Final Trip

I am currently sitting in the first-class lounge at the Beijing Airport. The comfort this adds to traveling is well appreciated. My flight boards in 35 minutes so this blog will have to be short. This is unfortunate as there is so much to tell, especially about the last week I have spent in China. During the last week our program here at Peking University brought us to a few of China's famous and beautiful destinations. We visited the Qingdao Beer factory, Confucius' temple and home town as well as climbed and slept in a hotel on top of Mount Tai. We also got up at 4:20am to watch the sunrise. The view was incredibly beautiful and brought with it a feeling of peace and serenity. I took very many pictures so I hope you will be able to experience partially what the view was like. The picture is one of many I took that morning.
I am now very excited to be heading home and not too terribly excited about sitting in planes for the next three days :P
I have to board the plane now. I will write one more blog to conclude this trip once I return to Canada. I hope you have all enjoyed reading along during the past 2 1/2 months.

The End at Last

With the final exam, Chinese classes have now drawn to an end. Tomorrow morning a last formality in the form of a graduation dinner and ceremony remains to toast to a successful summer semester. Once the ceremony is over, later that afternoon we begin our end of the program trip. The itinerary is something like this: Qingdao City, Qin Island, Qufu City, Mount Taishan (Confucius' birthplace), Jinan City and then back to Beijing on Saturday July 21st.

The names by themselves probably don't mean much, but the main event include visiting the Qingdao beer factory (famous beer here in China) and Mount Taishan, on which we will be sleeping the night. The view from Mt. Taishan is said to be quite nice and I believe will prove even nicer at sunset and sunrise (I hope to get pictures of both).

Aside from these attractions to visit, I believe the trip will bring other benefits such as relaxation and the relief from going to class :D I think it will also be a nice way to end my stay here in China. I admit I will miss the culture and being surrounded by all that is Chinese (Chinese characters and all). Being home, however, is irreplaceable!
Here is also a last call out to anyone that has any particular requests of items of such that they've always wanted from China. You can either leave a comment on here or send me an email. I'll do my best to get it :D

Other things that have happened since the last blog are a swimming competition, of which there are some pictures on Flickr. I did not participate in the competition as I am not quite that advanced, although we had two McGill teams participate and one of them won the competition. Wahoo! Last week I also went to eat some Korean BBQ, it was quite delicious. It is actually the second time I eat Korean BBQ here, but this time the cooking was done over a bowl of charcoal: very cool! That's also the picture for this blog.
That's all the news for now. More after I get back from my trip.

While trying to upload this blog my internet connection seems to have been cut off. It took me a while to get it back after seeing the reception desk and other problems. The internet will be cut off while we are on the trip. I will hopefully get another day of internet access right after the trip so I can blog when I get back. At the latest I can definitely write an update from the lounge at the airport.

See everyone soon!

Beijing Aquarium and Zoo

It has been far too long since I've written a blog. Much has happened since the trip to Shanghai, although my visit to the Beijing Aquarium and Zoo proved to be significant enough to finally post another blog.
After coming back from Shanghai I first had to get re-acquainted with eating 3 yuan ($0.50) Ramen noodles and settling for the scenery of my hotel room. The times of splurging on delicious food and views from an 87th floor bar were left behind in Shanghai. Nonetheless, I was happy to return to my home away from home here in Beijing, where all my current possessions awaited me.
Classes have continued at the usual vivace tempo and required my catching up what I missed while in Shanghai. With some diligent effort all was well and my dictations and quiz did not suffer in the department of grades.
I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but I also got my first hair cut here in China. It was quite the interesting experience. It came with a straight-blade shave and all together only cost 20 yuan ($3).
Last Sunday I went to visit the Summer Palace. It was a really nice and hot day, so walking in the sun was a bit of a chore, but the ice cream vendors on the paths up the hill helped out with that. The Summer Palace is an elegant scenic spot. It is right by a lake and from the top of the hill the view extends up till the Great Wall on a clear day. I spent a good hour an a half sitting in the shade on some pagoda with a beautiful view studying in my Chinese book. It was very relaxing.
Now to the Aquarium and the Zoo. Yesterday, I successfully carried out the first activity on my own since I've been on this trip. I have had a need for some self directed adventures for a little while now, since most activities tend to take place in a group. I took the bus from our hotel bus stop (颐和园路东口) "yiheyuan lu dongkou" to the metro station (五道口) "Wudaokou" then the metro to Xizhimen station (西直门站) "Xizhimen zhan". From there I walked to the Zoo. What I did not know at first is that to get to the Aquarium you have to go through the Zoo. So I also went to visit the Zoo. I felt like a little kid all over again, looking at all the animals that we usually do not get to see on a daily basis. Of course the most famous attraction particular to the Beijing Zoo is the Pandas. I went to see them, but then also many other animals: ostriches, zebras, giraffes, elephants, monkeys, birds and many more.
At the Aquarium I saw many different kinds of fish and also watched a dolphin show. That was also very entertaining. In the Coral reef section of the Aquarium I also reconstructed scenes of the movie Finding Nemo. I found a clown fish with an anemone and a glowing blue fish that looked like Dory. So if you look at the aquarium pictures you should be able to piece together the characters of Finding Nemo. :D
Finally, at the end of the day I beat the rain home and headed straight for my bed to have a little rest. I began my trip that day at around 11am and came home at 7pm and most of that time I was walking, so a little rest was just the right thing.
Today in class we had our last quiz (in class test) only 4 days left and on Monday we have our final exam. It has gone so fast.
I will write some more later. There is still one more trip at the end of the program that will surely incur many pictures. Hope everyone is enjoying their summers as much as I am :D
Till next time!

