On our way to Australia!
It turns out that the two-week study tour ended so much quicker than I have anticipated. I thought that it was quite enough for me to achieve all of the aims that I had set and that I would probably be too homesick to stay any longer.
But in fact, I have been really enjoying Australia (minus the insects and flies) and that I was almost reluctant to go home when the happy time is up. So sadly, I am now back in Hong Kong and it is time for me to reflect on what I have done and learnt in these two weeks when I was still 7000 miles away in Australia.
The first thing that I have learnt, and as trivial as it may sound, was how to be a sensible traveler! My roommate Noelle and I stuck together almost the entire trip and I have to say that both of us have learnt so much on how to travel. We have encountered an uncounted number of problems started right after we have stepped into the restricted area in the Hong Kong international airport – we did not know how to check-in our bags, we were found so puzzled when people are called into rooms individually before boarding the plane, and the funniest thing was that I had problems locating the trash bin inside the washroom when we were thousands of miles high in the sky! Especially for a newbie like me that has no experience being on a plane ever since 10 years old, everything was new and a good learning experience for me.
I can still remember how excited it was for all of us when we finally arrived in Sydney. I was so amazed on our way to Sydney Central when I saw the road signs and the shop signs! How different they were compared to the ones in Hong Kong! One of them is as shown below, two lower legs in a triangle which signals a pathway for people to walk on.
The two-legged sign pictured in Sydney
While we were all waiting to be checked in at YHA, we got a little more than an hour to explore the city on our own, and that hour actually gave me a very unexpected impression to Sydney. While we were walking around the city, I was a little surprised when I see all the Chinese shop signs that were hanged everywhere:
Signs written in Chinese in Sydney.
The more we walk around the city, the more that we knew about the linguistic landscape: there were actually not much advertisements around, but a lot of shop signs. It was very interesting to see the different languages used on the shop signs: English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and a lot more that I cannot recognize. I knew that Chinese would be used around the China Town area, but I did not expect that much. Chinese words were basically seen in every street, and the closer we walked towards China Town, the more Chinese we saw along the way.
Apart from learning about the linguistic landscape of Sydney, we have also immerged ourselves into the Australian culture by trying their food and by going grocery shopping! Since we did not expect that the prices in Australia would be that high, we did not bring a lot of cash with us. And so we have to do grocery shopping to get cheaper food. As poor as that sounds, we actually enjoyed our grocery shopping a lot. Apart from getting cheaper food, we have also learnt a lot from going local supermarkets. We did not expect that supermarket would surprised us that much, but we went stunned when we saw the selection of pastas, sauces, herbs, the different variety of cereals and biscuits, the selection of chocolates and sweets have also made us so excited. I have learnt a lot of new words from reading the price tags and have familiarize myself with the names of some herbs and pastas.
Doing grocery shopping in Sydney.
Apart from trying out their food, going to the museum and the zoo has also filled me with a lot more knowledge about Australia and its culture. It was very fascinating to see the artwork of the Aboriginals in the Australian Museum.
Some artwork made by the Aboriginals
I enjoyed going Taronga zoo as well because we got to see the very “Aussie” Kangaroo and wombats. My favorite part in Sydney was the mini tour in Sydney Opera house, in which we had a chance to know the story behind the beautiful architect and how it was built literally from scratch.
Me in front of the magnificent Sydney Opera House!
I have to say staying in Sydney alone has already opened my eye in terms of experiencing another culture. It was very lucky for us that we have stayed on 5th January as it was Australia Day and so we got to see the beautiful firework at night at Darling Harbour.
I did not expect much when we left fro Melbourne. Who would have thought the two cities can be so different?
One thing that I have learnt from Melbourne that I can never forget is the weather. It is true that people say you can experience four seasons in a day in Melbourne. It could be very sunny that we could not live without sunscreen and it could also be very cold that we needed several layers of clothes to keep ourselves warm – all happened in a few hours time! One of the things that I have learned in Australian was not one of the intended learning aims – but it was a very important one for me – which is that I am actually a very Chinese Chinese! I cannot stop laughing whenever I thought of the picture of us walking in a line under a shade (I wish I had pictured it!) and that we kept our umbrellas over our heads even though nobody would do that in Australia – how Chinese was that!
