My favourite places in Norwich

South Korean student Lisa Yong documents her exploration of Norwich through photography.

Lisa Yong is a first-year BA (Hons) Graphic Communication student from South Korea. When Lisa arrived in Norwich in September 2018, she started exploring Norwich for the first time. Here she takes some time to reflect on her first few months at university and why she took photos of particular locations around Norwich.

Before I came to Norwich I heard that it was a beautiful city, and that’s the same way I felt about it when I arrived. It’s the first time I’ve lived in another country, so my first impression of Norwich is also my first impression of England and Europe. I started to take pictures in Norwich because every building is very different and kind of strange to me, but pretty as well.

The biggest difference between Norwich and Korea is that there are no high buildings here. Almost all Korean people live in apartment buildings with high floors, so this is really interesting to me. In Norwich a lot of the buildings are different colours which makes it a varied and beautiful city.

This photo was taken just after the Christmas lights began to shine. It was a rainy day and I really like how the street is coloured by the rain. And those Christmas colours, the green and red, look very festive!

This street in Norwich is called Elm Hill, it’s old but very interesting for me. We don’t have buildings that are these colours in Korea. We have old buildings but they’re just brown and grey. I think this is my favourite place in Norwich because it is a very traditional but also very colourful.

I took this picture after I arrived and was exploring near my home. I find it amazing that they could make a very big park like this, maybe that’s because there’s plenty of space here in Norwich.

This was the very first time I started to look around Norwich city, and at the time I just took a picture of everything that I saw! There’s lots of good graffiti in Norwich and that played a big role in this picture, in the centre.

What I found interesting about the NUA buildings is they look so old from the outside but very modern inside. They surprised me!

There was a program for international students before the course started and I attended the university campus tour. I thought that they are focusing on the old and traditional much more than they do in Korea- there are only new buildings in Korea.

You can follow Lisa on Instagram to see more of her photos.