I Think I'm Turning Chinese (I Really Think So)

Since it's been about a month since my last post, it's probably not very surprising that I have decided to no longer keep updating my blog here. It has been a very useful way of keeping friends and family up to date with my latest stupidity, and a good record of some of the more interesting times. Someone must have appreciated it, it's almost got 1.5K views, but I'm not sure how many of those were me refreshing the page trying to get the damn thing to load. But now I'm settling down for the long haul until the finish line, staying in one place and working for this hotel right up until I leave, so I feel that there's not as much point as updating my blog as before, when my life was changing at a much more rapid click.

I'm really enjoying my internship much more than I thought I would, though. Most interesting is that I am improving my Chinese, I think that's going well. Recently I even decided to move out of the hotel room that I was sharing with a Dutch roommate and into the dormitories for Chinese employees located a 15 minute walk from the hotel in an attempt to get a bit more active in learning, and being, Chinese. I get stared at on the street on the way to and from work, it's been ages since that happened! That's how I know it's real China.

However, good news for the Chinese speakers among you: I will be starting a new blog in Chinese, on my Renren account (the Chinese answer to Facebook). Read it if you can, and if you can't, put it into Google translate and use your imagination. This will be a blog that I intend to keep for the long term and continue to use no matter what country I might find myself in. Even though I've said that about other projects before, I really want to keep my connection to this country and this language for life. I'll still have stuff to write about, plus I'll pretend that it being in Chinese will make the content a lot more exotic and interesting.

I should be home in January or February of next year, I'm not sure about how long my visa will last for yet. Once I get back, I am planning on studying a graduate entry Bachelor of Laws and Legal Practice at Flinders University. Basically because a B.A. majoring in Chinese isn't all that useful, especially if you don't want to live in China, which I don't. I'd love a job where I travel sometimes, even a lot, but not all the time, and being in China has that insecure feeling of being a place for journeying, not a destination. So when I get back, I really want to do something that is going to get me to where I want to be in the long term, and get me on the path to achieving something rather than expecting achievement to fall into my lap. I'm even probably going to sit the GAMSAT exam and attempt to get into postgraduate Medicine in 2014. My logic is that with Law or Medicine I could do something apart from becoming a straight-up Doctor or Lawyer that could be much more interesting. And if I have to study something post-graduate, Medicine or Law beats Accounting or something like that. So hopefully I can start crafting an actual future next year, drifting has been fun but it's pretty tiring. In any case, I'll be keeping myself busy both in China and in Australia. See you all when I see you, much love to all.

I couldn't think of a suitable photo for this final post, so here is the link to my new Chinese blog. http://www.renren.com/456335352#!//blog/blog/0/

Hello Goodbye

I am writing this from my hotel room on the 7th floor with a view of the hills surrounding Beijing. Admittedly, I do have a room mate, a Dutch guy called Wout, but he's pretty chill and he's got a shift right now so I have the room to myself. Moved in, unpacked, borrowed a suit from the hotel because I've been too stingy to buy one so far. Finally having settled in here, with at least a reduced degree of uncertainty of the future, is very nice. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into this job and learning a lot. I've already had a week of shifts, but I've mostly been getting to know the hotel and the staff. I am a Management Trainee, along with the two other foreign staff here, Wout and Nicole. But I'll be working in the front desk department, mainly doing checking in and out, and handling questions and complains. My mentor, Shaun, says shift managers are nicknamed toilet paper by the hotel staff: because we clean up the shit. For example, when someone is accidentally booked into a smoking instead of a non-smoking room (like last week), and you want to make sure they're not too pissed off at the same time as not automatically giving them a free upgrade. The staff are great, really friendly and mostly speaking to me in Chinese. It's wonderful how not being an English teacher helps with that. Nanni, my supervisor, even offered to take me clubbing some time, and Simon from the concierge desk gave me the card of a nice bar he goes to. My project for the duration of my stay here will be to improve the Guest Experience Index (GEI). People give us feedback according to a survey, and we get a number for satisfaction relating to different areas of the hotel. At the moment, we're 0.5 lower than target, and it will be my job to produce a report recommending changes and hopefully improving that statistic. Sounds like I might get to tell people what to do, and yell at them if they don't. Fun!

I got sick at the end of the week, because I didn't get enough sleep, and I went out on Wednesday night until far later than I should have. I blame Rupert and Annie coming to visit, and forcing me to take them out to all-you-can-eat-and-drink teppanyaki and then stay out until 4am clubbing (pictured). Completely not my fault. On the plus side, it was awesome having a total of 8 Adelaideians together in one place, I don't think I will see that again until I get back. Speaking of which, I have a more-or-less confirmed date: February 6th. I might need to get my visa extended until then, but 14th of January would be the earliest return date. Their normal management trainee program is for one full year, so I had to stay here for as long as possible for it to be worth their while. Unfortunately I'll miss Christmas at home, but this is really going to be a valuable experience, so I may as well make the most of it.

