These two weeks are filled with solo trips and a trip back to my hometown to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. Before then, I wanted to share about the Mid-Autumn Festival workshop hosted by the College of Business at CityU. This event was exciting, as I learned how to make lanterns, practice calligraphy, and play various board games. I dressed up and took a Polaroid photo to celebrate the MId-Autumn Festival. During the event, I met a friend from Spain, another from Shanghai, China, and several friends from the European region. Overall, I would give it a rating of 9/10, and if you are studying at CityU for the fall semester, I strongly recommend that you take part in it.
Regarding solo trips, I went to multiple places. Hong Kong's vast transportation system is advanced enough to help me reach my destination. To name a few, I went to Choi Hung Estate, a place where the apartment buildings and the playground on top of a two-storage parking garage were in uniquely decorated rainbow colors; Victoria Harbor, the most well-known scenic spot in Hong Kong, and Chi Lin Nunnery, a place known by uniquely constructed temples and well-cared gardens that harmonize with one another beautifully. If you are available to go to Choi Hung Estate, make sure you do so as soon as possible, as the entire place will go through a renovation. The kind-hearted residents will relocate, and the rainbow colors characteristic of the place will no longer be around. I also recommend coming at night at around 8 PM at Victoria Harbor to enjoy the light show. Getting there requires Google Maps, taking the subway, walking for ten to fifteen minutes, and standing physically at the scenes of these places felt inexplicably relaxed and soothed. It was the first time I traveled without the presence of my parents.
Despite how much I tried to avoid it, I still unfortunately caught a cold. The reasons could be eating a lot of spicy food on campus, not drinking enough water, and adjusting to a variable climate. Nonetheless, my body was feeling weak, to the point where I had diarrhea and almost had a fever. Still, I managed to go to the canteen to order some toasted bread to bring to my dorm. When I returned to my residential hall, my body temperature was luckily low enough to avoid getting rejected by security for having a fever. I ate the toasted bread, drank some water, and immediately went to bed afterward that afternoon and evening to have enough sleep to recover the next day. Thankfully, I did not need to take medications and recovered using my immune system. Still, it was not a pleasant experience.
Last, on Saturday, September 30th, I took the long-distance shuttle bus back to my hometown in mainland China. Entering mainland China was not difficult for me since I am still a Chinese citizen and a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. I did not need a Chinese visa but still needed to present my passport, the small slip indicating my legal stay in Hong Kong, and my printed Hong Kong visa to the Hong Kong and mainland China customs officers. Seeing my family again after four years was a dream come true, and we had lunch and dinner together to catch up with one another on how we have been doing recently. More excitingly, I attended the food festival in my hometown and tried the local snacks and cuisines there during my three-day stay. The local atmosphere was lively, showing signs of revival after the pandemic.
