My name is Yen and I’m 22 years old from Taiwan. Today I will share my journey with you, if you are ready, then we’re about to take off!
Departure
When I was 15 years old and just graduated from junior high school, I made a decision which was totally different from other students and totally changed my life. I went for exchange to a city which was 7000km away from my hometown, Joensuu, Finland, was my destination.
My host family treated me very well, they took me to a lot of places in Finland. We sometimes went skiing in the forest and we chased the aurora to Ivalo (even though we did not see anything that night, same as most of the people), we experienced the fast and furious on snowmobile and also chilling in the sauna most of the night. The time in Finland was limited but my heart fell over there.
Let the journey begin
After graduating from high school, I again decided that I will choose the different path. Yes, I am back to Finland again! I knew that I love tourism industry and would like to work in the industry in the future. Rovaniemi is a successful tourism destination with famous attraction and breath-taking landscape, including Santa Claus Village and northern lights. Therefore, I chose Lapland UAS to be my home for the next four years.
I was lucky to study in Lapland and even got my first job in a safari company working as a guide. During the first season, I worked both at the reception and as a guide. I had the chance to learn a lot of new things regarding to tourism industry in practical and made friends from all over the world, which also improved my multicultural background. At the same time, I had the chance to experience different tours in Lapland and visited some attractions.
The second year was even more amazing! I got my driver’s license and was able to ride snowmobile. Riding snowmobile was one of my favorite activities in Lapland because we can enjoy the deep snow and wander in the forest track. It was also the time I picked up the hobby of photography and started to develop the skill.
Along the journey
Despite my life in Lapland, I also spent some time traveling around Europe to explore different culture and enjoy different scenery, for example:
- Baltics, 2019
- Barcelona, 2019
- Innsbruck, 2020
In the Baltics, I focused on photography to train my personal skills, Baltics were also very different places from my hometown. I visited my friends in Barcelona and enjoyed the sunshine. Innsbruck was the snowing heaven for skiers to ski in the alpes.
Arrival
Innsbruck was my last stop because of the pandemic in 2020. I returned to Taiwan in March 2020. However, it was not the end of the journey. After I went home, I started to discover the wonderful side of my hometown, and I started the appreciate that I live in such a great place. I dedicated myself to volunteer work in countryside to care for elderly society. It also awaken my awareness in cultural asset and the tourism impact on local community. Therefore, I decided that would be my thesis topic because I would like to do more research on the issue.
Next chapter
At this moment, I am studying my last semester in Lapland UAS remotely and writing my thesis. I hope the last semester we can utilize the skills we studied before and leave a wonderful memory. I don’t know where I will be after graduating, but life is an adventure! I’m looking forward to my next chapter and excited about it.
During the time of “stay home”, I started to develop more on my photography skills and writing blog posts, take a look at my blog if you are interested 🙂
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