Week 2 in London

my favorite MOCHA COOKIE CRUMBLE from Starbucks 

 After using one whole week to conquer the problem of jet lag, it's time for me to work hard and play hard.  We have to attend a 3-hour lecture with 1-hour tutorial in normal school day. In which, our tutor is kinda nice to give us two 20-minutes break that we often go to the cafe nearby and grab a cup of coffee.... cappuccino, americano, mocha and you name it.  LSE is such a convenience place for coffee-lovers.  You can easily find coffee shop anywhere, Starbucks, Costa, Pret, and even there are LSE-coffee shops.
 This is how I get addicted to coffee after this hectic summer exchange. Yet, the coffee tastes fantastic in UK. And it is a culture for students to hang around and talk during the break.  It is really interesting to talk to people from all over the world.  Very often, for Asian students, we just talk about academic things about the grades, the examines and blablabla.  Yet, here, people

Pimm's in UK

talk about everything ranging from family to home culture and even your future plan or about world issue.  Sometimes it is hard to catch up their pace of changing topics but it is a good experience to know the importance of being open-minded and sociable.

Leicester Square & me

Most importantly, people here are all "work hard, play hard". People study so hard in which you can see the library are prolong being occupied by students. However, when 10:30 om comes, you can see most of the people dress up and heading to Leicester Square to have partying. Partying here is kinda safe coz mostly like those parties are organized by the student-association which means the majority of people in the club are from the same uni.  People dance and sing and throw away the academic stuff.  Basically, there are partying


every week especially on Friday night and of course, after the midterm and final examinations as well.

Ministry of Sound

This is really a superb experience for me as I have never been to any partying in Hong Kong as I don't think it is safe.  However, I just fall in love with the partying in UK. Groups of friends dance and sing together, well and of course we do drink some alcohol but we are so self-controlled.  And it is somehow true that if you play hard you do really study harder because you know you need to devote time for play so you consciously force yourself to study instead of wasting time on youtube or facebook or whatever kind of media.

Ministry of Sound

One of the best thing that LSE organized is the boat party.  Most of the summer school students ( if you are fortunate enough to get the ticket) get on a medium-sized and double-decked boat to have partying there.  The boat sails along the Thames River in which you can see the Tower Bridge, the London eye, etc.  The night view is absolutely amazing.  It is really cool to see the Tower Bridge opens at night and the boat sails beneath it.  Very often, I don't feel the excitement of the MCs in the tour TV shows.  But, when I a really there to witness that moment and be part of it, that feeling is just....hard to express.  There is also a big dance pool on the upper-deck and a large place with lots of sofa for people who just wanna drink and chat on the lower-deck.  Somehow, I think...partying is not a bad thing if people there are nice and the place is safe.  Maybe our home Uni should organize a society to gather students to have fun together at nights and thus we can socialize with more people instead of just talking to the textbook all the time.

Sightseeing Trip

First Trip to Explore London

Buckingham Palace

After having one whole week studying Account and Finance stuff talking about balance sheet, P/L statement, etc,
finally have a chance to step out of the uni zone and explore more about London.
As Northumberland is located at central London, Buckingham Palace must be my first stop.

St. James Park

Hoping to watch the changing guard, I had to force myself to wake up at 9a.m. in order get the best
view.
Walking through the St. James Park, it was not easy to find out the noise of the crowd which I believed that lots of tourists were waiting for the same thing as I did.

Buckingham Palace

Yet, reality seems always not equivalence to dream. The soldiers were cute but not as handsome as I thought. But that was a great experience to witness this changing guard as there is nothing comparable in Hong Kong.  It would be much better if we could get into the Palace, yet tickets were all sold out and all we could do was to take photos outside the palace and walking around with freshhhhhh air :>
Simply closing my eyes and tasting the feel of gentle wind and fresh air, this just made my day(: AND refreshed my mind.

Get Ready to School

This is it.  The London School of Economics and Political Science.

After settling down a little bit in the dorm with tones of technical problem, I managed to grab my GPS phone and started walking along the STRAND street and got ready for registration. 

While I was looking up and down with the street name like an idiot, I met a guy from Australia who was on his way to LSE as well.  Yea, this is Europe. Normally, in Hong Kong, if somebody come up to you and say hello, you probably think he is a creepy guy. Anyway, we just had a quick chat while we were waiting for the line in the old building and eventually we separated because of the crowd. LSE is somehow similar the same as HKUST with a small but comfortable campus which is kinda good for such a map idiot like me.

New campus, new faces..... I felt like back to the day of my first day in HKUST.