Shanghai

I returned to Beijing from Shanghai this Tuesday. Ever since I have been catching up with life here in Beijing. I feel that now finally I'm back on track with the rest of the class. Even though the hotel here in Beijing isn't home, it was nice to return to familiar places after our 5 day stay in a youth hostel in Shanghai.
Wednesday, June 13th at 8:35pm our train (T104) left the Beijing main train station. It was a 12 hour ride till we arrived in Shanghai the next morning. The ride was quite comfortable as we had beds to sleep on, which I might add were almost more comfortable than the hotel beds. If only the flight back to Canada was that comfortable the 14 hours plane ride would pass quickly.
The first day in Shanghai it rained most of the time. We found our youth hostel dropped off our bags and despite the rain to the subway to the downtown area and walked around a bit.
That evening we went for supper in the French Concession area of Shanghai and had Hong Kong style food...very strange, I know: Hong Kong style food in Shanghai and out of all places in the French Concession area...but it was quite good. The rest of the evening was not too eventful we took a stroll around the French Concession and then returned to the hostel.
The next day Olivia and I took the subway to the Pudong area of Shanghai, that is the business district with all the tall skyscrapers. It was amazing to walk out of the subway station and see the buildings growing to be taller and taller. We eventually ended up at the river front (the Huangpu River 黄埔江). We were hungry so we chose a random restaurant at the river front called BundView. We were very pleasantly surprised at how good the food was. The set lunch only cost 88元 ($15) and it included: a Salad, soup, bread, main meal and dessert. It was really fancy and good tasting food. Later that day we met up with the rest of the group and we all decided to go to the BundView together. It was quite the feast and we got treated like VIPs. We all had big meals for supper and bought several bottles of wine to go with the meal. After what seemed like eating all day we ended up at a club/bar called Windows Too which was quite strange as there were many westerners there and I was very used to seeing a lot of Chinese people.
The next day was also really fun. Olivia, Isabell and I went to visit a Buddhist temple. It was very neat to see all the people there practicing their faith. We also got to see a Buddhist service, the monks were singing and chanting. After this we all met up and decided to visit the tallest building in China (at the moment the Jin Mao Building) which also has the Cloud 9 bar of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt hotel. The view from the top was amazing. A few of us decided to go to Cloud 9 for a few drinks to enjoy the view at this exclusive location. From the top we could look down on both the skyline of the Pudong district as well as the well known Bund district. As they do every night there were fireworks launched from a boat on the river and the moment at Cloud 9 seemed to be something out of a James Bond movie (drinking a Martini and all).
Later that night we went to a club called Bon Bon, in the French Concession area. There happened to be a well known DJ from abroad hosting an event so the music was quite good. The next day was a very relaxed one as we had spent so much energy the night before. We ended up back at our favourite restaurant the BundView and sat there to order lunch. Lunch turned into afternoon which turned into night and we were still sitting on the comfortable cushioned chairs ordering a bottle of Champagne (Moët & Chandon wich would usually cost $264) but we got it for 680元.
Shanghai was a nice contrast to Beijing. Now it's back to my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but the adventure in Shanghai sure was a memorable one. Above, a picture of the Shanghai skyline and many more pictures of the other adventures on Flickr (Shanghai Museum, little side streets, boat rides, losing and finding Chuck Norris -aka. the Gnome-, etc...)
Shanghai was a wonderful destination. I'm glad I have lots of pictures to remember it by.
Now it is Friday and another weekend begins (it is Charles' birthday this weekend so no doubt there will be a party). Only 32 days left in China, although classes finish on July 13th, then there is a final exam and a week long end-of-the-program trip.
More later when I go visit more places.

