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.

Monkey Mountain

In this post I want to share some photos I took while I was in Kam Shan Country Park, more famously known as the “Monkey Mountain”.  It is a famous "macaques kingdom" in Hong Kong, with hunderts of them living  in the wild there. They are said to be descendants of monkeys released by pet owners in the 1920s. Take a look:

If the monkeys see someone with a plastic bag, they will not hesitate to steal it, because they know that there's usually food inside.
I can totally recommend visiting the "Monkey Mountain". Because the monkeys are often just an armlength away from you, you can take really great photos of them.

First days in Hong Kong

I have been in Hong Kong for four days now. In this post I’ll tell you what has happened so far.

26.08.2016

After an 18h trip from Zürich to Dubai and Dubai to Hong Kong, I as welcomed by AFS at the Airport, where I met some of the other exchange students from the Denmark, Spain, and Germany. I also met my “First Friend” Noel. A “First Friend” is someone who recently returned from his exchange year and now supports AFSers in their first few weeks in Hong Kong. Afterwards they brought us to the “Regal Oriental Hotel” in Kowloon where we stayed for two nights.

Noel, me, my host family and two of my classmates

27.08.2016
All the exchange students and the AFS volunteers went to the “Munsang College”. There we stayed in a classroom where they introduced us to Asian culture, AFS rules etc.

28.08.2016
On this day I finally got to meet my host family. After waiting in a conference room of the hotel for three hours it was my turn to meet my host family. After taking pictures together we went for lunch and headed home, where I finally got some rest. I really like them because they're very welcoming and caring.

Thomas Wong (Project Director
of AFS HK) and me in my summer
schooluniform

29.08.2016-30.08.2016

Every morning until school starts (01 September) I go to the “Munsang College”, where AFS gives us all the information we need for our stay in HK. In the afternoon I have to do things like register for school, buy my school uniform, get a bank account, apply for a HK ID and do some sight-seeing I visited Kowloon, Mongkok and Central.

What I think so far

I’m extremely happy that I chose to come to Hong Kong. The MTR system super convenient because there's a train every minute few minutes. During rush hour there's even a train every minute. The food is also really good and cheap. You can get a whole meal for 40HKD (5Fr.) and you can buy almost any food you can think of.

Victoria Harbour

View from a Tram in Central

Hey there!

Great, you found my blog! I’m Fabio and I live in Switzerland. I’m 16 years old and go to the Kantonsschule. But the most important thing to know is: I’m an AFS exchange student. In August 2016, I’ll travel to Hong Kong and spend 11 months there, living in a host family and visiting a public school. I’m writing this blog for my family, friends and everyone else who wants to keep up with me during my exchange.

To start off, I'll answer some FAQ:

Why Hong Kong?

I always wanted to experience a different culture from what I’m used to. I think that Hong Kong is a great place to spend my exchange year, because it consists of a mix of western and asian culture (Hong Kong was under British influence until it became a Special Administrative Region of China in 1997). Secondly, I wanted to know how it’s like to live in a big city. The Kanton I’m from has a population of about 270’000 people, Hong Kong (which is about the same size) has a population of 7,2 Mio. people.

Can you speak Chinese?

No, I can’t. At the moment, I’m trying to learn it by myself, but it’s very difficult. Conveniently, English is the second official language in Hong Kong, which will make it a lot easier for me, but I hope that I can still pick up some Chinese.

How often will you post on here?

I hope that I will have enough time to post regularly. I’ll probably just post whenever something interesting happens. If you like, you can submit your email address to the right. You’ll get notified whenever I release a new post. (The notifications may be considered spam by your email provider, so check your spam folder)

What has happened so far:

I started planning for the exchange about two years ago. After the long application process, I was invited to the AFS bureau in Zürich for an Interview. After I had been accepted into the program, I had to fill out another application form.

In December 2015, AFS found a hots family and school for me. I was extremely happy to know this early who my host family would be.

Last weekend, I want to the AFS orientation camp. I got to meet all the exchange students who will be going to Asia or Europe in the summer.

AFS has been very helpful and answered all my questions during the application process. I’m very glad to have chosen AFS as my exchange organisation.

That’s all for this post, I’ll probably write the next post in about three months, when I leave Switzerland.