5C Tam Sheung Wai Charis

          During the long summer vacation, I joined the study tour which was held by the school. Although it was the third time I participated in study tours organized by our school, still, I felt really exhilarated and was looking forward to it.
          The most precious thing I have got from the trip is friends. As the saying goes “a man without a friend is only half a man”, meeting new friends is my pleasure. At the beginning, in the lessons, I was quite shy since there were a lot of different people who came from different parts of the world. For example, there were Taiwanese, French, Brazilian and Chinese. However, they were really nice to us even if they didn’t know us well at first. Through those two weeks, we became not only more talkative but also more active than before. We even cried together when we were going to leave the school in Auckland towards the end. Luckily, one of my friends, Yanxi came to the Hong Kong International Airport in August, so I went to the airport without a second thought. Now, I still keep contact with some of my classmates I met in New Zealand. I have even been keeping in touch with the tour guide also.
          The other thing which gave me a very big surprise was going to school by public transportation without being picked up by the host family. In the past, we couldn’t go wherever we wanted to go, but this year we could decide to hang out with friends whenever we wanted after all the activities. All we had to do was to tell our host and teachers. It was a really good experience that we could use the Google map and check how to get to different destinations. Inevitably, we had been lost in the crowded streets, yet still we tried our best to be brave and asked the strangers for directions. I think it would be a good training for us to start to become more independent since we are growing up, and both the sense of directions and the courage to approach strangers are essential in our future life.
          The funniest thing was that when we got onto the bus every morning, we would see the same faces. It was really interesting that this will never happen in Hong Kong even if we get on the same bus at the same time every day, as there are way too many people. This made me feel like I was one of the locals living in New Zealand. This experience really gave me a sense of belonging.
          Although it was only a two-week trip, I really enjoyed it through and through!

5C Tam Sheung Wai Charis