It’s so weird to say, but I have officially been in Hong Kong for 9 days! It’s been a crazy nine days; with adjusting to jet lag (I’m 16 hours ahead of LA, hello from the ~future~), learning my way around a new campus and a new city, and meeting so many new people, but it’s also been so much fun.
Fortunately for me, my very first weekend here was Chinese New Year. Even though everything was closed for the holiday, there was still so much to see and do. I went to watch this parade and saw some amazing fireworks. Even though it was a kind of hazy night (it had rained earlier that afternoon), it was still one of the best firework shows I’ve ever seen.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BP2S76YALjX/?taken-by=ssgold&hl=en
Also, HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, or just UST as people call it – which sounds confusingly similar to USC…) paired me up with a full-time student buddy. We had emailed a few times before I got here, but it was so exciting to finally meet in person! She and one of her friends took me to a Flower Market, which is an outdoor fair-type event that pops up just for Chinese New Year, because it is customary to decorate your house with flowers for the holiday. There was so much food to try (I honestly couldn’t tell you what all of it was) and so many stuffed chickens (it’s the year of the rooster).
Me and my buddy, Hebi, and some frozen fruit thing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Then, Wednesday, it was the end of my 5-week winter break, and classes began. I was able to sign up for all of the classes I wanted — Digital Circuits and Systems, System Modeling and Controls, and Linear Algebra — and still have Fridays free. Which means more traveling for me!
To stay posted on my adventures in Hong Kong, you can follow me on Instagram @ssgold, or check back here for more blogs to come. And to learn more about other Viterbi students’ experiences abroad, you can check out the abroad page here.
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