Trip to Shanghai

The first big trip during my stay here in China is about to commence. This evening at 8:20pm a group of us (Lorelei, Olivia, Alex, Jake, James and Isabelle) are hopping on a train headed for Shanghai. The trip should take approximately 12 hours, so our overnight stay in the train will save us the cost of another night at the hostel in Shanghai. I'm not quite sure yet exactly what kind of attractions await us in Shanghai, but I do know there is a beautiful garden and of course the city itself is a marvel to see. There are also little cities with beautiful scenery close to Shanghai to which we can also travel.
The last few days - since my last post - have been quite ordinary. Classes are going well as usual, and leisure time with friends (aka. strolling the streets in the evening) keeps the schedule busy. A few days ago I discovered a new part of the ever grand city of Beijing; an area that houses the Bell and Drum Towers. This place was more relaxed than most of the hustling and bustling downtown roads. There were lots of little side streets known as Hutong(s)胡同. There was also a park in this area and the picture for this post is of a flower from there.

The most recent exciting event was last night. Josh, a student in the program received a gift from his parents back home. Through another student's parents who came to visit us here in China they sent along a huge piece (5lbs. or more) of smoked meat from Schwarz (a famous smoked mead joint in Montreal). We all gathered like hungry animals and enjoyed the feast with mustard and bread. It was really funny. In this sense we are adopting the Chinese culture, because here too many people gather around on the street, chat and eat food. So here we were all sharing this communal meal. There will be pictures of this event later on as I did not use the camera (my stomach overpowered my will to get the camera :P ) But I will get the pictures from others who took them.

I'm packing the last few things (Gnome (aka. Chuck Norris), camera and charger included), then we will make our way to the train station. I will take lots of pictures so stay tuned for Monday when I return. Hope everyone is doing well back home.

Also an advanced Happy Father's day to all dads out there since I will be gone till Monday.

Cuandixia 爨低下

It has been a while since I wrote a blog, but my adventure of this weekend is definitely reason to write a blog. Let's see, where to begin....
Originally this weekend Olivia, Jan and I were supposed to go on a trip to NE China to the city Harpin in a province of China that borders with Russia. We paid for our train tickets at the student travel agency only to get a call back on Friday afternoon letting us know that there is no room left on the train. We still wanted to go somewhere for the weekend so we looked in one of the Chinese tour guides someone brought to China and decided to visit the little village of Cuandixia. This village has only 100 people living in it and apparently dates back all the way to the Qing and Ming dynasties. So the deal is, you take the metro (line 1) all the way to the end then a 3 hour bus ride and then from the destination city a taxi to this little village. We decided we would be up for that.
Saturday morning at 8:30 we went with our classmates on the organized trip to the Temple of Heaven (pictures on Flickr) and after visiting the temple we went to the closest metro stop to begin our journey.
After about a 45 minute subway ride we get out at the Pinguoyuan station and quickly realize we are the only westerners within sight. Before even getting out of the metro station there is already a throng of zealous taxi drivers offering us rides to our destination. After much effort to shake off most of them we reached a deal to go with a friendly gentlemen for 120 yuan. So instead of taking the bus we figured a taxi ride all the way to the village will make things easier and it also cuts our travel time from 3 to 2 hours. This is all the more amazing when you realize that all of this is taking place in Chinese. The taxi driver only spoke Chinese, but we conversed a little and he said once we arrive at Cuandixia he would help us find a place to stay for the night.
We were warmly received by a Chinese family and after getting settled in we wasted no time an went for a long walk. We climbed a few mountains and explored the surrounding beautiful scenery.
After our 3 hour long walk we returned to our host family and had supper. This began our saga. We had a few beers for supper and then we proceeded to venture from place to place in the village to have a beer here and one there. One place we went to we thought was another bar or place that served drinks...it ended up being this family's balcony, but they received us warmly and sat and talked with them for over an hour. (again this is all in Chinese, although we do not always understand everything :P )
As most of the people at this 'party' started going to bed we ventured to the next place with lights and people...there we were invited to join a big table with 15 or so people. They were great. They were in the middle of playing a drinking game (spin the bottle type thing) where if it pointed to you, you had to take a drink. This was really fun and funny, as we had no clue who these people are but we fit right in. After some fun we chatted a little and they told us they are all in a Camry Club (Toyota Camry) and this was their group outing. Then one gentlemen and his wife offered to drive us back to Beijing the next day.
We got up at 8:30am to eat breakfast and meet our new friends to drive back home with them. Before this point we had not realized what the significance of them being is this club is. They have beautiful black silver lined Toyota Camrys all spanking new. Turns out there were seven of them and they all got together and we drove back to Beijing in a convoy of Black luxury cars with the 4-way flashers on and the front car had a siren and a horn to make people get out of the way of the convoy. This included oncoming traffic so we could pass slower vehicles in our lane. This was really cool! Still don't know exactly what these fine people do, but they appear to be quite important.
There is so much more to tell about our trip, but the above is it in a nutshell. The amazing thing about the trip is that it was so unexpected that we would have all of these experiences and so it was well worth the mere 100 yuan ($15) the whole trip ended up costing (because of all the luck we had along the way).

