I've been quite an active explorer geographically, I like collecting information of interesting places and gatherings of Sydney, as well as wandering around to see the pleasant sceneries in my free time. Even so, I still feel myself a visitor here, I approach this city in the way backpackers do. Beyond that, I'm still struggling to understand the Aussie comedies, and feel like a complete outcast when my local coworkers talk excitingly about the Spring Racing Carnival. The reason is simple, I think, I lack the usual "hooks" into society.

Back in my home city, I knew all the greasy spoons hidden at corners that serve superb local food, even though I didn't eat out that often. I hung out with a couple of friends on weekends, most of whom I knew from childhood, laughed at the jokes we talked in dialect.

But living in a foreign city simply lack these kinds of fun. As an overseas student, I seldom get connected with the local community. I do talk to my coworkers in the supermarket, but that's mainly on work, when we have time to chat, words always stop at some points - those confusing details - which is often disappointing. In uni, most of my classmates are overseas students and making a group of friends from the same language background is quite easy, which further reduce my curiosity to approach the local society.

So...going deep into a foreign society seems really challenging, and among others the biggest challenge is you always need to be more open-minded. Now I have to admit that approaching a foreign city in-depth is a skill, you need to be an active explorer to places, a quick collector of information, and most importantly, an passionate communicator with people- making friends from different cultural background requires conscious effort.

What's your experiences or suggestions of living in another country? I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Keep on joining discussions in BBC Learning English Community and all the best for the year!

Xiaowei

For many years, Lunar New Year meant to me a real struggle to get a taxi at midnight on Lunar New Year's Eve in the street with the sound of bursting firecrackers. As a tradition we always went to my grandparents' home to have the family dinner on Lunar New year's Eve, and stayed until midnight to celebrate the new year. Once the new year came, my parents and I would head back to our own home. However this was often the most boisterous moment in the street: dozens of younger families like us mushroomed outside to get a taxi home (until 15 years ago private cars were not spread yet taxi were quite affordable in my city). At the same time people began to set off firecrackers celebrating the coming of a new year, rushing in the street full of bursting sounds always gave me an illusion of being at wartime.

Except for that, I like Lunar New Year a lot. It's the time for family gathering. My grandma sewed us cotton jackets with gorgeous pink silk covers as Lunar New Year's gifts when we were kids, and the traditional festival food like dumplings and rice cakes are my favorites. My cousin and I always asked to help making dumplings on Lunar New Year's Eve, yet ended up flour fighting against each other every year, before she was educated seriously to act as a lady.

Two days ago on Lunar New Year's Eve, I felt hungry and wanted to have some dumplings after return from gym. So I walked to the supermarket, bought some ingredients and began to make dumplings (actually kind of wonton) by myself. Perhaps this was the first time I worked quietly with flour, half a world away from the family.

They tasted good.

In the latest post Knickerbocker glory, Jennifer talked about her hometown South Shields in the north east of England. I enjoyed the scenes from the photographs, and it reminds me of my hometown, though it is not surrounded by coast and is a hilly land.

Here are some photographs my dad recently took in my hometown (under his permission, I haven't been back to China for more than 1 year and a half!):

Have you noticed the snacks in the second photo? It's called "Bing Tang Hu Lu" and I don't know why it's translated as "Tomatoes on sticks" in English, it's not tomatoes at all, it's traditionally made by hawthorn with icing syrup, in recent days people also use strawberries and oranges as an alternative as well. Anyway, it's one of my favorite snacks when I was a kid, the taste of sour & sweet never failed to satisfy my taste bud, the only sad truth is my fingers always froze before I finished eating it on my way home after school.

So...yes as I said, most of my early memories were held in winter. I was born in winter, learnt skating before learning calculating, and was once addicted to snowball fight as most kids did in my region. People in my hometown always seem to be able to find some ways to enjoy themselves in winter season, we hold Ice Carvings Display in deep winter, and ice-sports are popular all the time.

I don't have a clear picture of global warming, but in Anshan I could feel the climate changed since my childhood. When I was in primary school my favorite sport is to jump into the snow cover by the roadside on the way home, with mom's angrily rebuking "stay away from that!", at that time the snow could reach my waist. But that's becoming rarer as years went by. Definitely I grew taller, but I mean the snow isn't as big as before, and the weather isn't that cold either these days.

