Beijing last week. The trip was organised by AFS and lasted from the 31.10 to the 6.11, which means that I didn’t have to go to school for one week.

On the first day, we visited the Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City:

The day after, we visited the Olympic stadium, which hosted the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing and after that we went to the 798 Art Zone, which is a former industrial area which has been repurposed as an area for artists to present their artwork.

On the third day, we went to the summer palace in the morning and the Beijing ShiChaHai Sports school, which is very famous for its martial arts. In this school, we attended a kong fu lesson and watched a kong fu show afterwards.

The next morning we went to a normal school which hosts other AFS students and in the afternoon we went to the “Pearl Market”, which is well known for selling cheap forgeries, and to the "Temple of Heaven"

Me and some of the 

italian exchangestudents who

joined the Beijing trip

On the last day, we visited the Great Wall of China, which was about a 3h car drive away from our hotel.

 Even though it was extremely cold and the air was very polluted, I enjoyed it very much, because I got to see many interesting places in Beijing.