37 Degrees

Today is the hottest day I have witnessed in a long time. It was 37 degrees today and the weather channel says it 'feels like' 39 degrees. Basically you really want to melt. Nonetheless I took advantage of this nice weather. A group of us decided to go downtown and explore a little, go for a walk and look at the embassy district. The embassy district is really neat. As you walk down the road every building is the embassy of another country. We walked by the embassies for Morocco, Qatar, Germany, Canada, Australia. We found the German Embassy and also the Canadian Embassy. Though I didn't bring my passport I was still let onto the property (I had my student card that says my nationality on it). However when I got to the building the people at the desk were confused as to why I was there and told me to leave. *lol* I suppose I didn't really have a reason for going anyway, I also did not have my passport. It was still fun to be on German property and let into the gates with the Chinese guard at the front.
After walking around for what felt like days due to the heat, we made our way to a museum. I decided to go back to the hotel with a few people so I could get some rest, study and do computer stuff. I've uploaded more pictures. We went out to eat at a delicious restaurant last night where they have tasty chicken sticks. From there we went back to the hotel and then went out to a club in Wudaokou (a district here in Beijing).
I have also added two videos to my YouTube account. These are from the day we went to the Great Wall.
On Monday we have our first exam and it covers 4 chapters in our books. Back at McGill we usually took one to two weeks to study one chapter. But I feel that I will do well. I will spend some time today reviewing for the test.
I haven't mentioned yet that last Monday evening I went to a really fancy restaurant to eat Beijing Duck. My roommate has a friend that moved to Beijing a while ago and knows his way around. He brought a group of us to this restaurant and it was incredibly delicious. The Beijing Duck even came with a certificate :D The buildings around the restaurant were nicely lit up at night. Today's picture is of a fountain over there.