Being here is a big change from Tsinghua, though. One constant over the past month and a half has been goodbyes. I made far more truly good friends there than I realised I did until it came time for people to leave. One of the awesome things about going overseas like this is that you meet great people, and become great friends, until it becomes one of the crap things about going overseas like this: you have to say goodbye so soon. I fully intend to visit North America and Europe in the near future to see all the great friends that I have accumulated after having lived overseas for over a year in total. Miss you guys.

Wrestling with the steering wheel

Lobby of Four Points by Sheraton

It's been a heck of a long time coming, but I finally found an internship. It's been a long road to get here. I noticed that almost no one else was doing the same thing as me, going to China without a plan and hoping something would turn up, and I gradually realised that was for a reason.

There are two things: business visas to China are like hen's teeth, and since most companies aren't used to employing foreigners they don't know the situation with the labour laws, which just makes them totally unwilling to take a gamble. I discovered the first part thanks to HTHY, and the second part thanks to 中旅，the second company to accept me and then reconsider. That's CTS, China Travel Service, the largest travel agency in China. I got an interview thanks to Rena, one of my few local friends. I met her once ages ago, then heard through a mutual friend that she was returning to Beijing from her hometown to look for work. Initially I was supposed to help her, but of course she ended up helping me much more. She got an interview at CTS, and told them she had a foreign friend who spoke Chinese, and they had us both for an interview on a Thursday, and they said start on Monday. I thought it was incredibly lucky, working in a Chinese workplace where almost no one spoke English, it really would have been great for my Chinese. Unfortunately, I knew my Chinese really wasn't up to the level they required, they did a lot of work over the phone to their clients. Sure enough, after working there for one day and two hours, they said I should probably look elsewhere.

Rena was really helpful, and tried to give me some more advice, but I realised I was rapidly running out of time, as I needed a visa. Finally, I caved into using an agency to help me find an internship. The finder's fee was pretty steep, at about $600, but I took an interview anyway to see if it would be worth my while. And so I found myself at the Four Points by Sheraton: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/fourpoints/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=3017&EM=VTY_FP_3017_BEIJINGHAIDIAN_PROP_OVERVIEW. Next, seeing where the dive takes me.

Summer break

It's strange how apathy breeds more apathy, so once you don't have anything to do, you don't feel like starting anything. This has been how I've been feeling since my exams finished, which by the way, went quite well, I've only got 4 out of 5 results back but basically got one 90%, one 80, and two 70's. Solid. Although I probably could have taken all my courses at a higher level, and stuggled through but still passed. At least this way the marks on my degree look more impressive. But I am quite glad that my degree is over, the end of another chapter of my life.

It really makes me want to get on and do something with it. Unfortunately, due to a company that I was originally planning on interning with basically just changing their mind, I haven't been able to! I found this really interesting internship at a marketing/branding firm called HTHY, who work for companies like LiNing, Adidas and Nike. But they usually only provide short-term internships, but I met the manager and he offered me an an internship at the end of my first interview. But then after waiting for about 3 weeks, including some email contact, he finally said they couldn't offer me a visa, and even if I could they wouldn't be ready to take on an intern for another couple of months. This was news to me, I've even already turned down some other potential roles on the expectation that I would work there. I've already wasted a month sitting around and/or getting drunk, which is actually a lot more boring than it sounds. I really hope that I can use the next six months to get some real work experience, which is something that I am sorely lacking. I'm kicking myself that I didn't organise something for the summer, or even properly look into getting a visa independently. This is why it would just be simpler to study law, or medicine, say, and have a career set for you as soon as you walk out of uni with a degree. That is a perspective that my current degree has given me, and I guess I'm very glad for that, because I know that when I come across the right path, and things just unfold, I am going to absolutely love it and get right stuck into it.

I know I'm complaining a lot for a 21-year-old Australian living in Beijing, for example, yes that photo is of me on the Great Wall of China in front of the sunset with a glass of red wine in my hand. I have also met a whole lot of kick-ass people this semester, and I'm going to miss them. In fact, I already do, because a lot of people have already left for their home countries because they were only staying here for the first semester of this year. And even of those staying for two semesters, just about everyone has gone home for the summer or are travelling. So it's been a great time, but it's about time it came to an end, I'm even looking forward to coming home!

Almost there

I know I haven't updated my blog in quite some time, but I've decided that one photo per day was an overambitious goal, should have seen that one coming. Lately, I don't even have that much to talk about. When I first came here, I was so dedicated, but I'm finding that a combination of having a good time and not speaking Chinese outside of class makes it hard to get motivated. This is a bad thing with 5 exams this week, after which I graduate, Harry Crawford B.A.!

