The Last Article

Huh, I thought I had already posted the last article that I promised a long time ago. Apparantly there has been some problem with my blog and the already completed last post hasn't been published at all. Because I've been extremely busy during the last couple of weeks I noticed the situation just now. Well, luckily it still can be fixed :)

So yeah, it's now exactly one month since I arrived back in Finland. Although I love my home country, I really miss Bali almost every day. There's so many things that were part of my normal life in Bali that are now long gone. I can't go surfing and I can't drive with my scooter to university in a sunshine. But of course people are one thing that I miss the most - and hopefully I will meet those guys many times during next years :) I also hope that I'll be going back to Bali one day but that's completely different story.

Still, now it's finally time to leave the official goodbyes. There's not going to be more blog posts from me here after this. I have to move on to my new projects (as I've already done) and seriously settle in to my home town. Once more I want to thank everyone who's been reading my blog and helping to get the all material here :) It's been an amazing ride.

And yeah, here's the one article I was supposed to post a long long time ago. I hope it will give some kind of inspiration to some of you who're still planning the study abroad semester in South East Asia.

JONAS IS ONE OF THE NEW STUDENTS IN BALI

A Tuesday Morning Article

During the last semester I normally posted the articles on Mondays but during my last couple of weeks (yeah, I'm leaving Bali in 10 days - horrible!) I have to little bit change my schedules. Last week I already published one article about the last semester and now I'm still going to publish one more because this story is so amazing. I would've wanted to post this earlier but I didn't have right pictures until now. In December I already posted the video interview where Jessie tells about volunteering at Seeds of Hope and about her great campaign to help the children of that children's home. Now this article should tell even more about that great project that took place in the end of last semester.

ASIA EXCHANGEN STUDENTS DONATED THEIR EXTRA CLOTHES TO THE CHILDREN OF SEEDS OF HOPE

This is it this time. I'm going to post material about the new semester later this week :)

Bali Article

Tomorrow's the day! The new semester is right around the corner and I can't wait for tomorrow when all the new students arrive to the campus area here in Bali for the first time. I try to post first experiences and some photos alredy tomorrow or at least at some point during next week.

But before we move on to the next semester, I want to share one more story from the previous semester. Before the semester ended, I interviewed Emily from Hawaii who's really inspiring person and she had a great story to tell about her stay in Bali. I hope this will give some kind on inspiration for future exchange students :)

EMILY ENJOYED HER STAY IN BALI

Articles: Homestay and University

Alright, yesterday I wrote about the charity thing that Jessie had organized so there was no normal Monday articles. This time I'm posting them today and even though the semester ends this week and also my holiday strarts at the same time, there'll be a couple of articles also on next Monday :)

This time I'm posting two articles. The first is about homestay accommodations in Bali. There has been a lot of questions about them to Asia Exchange. Since now I've been writing mostly just about villa accommodations because most of our students are living in villas. It's still good to remember that there also other options if you want to know more about the local culture. A couple of our exchange students choose a homestay accommodation instead of a villa which means that they're living with a local family in their home. I've interviewed Saara and Johan who are living in a homestay right now and they tell about their experiences in the article.

HOMESTAY IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY IN BALI

Picture: Saara Atula

The other article is about the head of Udayana University's BIPAS program Made Rajeg and the secretary of that same program Sri Rahayuni. All of AE students are studying in BIPAS program so they'll get to know with Rajeg and Rahayu who are really great people and who care about our exchange students. In the article Rajeg and Rahayu tell about their backgrounds etc.

RAJEG JA RAHAYU ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT BIPAS PERSONELL

New Week, New Article

It's a new week once again. During the weekend we for example celebrated the Finnish Independence Day in Balinese style and went paintballing, both were great experiences. Still it's a little bit sad because the weekend was the second last that we're going to spend with this exchange student group: some of us are leaving Bali straight after the semester ends in 19th December so that they'll make it to home for Christmas. Of course some of the students are going to stay in Bali/Indonesia longer and some are going to explore Asia. It feels so weird that this school week is the last normal school week. Next week there's only exams and the closing ceremony in Thursday. New students are coming here only in a couple of weeks and luckily I have a chance to meet them all because by job here in Bali ends only in January. Still, I feel a little bit sad right now.