Sophia, Christy, Me, Ana

It was pretty cool to have lesson in the Hong Kong Theatre in the Clemet's House. Well, probably because the name of the theatre made me felt a little bit comfortable.  Yet, I still felt so weird to sit in a classroom knowing nobody and talking with my second language.  When studying in HKUST, I am the majority as I am an Asian ; while here I suddenly dropped from majority to the minority.  My friend once told me there are lots of Hong Kong-ers study in UK.....hummm I guess most of them had gone back to HK and it was so hard for me to see any Asian here not to mention Hong Kong-ers.  This made me pretty sad for a few days.  However, somehow I must force myself to step out of comfort zone. I always love meeting new people and why not take it as a challenge for me? By then, I started to take the initiative to  talk to the people next to me, in front of me and even behind me.  Though they might become one of the hi-bye friends in my life, it was pretty cold to learn more about their life, culture and mindset. Only when you keep exploring can you discover that the world is so big and knowledge is unlimited.  Somehow by talking to people randomly and I met my besties here:D I am really glad that I met these girls here in which we had lots of girls talk and partying and study together.  We study hard and play hard which talk about it later.

Course Taken in session 1: Business Analysis and Valuation  

I am not an Accounting and Finance Student, yet, I am taking this course.

First thought: I am crazy and insane!

Second thought: Why not?

Third thought: Challenge accepted!

That's right, it is one of the hardest courses in LSE but I believe somehow it is kinda useful for my future...so why not have a try? There is nothing to lose anyway except being scolded by my parents if i get a F. 

Yayy... and that's how I start picking up Account and Finance stuff again....while I learn advance knowledge in the morning, I have to search for fundamental stuff on Wikipedia at night. Sigh.... probably I am now studying more hard working than in HKUST....but with self-initiation:) which is a good thing, I guess:D 

Get Set Ready Go....to London (LSE summer school)- Arrival

Here I am. +Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok International Airports
Finally took a deep breath to step out of the comfort zone.For the very first time I felt so helpless alone in the airport. With a 23.2 kg luggage and a hand carry, here I started my adventure to London.
After taking a 13 hours flight,I arrived Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 with no idea what should I do at 4:00 am uk time.
As a lonely traveler,  Google map is my good friend. Nothing could be happier than when my phone would be connected to the internet.  I felt connected to the world again. ( that's not exaggerating at all)


Lists to do:
-grab a uk map
-get a uk underground map
-buy an Oyster card
-buy a phone card with data
-get my first breakfast in uk ( @ Krispy Cream)

Looking at the watch and with finger crossed, I got on the underground heading to Charing Cross Station (where my accommodation located)

Basically, the underground tube map is kinda much more complicated than the one in Hong Kong.  It took me one whole week to get used to it.  All I can say is that, the size of Hong Kong is really just a tiny piece of corner of UK.
There is no signal in the underground in which you can barely see people texting or talking on phone.  It is extremely quiet in the tube which I think it is superb coz you can really take a rest in the train without any distribution.
However, when the biggest trouble came once I got off the tube. NO LIFT IN THE STATION. I had to carry my luggage up the stairs step by step.  First thing came to my mind was,"Are you kidding me?"  Getting shocked for two second and other thought came to my mind, " Okay, there is no choice for me." So i just pulled my luggage with my greatest strength but then obviously.... I failed. I just stood here with a hopeless expression.
Luckily, some people offered me help along the way up the ground. There were six long stairs and I got six nice people helping me in the end.  I felt so thankful and blessed. <3

Walking from the station to my dorm for 15 minutes, here I arrived Northumberland House ( one of the LSE accomodation).  This is an old historic building (Edward VII Rooms) with amazing architecture.  It is located in the central London with lots of tourist attractions near it. Though it is a more expensive than the other accommodation, it is still worth with such an excellent location.

For a Hong Konger, having no air-conditioner in a room is equivalent to taking oxygen out of my life. And well, seems most of the buildings in London do not have air-con at all.  Yet, when you gradually adapt to the weather in UK, you will soon find it is pretty okay to sleep without air-con and let the mild blows on your face.
Okay.....Time to unpack my heavy luggage .......

Count Down to summer exchange:>

Count down: 3 Days

For the very first time, I am gonna to go to an unfamiliar place without any companion for summer exchange .

Will I be able to make it? Sometimes I doubt myself too.  Yet, there is no return path for me to choose. All I can do is to trust myself and finger cross.

Feeling nervous and worried at the moment. Keep searching info on the internet and hoping that everything goes well after my arrival ( at least can locate my residence successfully T.T)

Somehow I really think i am tougher then how I look.

Sometimes, I keep thinking………maybe it is a good idea for me to stop planning my trip in London. SIMPLY just let my fate and my feeling to lead me to the places where I am supposed to be and meet the people whom I am supposed to meet.

SIMPLY just relax and embrace a new change in my life.

fighting.