27th February 2013, this is the day I arrived in Melbourne to begin my university journey and to hopefully grow up a bit. Even though I had been to Melbourne several times before this, I still had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that I would be staying in a residential college called International House and studying professional communications at RMIT University in the heart of the city of Melbourne. I still remember the flight on the way over here, feeling nervous as I knew no one at all and I had to basically start again from scratch.

I have lived in Hong Kong for my whole life (no, this is not in Japan as seems to be the common belief here for some reason). Both my parents are British but I personally do not want anything to do with that country, so that was definitely not an option for me for university. One of the things that I noticed almost straight away was how expensive everything is here. In Hong Kong I would be paying less than 1 AUD for a can of coke and here it goes up to about 3 AUD, absolutely ridiculous. Even food that is intentionally made for people who do not have much to spend costs an arm and a leg; 8 – 10 AUD for a bowl of dumplings and noodles? Really? It’s funny because although almost everything seems to be extraordinarily expensive, property is not. Hong Kong is now the second most expensive place in the world for property due to a shortage of space and land reclamation. You know you have a problem when people are paying up to 250,000 AUD for a simple painted car parking space.

Despite my worries, making friends was no problem at all. People in Australia are very friendly and are always willing to talk about pretty much anything, and of course the International House vibe added to that too. Hong Kong is also one of the most densely populated places in the world and coming here where there is so much space was a refreshing change. Even though it takes me around 45 minutes to walk to RMIT, it is an easy and relaxed effort as I do not have to keep constantly changing speeds and keeping my arms out in front of me in order to move people who’s eyes are glued to their phone screens.

I am now undergoing the last half of my second year of studying and I feel that this will be my toughest semester yet. By being in Australia and being able to experience a more westernised approach to living, it will prove valuable to me in the workforce in the future for several reasons. I feel like I have been exposed to so many different people from so many different cultures that there is no one who I cannot strike up a random conversation with. I do not regret the decision to come here at all, and I would be happy to stay here and work after my degree if the opportunity arises.