But let's still focus on the current semester. Because it's a new week, it's also time for a new article that I've written :) I interviewed Saara a couple of weeks ago. She is one of our many exchange students in Udayana University. Before arriving in Bali Saara had been traveling around Indonesia for a couple of months and she's going to continue traveling after the semester. After the semester new students also can contact Saara with their questions because she's going to be our new online ambassador.

Saara has enjoyed the exchange student time in Bali really much

Monday Articles

A new week has begun and it's once again time to publis one article that I've been working on lately :) Some time ago I posted two videos about internship in Bali and this time there's a written text about that same topic. You can read either one whole big article or the same one in parts:

Jana, Jutta, Jonas and Laura tell about their experience of doing internship in Bali
- Asia Exchange intern Jana
- Seeds of Hope intern Jutta
- Bali Internshipsi interns Jonas and Laura
- Info about Bali Internships

Accommodation in Bali, Part 2

Alright, as you may have been noticing, it has become a habit for me to publish new articles here every Monday if I have something new to publish. This time I've written an article about accommodations in Bali which is pretty popular subject amongst our students. Last times when I wrote about this subject in this blog I posted two videos that I've made with Farah and Chris who are probably the best real estate agents here in Bali. This time I've written an interview with them. There's a lot more article about living in Bali in that same article. Below there's also a couple of pictures of our group's villa to give you some impression about the student accommodations in Bali.

Most of the students like to look for the accommodation only after arriving here which is quite a wise decision because in Bali you should see the place before you've made any kind of official agreements about living there for the whole semester. Otherwise you may end up with an unpleasent surprise. On the other hand I really recommend you to at least contact Farah or Chris (or someone else) already before arriving here because then you have the best chance to get that kind of place you want to. I'm also sure that Chris and Farah will rent only that kind of villas that they're completely satisfied with and that's why some of our students nowadays rent a villa with their help already before coming here. So for conclusion I'd say that it's pretty much up to you what you want to do. At least you should find the right group with whom you try to find a villa because living alone here is pretty hard.

READ MORE: LIVING IN BALI CAN BE REALLY LUXURIOUS

About the Student Life in Bali

As I've already mentioned in this blog, I'm not actually here in Bali to study. Instead of that, I'm working as an intern for Asia Exchange and my main task is to observe the student life as many ways as I can. Also my life here pretty much resembles the students' life because I've arrived here at the same time as the students arrived and because I'm spending a lot of time in the university campus when the students are there. Still it's nice to have stories of an actual student life in this blog so here's now one article about Norwegian Heidi who's studying here and who has enjoyed living in Bali really much :)

Heidi is actually the first Norwegian Asia Exchange student in Bali

Kuala Lumpur, part 2

I guess this should actually be part 3 because last week I posted two videos from Kuala Lumpur and didn't remember to write the right number in the title. Maybe we can let it slide this time.

Anyway, I just wanted to post quickly here and let you guys know that I've written an article about Santra and Antti who are the first Asia Exchange students in Universiti Putra Malaysia. I think this article is very useful to read if you want to know more about studying in UPM because hopefully there's going to be many more AE students in the near future :)

Antti and Santra have enjoyed their studies in Kuala Lumpur

This is all this time. In Bali we have had Idul Adha (Islamic holiday) yesterday and today so there hasn't been any school this week. The school week starts tomorrow and ends on Friday so I'm going to write more about that at the end of the week :)

Articles and videos from Phuket

Hey guys!

Here's some stories to read and videos to watch from Phuket :)

Articles

Alexandra has much more experience of South East Asia than an avarage exchange student
Florian has a great business idea which can help Acia Center Foundation
Helery Homutov is Asia Exchange study abroad ambassador

Videos

Articles from Bangkok

Hey guys!

Although I'm actually staying in Phuket at this moment, I'd still like to make one more post about Bangkok. Don't worry, I'll post more material about Phuket still this week! You see, as I told you in my earlier posts, I visited both Siam University in the western Bangkok and Kasetsart University in the northern Bangkok.

During my visits I met many of Asia Exchange students and I also met interviews with Stephan (studying in Siam University) and Jens & Simon (studying in Kasetsart University). So now the articles that I made based on the interviews are ready and you can read them from the links above:

Stephan's semester in Siam University is almost over
Jens and Simon have enjoyed their studies in Kasetsart University

So that's all from Bangkok so far. I'll come back with some Phuket material soon :)