Having said that, there are still springs and summers in Anshan, though they are really short for me. As you could see in the following photos, the land turns into a totally different view, I really love this time of the year!

There are some well-known temples on the mountain called Qianshan in the countryside of Anshan, pilgrims from all areas around made the place lively in the warm season.

Autumn for me is just an overture for winter, it's getting chilly in my hometown! The land is preparing for its look in winter- here are lotus on a lake near my home in autumn:

In the countryside, however, it is the most lively time of year- it's the harvest season! You always find something delicious and fresh to eat there in Septembers and Octobers. In rural region of northern China, commercial agriculture is developed, yet some peasants are still living on subsistence agriculture, selling their crops and fruits on the roadside near their houses.

I'm beginning to miss my hometown！ By the way, can you guess what the orange-color fruit is in the blue basket in the photo?

So here comes me to introduce Kiama, a seaside town along the South Coast of NSW.I took the trip there with my own nearly a year ago, after that I've been to several other places along the coast of NSW, but Kiama remains to be my top favorite all these days.

I took the South Coast Line to Kiama, it was a memorable train journey, since there are several popular beaches and towns along the line, such as Wollongong, Shellharbour and Bombo. Seeing from window the beautiful seaside and blue sky, I totally enjoyed myself during the long journey.

It was nearly noon when I arrived at Kiama. It proved to be a place that lived up to my 3-hour travel by train. It's a place famous for its lighthouse, blowhole and quality surfacing beaches. But what I like most was the peaceful and relaxing atmosphere of the town. Here are some photographs I took.

It is said that the name Kiama has the meaning of "where the sea makes a noise", but I imagine seldom people would take the sounds of wave and seabird as "noise". Walking along the seaside made me totally relaxed, and Kiama thus became one of the fascinating places that I'd never like to leave.

After the long walk alone the beaches, I turned back to wonder around the town, it's a place with history: peaceful, neat, and at the same time keeps a vivid atmosphere through various cafes and retail outlets. Below is the photograph of the Post Office in town center, it is completed in 1878 and is one of the oldest buildings on the south coast.

I spent another 3 hours to return and got back home nearly midnight. It was a fantastic experience of travelling with my own. I like wondering about with a dozen of friends as well, but that's a totally different experience- with friends you always concentrate on the conversations and the friendship among you. But travelling by yourself enables one to explore more the new places as well as oneself. In a place like Kiama, you never fail to find something new on the journey alone.

So here I come to Australia, enjoying the crisp air, warm sunshine and famous beaches, in the meanwhile coping with countless figures and financial reports which drive me crazy every day, and struggling with the balance of study, work and social activities. Changing a major results in a series of changes in life as well.

I became a fan of BBC when I was a freshman at university in China, and applied for setting up a blog at Learning English once but didn't success unfortunately. Now I feel lucky to own my blog here and share my experience of studying and living in another country, which I believe is a treasure for one's lifetime.

Hope you enjoy my blog. Happy new year to everyone!

Last year however, things were a little different: I got a part-time job as cashier in Woolworths, one of the biggest supermarkets in Australia. And my shift fell on Christmas Eve! You must have imagined what a job I did that day, people constantly flooded in our store, shopping happily with their families, and coming to me usually with full trolleys of foods, drinks and festival decorations. It continually gave me an illusion that I was back in China. I kept on greeting people and scanning, until 10pm when our store was closed, with staffs standing at the gate to stop customers still flooding in.

It was quite a pleasant experience, however, to work on Christmas Eve. People are much happier than usual, they greeted you cheerfully, talked about their Christmas plans, even complains on overspending were in a hilarious way- just have a look at the smiles on their faces when people saw the long shopping receipts rolling out from printer!
Another benefit to work on Christmas Eve is, I got the first-hand information on what Aussies prepare for Christmas dinner. Frozen turkeys and hams were items I scanned most frequently (which were really heavy!) , sausages, puddings, lollies and boxes of soft drinks were popular as well. And of course, fruits and vegetables never fail to play an important part in Aussies' Christmas shopping list. Perhaps I got some ideas on how to prepare a traditional Christmas dinner for my friends and myself next year.

Tired but cheerfully, I finished my closing shift on Christmas Eve, one is always easily infected by the festival mood anyway. All shops and supermarkets won't open after boxing day in my community. Leaving the store and half way home, I suddenly remembered there's not even breadcrumb left in my fridge.

Xiaowei