The Great Wall

Saturday was the day of our adventure to see the Great Wall. We met promptly at 8:30am in front of the international student building to get on a bus. The last time I was in China I went to visit the Badaling section of the wall, which is closer to Beijing and more prone to attract many tourists. This time we went to the Mutianyu section of the Wall, which was about a one and a half hour drive from Peking University. Though this section of the Wall was farther away there were still many visitors. To get to the Great Wall we actually had to go up many many many sets of stairs up the hill. It was over 30 degrees and sunny yesterday, so I am glad I wore shorts and a t-shirt. My feet were quite warm though, because climbing the Great Wall with flip-flops is worse than warm feet.
Once at the top it was all worth it. The view was stunning. You could see the mountains in the distance on one side and the valley with the neighbouring town over the other side of the Wall. We walked quite a distance along the Wall to visit all sorts of little guard houses (these provided a nice cool area to rest from the sun). I took lots of pictures (179 to be precise) so go ahead and check them out on my Flickr account.
After all the hard work of not just climbing up to the wall but then down as well, we were rewarded with lunch. The International Student office paid for our lunch, which I might add was quite delicious. On the subject of food; two weeks into my stay here in China I have not gotten sick of Chinese food yet, rather I am noticing that I have cravings for certain things that don't usually appear on the Chinese menu. Such items are: Chocolate, Cheese, Corn Flakes, Yogurt, Pizza and Ketchup. Most of the Chinese food is either salty of tasteless. Also the wrong things are salty, for example breakfast items such as spicy salty seaweed! But all is good, at least the food is really inexpensive and a trip to KFC every once in a while should do the trick.
After our exhausting morning and afternoon at the Great Wall it was time to celebrate my roommate's (Alex) birthday. About 40 students from the program all got together at one of the Karaoke clubs. It was called KTV 17 mile. We got our own room with projection TV and disco lights and couches and tables it was really neat. After trying to figure out how the music selection works with a Chinese person, I was on my own and ended up being the DJ for the night. I thank Alexander for his outbursts of random music knowledge, which helped me chose appropriate music. :D Once our time was up at the Karaoke club we proceeded to another Night Club called Mix. There are two clubs facing each other they are called Vics and Mix. Finally, after some more fun at Mix there was light at the end of the tunnel (literally) as we entered the doors of the hotel (after a long cab ride) as the sun was rising.
And that was yesterday. So today I am tired and sore from climbing the Wall and staying out late. I suppose you're only young once *lol*
Now I plan on spending a quiet evening in my hotel room and practicing my Chinese for tomorrow's class. Until next time!
P..S. I have uploaded new videos to YouTube. A video of the little puppies getting a bath and a clip of the Beijing Opera. You can find them under the link that I have added at the top right of the page by the link to my Flickr account.

Fun in Beijing

So the last two days have been busy. However not busy with school work necessarily (the teachers have been nice thus far), this is why many students are taking this opportunity to check out the night life here in Beijing. Last night we went to a club called Propaganda, which charges students 50 yuan for all you can drink. No doubt this is friendly to the wallet, although not so friendly to your head when we have class the next day :P It was still fun though, because most people from the program did go out last night and so it was great to get to know a bunch of people.
On the way to the club we walked by the many vendors that you usually find on any road here. Selling things from jewelery, post cards, food (they are cooking it right there over a fire) and also animals it appears. This is the picture for today. That little dog was sooooo cute. I barely was able to walk away without buying both rabbits the cat and the dog. I just wasn't sure where I would put them on the way walking to the bar. So I had to leave them there.
Yesterday after classes were out we went to see a performance of Beijing Opera (Jingju 京剧).
The bus ride to the opera house took about 45minutes, this left plenty of time for us to start singing on the bus. I took a few videos of this. It was surprising to see how many songs we could sing. Amongst other we also sang Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and Madonna *lol*
The Beijing Opera itself was an interesting experience. The style was definately of the Chinese kind, but it must have been this particular piece that had an annoying instrument as part of the accompanying music. It litterally sounded like someone was taking two metal bowls and hitting them together. This instrument played generally the same role as a drum might have in, let's say traditional North American Native music, aka it was loud and at times painful to listen too. Nonetheless, the opera was a worthwhile experience. The make-up, the stage and the costumes were really well done.
As we all got in quite late last night, I think today will be a quiet evening. I will do some homework and go to bed at a reasonable time. Hope everyone is well!

Contrary to my intentions I have not been appending my blog with a Chinese word/expression. So today's Chinese word is:

生日快乐 = happy birthday
shengri kuaile

Hot Pot

Today was a rather quiet Sunday. I mostly stayed in my room during the morning to practice writing Chinese and read through our lesson a bit. Last night I planned to take a little nap but ended up sleeping through the night. This was a refreshment I much needed, as the last few days have been filled with much activity and going to bed quite late. I mostly also avoided going outside today because it was so hot: 33 degrees and scorching sunshine. This is still nicer than snow though, at least for now :D
This afternoon I ventured out with my bike to the campus mini-mart to buy a Chinese-English dictionary as I did not bring the one I have at home, and realized I needed one now. I also bought some water (drinking the water from the taps is not recommended). I neatly placed my purchases in the basked of my bike at wove through the traffic back to the hotel.
For supper a group of us went out on the hunt for a restaurant that serves 火锅 (huoguo) which means Hot pot. This is a meal where a bot of water with seasonings and vegetable is put over a fire and brought to a boil and then meat of all sorts can be added to it and then it cooks and you eat it. It was really good. This is the picture for today.

