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!