By Roopa Hathi (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong).

4 November 2013

Hi all!

I have been in Hong Kong for over two months now, but it literally feels like two weeks- It is all flying by waaaay too fast!

I have settled in really well, everyone is super friendly and I am making new friends everyday!

The past few weeks have been really busy for me, I have had three mid term tests, and multiple deadlines so had been feeling the pressure of studying over here! It is quite difficult to approach and exam here, since I was unsure of what they expect and how they are going to mark- but hopefully they went well.

On a brighter note, I noticed that the people in Hong Kong LOVE Halloween. I live in a student halls building with 21 floors, and at least 250 students on each floor; and each year they all take part in an event called “Haunted Houses”.

In this, each floor creates a haunted house in their common room, and around 10 bedrooms, and there is a competition between each floor of whose Haunted House is the scariest!

To be honest, I was definitely not expecting anything remotely scary, and just thought it was for fun- but how I was wrong!!  They put a huge amount of effort into it, and everyone came together to celebrate Halloween! It was a really fun evening, and being led in the dark by the local students into the haunted houses was definitely an experience I won’t forget! They used a whole range of tools, glow in the dark paints, used themselves as actors, tasks for us to complete before we could move on to the next room and even slides made from bin bags and mattresses; and you didn’t know where you would end up!

I have posted some pictures below of some of the activities and effort that they put into it! It was definitely one of the best Halloweens I have had in my life!

This past week has also been Diwali, the Indian festival of light. I am a Hindi and since I was not at home with my family to celebrate;a few friends and I went to a temple to celebrate. Again, I was not expecting the large effort and scale of celebration here. The temple was beautifully lit up, and there was so many people there celebrating! It was a really nice experience to be able to go to a temple in another country, and still know that you are all celebrating the same thing together; even though we are used to completely different environments. I have also posted some pictures below!

Roopa x