Tiananmen and Forbidden City

The day began bright and early with breakfast at 7:45am. Today we got on a bus shortly after breakfast and headed downtown to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was very busy there. So many tourist and tour groups crowded the big square, but it was still amazing to look at the grandeur of all the buildings. The Forbidden City is very big with many gates and sections. Unfortunately, much of it is under renovation to prepare for the influx of tourist for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. Fortunately though, I went to visit the Forbidden City two summers ago and was able to look at everything back then.
After walking through the Fobidden city a group of us decided to walk to Wángfǔjǐng street (王府井大街) where there are many places to shop. The walk proved to be a wonderful learning experience since we did not know how to get to the street from where we were, but I was able to ask for directions in Chinese and understand as well. It's really neat how quickly my proficiency in Chinese is improving. This is no doubt so because I have to use it everywhere here.
I didn't buy anything because I didn't need anything, but I did buy some ice cream at a Häagen-Dazs store. It was verrrry good: Belgian Chocolate flavour.

Since I didn't post a blog yesterday I'll included it with today. Yesterday I finally decided to buy a bike. She's a $20 beauty. It is very convenient to have a bike here, many of the other student have bought one too. I also uploaded a video of the man playing the flute at the Bejing University lake that I wrote about in the last blog. You can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9zAp733KhU

First Day of Class (May 10, 2007

As I did not have an internet connection to post yesterday I had to save notepad file and am now posting yesterday's (May 10) blog. I will also post one for today later on.

Today has been another quite eventful day. Classes began this morning at 10am. We met and had the first class with our teachers that will be with us for the remainder of the program. My teacher is Wang Fang Laoshi. During the whole class she only spoke Chinese. It was quite difficult at first and required lots of concentration, but it quickly got much better.
The class room is about a 15 minute walk away from the Hotel and the afternoon tutorial session is also in a different place. At first this seemed rather inconvenient, but walking through the beautiful Peking University campus makes up for the time it takes.
After classes finished I went to the campus mini mart where I got a new battery for my watch. This process was surprisingly simple. In Canada it took over a week for the people at the watch store to figure out they are not able to replace the battery, but here at this little mini mart it took 5 minutes and 67元 (about $10 CND) which I got at a deal since the watch guy originally wanted 80元. I also bought a notebook for class.
After a long busy day I then took a walk with Caty to the lake on campus to study for tomorrow's dictation. When arrived the lake there was a man playing a flute. People are sitting around the lake studying and the gentle wind made the trees rustle and the sound of the flute filled the air. It was a quite serene moment. We both found some seats on the rocks by the lake and began our non-conversational study session. We decided that since the day is always filled with so many group activities and chatting we would just sit there and study by ourselves. This made the afternoon very relaxing.
As the weather cooled off a bit Caty decided she wanted to buy a bike. A few students have already purchased bikes to fit in with the local traffic. This ended with her driving the bike with me sitting on the back all through campus. Many bewildered Chinese faces glanced our way, as we laughed and giggled, while trying not to crash into anything.
Now I'm back in my room studying a bit more and trying to learn how to play the contraption of an instrument I bought yesterday. It was only 20元 and promises to play wonderful sounds once I know how. There is a picture on Flickr. I'm not quite sure what it is called, but it resembles a violin mixed with a guitar and it only has two strings. I was orginally planning to bring my guitar and practice here in China, but I decided against this since it would be another large object I have to drag over here. As a replacement I can now learn to play this new instrument.
That's all the news for now.
P.S. I forgot to mention that on our way to the acrobatics show yesterday we drove by an Ikea, check out the pictures on Flickr.