As for the cuisine, we were not surprised to see again the fish and chips and hamburgers and the wraps – fast food are everywhere in Australia! One thing that stood out to me was the selection though – there were not a lot of McDonald’s and 7-11 around – but there were a whole lot more choices to choose from. We used to see McDonald’s on every street, but in Australia, people get to choose from a much wider selection of restaurants. Even convenience stores got its array of shops ranging from 7-11s to Ezymarts and so many more shops that I cannot remember the name of. This made me wonder why we have only McDonald’s and a handful of brands to choose from – it would be actually very interesting to do some research about this topic in the future.
Fast food are everywhere in Australia!
Another eye-opening experience for me was the say we spent in Philip Island – I can never forget the penguins and the wind, this is such an unforgettable experience! Learning about the penguins and their daily routine, like fishing in the morning and coming back to the Island at night is fasinating. Another fact that I have learnt from the tour guide was about the culprit of Australia’s forest fire: mountain ash. Even though I was sleeping most of the time when were on the coach, I catched that story about mountain ash, which is a kind of trees that contains oil so when summer comes, the fallen branches and leaves will very easily inflammated and form forest fire. It is very dangerous given that Australia is quite dry and always has sunshine during summer so the spread of forest fire could be uncontrollable, but those ashes remaining from the fire is the only way mountain ash can spread its seeds. Isn’t this amazing?
The very cute penguin in Philip Island.
As much as i love Australia’s food and culture, I also adore Australians. Although I have heard some cases from my classmates about Australians who have bad attitude towards Chinese, almost every one of the locals that I have met were very nice. I remember back in Melbourne, all of us went the national gallery of Victoria the third day afters we arrived Melbourne. I am no artist and so sometimes I just wander around inside the gallery. But then there was this very nice security guide that literally guides me to the “most important painting in the entire gallery”, which has a multi-focal quality that makes the painting looks the same wherever you stand in front of it. It is quite hard to explain but with the help from the very nice security guard, now I can at least tell people confidently what is multi-focal means!
The painting with multiple focal points.
Apart from showing us how to “read” a painting, the guard has also kindly showed us his drawing that was done during his shift in the gallery (now I think about it, which job in Hong Kong would allow people to do their own thing while working?). I am not a qualified artist but his drawings were all beautifully done.
One of the drawings shown by the guard in his sketch book.
As for the project, since we have started taking photos in Sydney, we have also completed the second stage of collecting information in Melbourne. It was not as interesting as Sydney because we have already gotten used to the multi-lingual shop signs and the very Chinese China Town. Nonetheless, it was still a very good experience looking around the city just to pay attention to the signs.
If I am allowed I could go on and on talking about everything that I have seen and have learnt in Australia. Some of them may just seems like very ordinary experiences that does nothing for the learning aims. On the contrary, everything that I have experienced has made an important that has built up the final picture of the very pretty Australia. I am very happy to say that even though I have only stayed there two weeks and unfortunately, cannot pick up the very unique Australian accent, I have tried my best to engage in the environment and has learnt a lot more English than I had anticipated. Reading the English menu, ordering, paying the bill and so on are all very trivial actions that we all do in Hong Kong, but when the language changes, the whole experience did not feel the same anymore.
I have achieved my aim to know more about the country as a whole, of course we can always read about Australia’s weather, food and other information on the internet, it is very different if you can actually feel the air and taste the cuisine. I did not know that white people are not locals in Australia, but the very dark-skinned Aboriginal; I did not know that Sydney is not the capitol of Australia, but the less famous Canberra; there were so many things that I have learnt and seen and experienced in Australia that I could not list out, but they are all very precious memories and experiences to me. I am also very surprised to noticed the Chinese-ness that is inside of me: I have always thought I am very white-washed and kind of western when compared to my other friends in Hong Kong, but when I was outside of Hong Kong, I could not help but admire all the Chinese goodness that is inside of me – how I missed the balanced Chinese food and the herbs tea, Chinese soup and medicine.
To sum up, I am a really good experience going Australia and I think I have pretty much achieved all of my aims including some unexpected new ideas and thoughts. I look forward to another trip to another part of the world and hopefully by the time I leave Hong Kong again, I would have improved my English a notch before I go on another adventure!
I am going to miss the beautiful skyline in Australia!
yuenwlee6 