Ich schreibe nun auch noch ein bisschen auf Deutsch, falls jemand aus Deutschland auch mitliest. Ich bin also gut in China angekommen. Die letzten paar Tagen waren voller aktivitäten. Ich habe mich zuerst in unser Hotelzimmer einwhonen müssen, dann wurde uns gezeigt wo unsere Klassenzimmer sind. Die Peking Universität ist rieseg. Es giebt viele Gebäude die nur mit Chinese verzeichnet sind. Somit ist es momentan noch ziemlich schwierig den Weg zu finden.
Der Unterrich hat heute begonnen und da wurde nur Chinesisch geredet. Es hat mich überrascht das ich troztdem alles verstanden habe, doch freue ich mich darüber. Wir haben auch schon Hausaufgaben und müssen morgen ein Diktat schreiben.
Nun bin ich in meinem Zimmer und studieren noch ein bisschen vor dem Abendessen. Ich hoffe euch geht es allen gut! Bis zur nächsten Nachricht.

Beginnings

So I have finally managed to get some computer time. The common computers here in the hotel lobby are always being used and they do not seem to be friendly to everything Google. I have to refresh the page twenty times for it finally to load the page. I hope to soon have internet access whith my laptop in my room and hope this will make things easier. An additional difficulty is that all the buttons on the web pages are in Chinese, so with some luck I will figure out how to post this blog. I also do not have a picture to post with this blog as I can't put picture to upload on this public computer. So far everything is going well. We have settle down in the Hotel and have had a few tours of the campus facilities. Tomorrow there is a placement test and ceremonies and on Thursday classes begin. The flight was also very enjoyable, I got quite a bit of sleep on the flight from Vancouver to Beijing.
I will keep this blog short because I'm not sure if the web site will still work once I press "post" *lol* more later
Cheers

Lounging at the Airport

My travels have begun and thus far it has been very smooth. There was virtually no traffic on the way to the Trudeau International Airport here in Montreal since I left the house at 6am. I am now sitting in the Maple Leaf lounge and enjoying the convenience of free wireless internet, complementary breakfast and a great view of the tarmac (see picture). My sympathies go out to the minions that are sitting on uncomfortable chairs waiting at the gate...mwhuahahaha. Although, having this kind of convenience almost takes the magic out of flying, since it feels just like an extension of the conveniences at home. Traveling for me has become a labourious adventure at the end of which you have the reward of arriving at your destination, just like the explorers of the old days.

On that note I think I'll grab another drink from the complementary bar and sit back on the reclining chair.

Disease Shopping

It is now the early hours of Friday. I am shopping the list of health risks available in Asia.

-Hepatits A: liver disease
-Hepatits B: liver cancer, death
-Japanese Encephalitis: confusion, coma & death
-Tetanus, Diptheria & Polio: Death, heart disease, paralysis
-Typhoid Fever: nausea, constipation and diarrhea

Having discovered this I am mostly relieved as I have received vaccinations for all of these, except for the Japanese Encephalitis, which is however seasonal and not a concern during my stay in China.
Amongst other preparations I exchanged some Canadian dollars for Chinese Yuan (RMB) yesterday so I am not stranded should I require money as soon as I get to Beijing. The exchange rate was quite favourable to the Canadian dollar almost 7RMB for one Dollar.

On another note, the picture for today's blog entry is of driving back to Montreal from a visit to Jon and Julie in Quebec City. I like the bloom effect on the sun. This reminds me that I only have two more sunsets left in the Western world before my trip begins.

As a final note I will begin introducing a Chinese word/expression of the day/post; here's the first one:

你好！（hello!）
Nihao

5 Days until China

Today is a wonderful day outside here in Montreal. The sun is shining and school is out. Although it is not as warm here in Montreal as it is in Beijing. The measly 15C here in Montreal are dwarfed by a week long high of over 34C in Beijing.

I'm very excited about this warm weather. I feel that my body will thank me after a cool and wet Spring thus far.
With only 5 days left until I head out to China I'm starting to get antsy and paranoid that I will forget to pack something or prepare for some unforeseen event. Nonetheless, I'm sure everything will turn out just fine. I'm heading off to our pre-departure meeting at 6pm tonight, that's in just under an hour. At this point I believe it will really sink in that I'm actually going to China.

More later!

Step One: Chinese Visa

On Tuesday April 17 I hightailed it to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa to get my visa. I originally thought my final exam was on Tuesday and that we would go to Ottawa on Wednesday, but realized late Monday night that my final was indeed on Wednesday and we would have to get up early on Tuesday to make it to Ottawa on time.
Everything worked out perfectly. I made it to the embassy just on time before the deadline of 11am. The visa was done and ready to be picked up by 12pm. Now I have a visa and I can go to China...wahoo!
Check back later for more on my preparations for China :D