At the moment, I reckon that's all right, but my plan is to get away from all these foreigners (lovely as they are) in the second half of the year. Even though it's just about here already, I still haven't figured out what to do about that. But, I don't really care all that much. I am definitely going to study something postgrad next year, most likely in Adelaide. Because, you guessed it, an Arts degree isn't opening many doors. While I'm having a great time here, it's almost time in my life to get some direction. But not just yet. In the meantime, here's some videos I made, which I think capture two different sides of what it's like to be on exchange in Beijing. Enjoy! Apologies for low quality (both of video and performance, yes I screwed up a few lyrics but who cares)

Gotta love my parents, this stuff is all totally awesome. Highlight of this week: watching The Avengers in IMAX 3D whilst eating Twisties. I'm determined to make this stuff last, so actually I'm eating more at the canteens so I'm not hungry when I get back to my room, haha. I had a presentation early in the week that didn't go so well, and considering that preparing for it was one of the reasons that I came back from Chengdu, I was pretty bummed out. Also, I am getting serious about finding an internship now, I've got three interviews coming up next week. But it's been hard chasing those up too, partly because my Chinese isn't good enough to apply for positions in straight-up Chinese (which I'm worried will mean I won't get an internship where I'm in a Chinese-speaking environment), partly because I don't really have a career direction right now. The career direction will hopefully come next year in the form of a post-graduate degree, probably back at Adelaide Uni (I forget if I've mentioned that plan in this blog already). So this week has been pretty stressful. I wish I had longer here, it's only been three months and I'm already leaving so soon, but I feel like I should have accomplished more, joined more societies etc. But my Chinese wasn't good enough for that at the beginning, so I have to think I've done alright. Having a good time, even in English, can always make me feel better. To that end, I think I'll have some chocolate right now

Chengdu trip; glad I'm back in Beijing

This is going to be rather a long post, since it covers a week. So last the Sunday before last, I left for Chengdu, a city in the south west of China that's pretty much as big as Beijing. A friend of mine from Sweden, Erik, has some family there, and we originally had the idea to go there together. In the end, we had a group of 11 people (!!), mainly Japanese and Koreans, and even in a group of big foreigners like us, I was still the only white guy. Haha. So I still got people asking to take photos with me on this trip. In the end, I actually ended up coming back to Beijing earlier than everyone else.

On Sunday evening, we took a plane from Beijing, it's a 30 hour trip by train so at least one way pretty much had to be on a plane. Unfortunately I decided to stay up late the night before, so I was already tired, a bad idea going into a week of travel. We didn't get to bed until late, then the next day had a very early start to go see the Pandas. As I expected, they were cute, cuddly and lazy. I swear people could have thrown stuff at them and they wouldn't have minded and just kept eating. Of course, the girls thought they was awesome. For me, it was more of a case of being impressed by the fact that I still got to witness these near-extinct creatures. Then on our way back we visited some nice temples, but I realised that I've already seen the best temples of pretty much anywhere in China on my last trip, so perhaps they were less impressive to me than the others. This trip taught me that I think I've just about travelled enough in China for impressive sights, anything else I do will be for relaxation. The fact that I was hot and tired was not helping, unfortunately. Getting anywhere was a pain: one of the three taxis got lost and didn't get to the first temple until nearly half an hour later than everyone else. In the end, it was a decent day, and I managed to get to bed a bit earlier than than the others, but the next two days were very tiring: DaFo, and Emeishan, one of China's top 5 holiest mountains.

Next stop: DaFo (literally: Big Buddha), and that he is: big. 70 metres tall, his toe is nearly taller than me. My big plan was to see the big guy in the morning and head to Emeishan in the afternoon, in time to stay in a monestary, then to climb up very early in the morning to see the sunrise from the peak. There were a couple of problems with this plan that stopped it from working: having a big group, having a big group mostly comprised of girls, and the huge, huge, huge crowds. I clearly underestimated this aspect, which I really should have seen coming, this was during one of China's largest national holidays. Photo ops were still great, if you look closely you can see people (smudges of colour) by DaFo's head on the top left, that might give you some perspective. Finally, we managed to leave, but by the time we got to Emeishan it was pretty much dark, and since the girls had decided to follow us rather than going back to Chengdu like they originally planned, we decided to stay at the foot of the mountain, and get a bus up the next day.

Big mistake: other people had the same idea. There were literally thousands of people trying to get up. First, we had to catch a bus from the hotel to get to the mountain's bus station, that was the biggest crowd crush of my life, including moshing. Then we couldn't get the student price tickets for some stupid reason, then when we got as close to the top as the bus could take us we were running late, so we decided to take a cable car to get to the peak, but everything had taken so long that we missed sunrise! This was after getting up at 3.30am. Not that it mattered, it was too foggy on the peak to see sunrise anyway. But still, I didn't get to see sunrise, actually hike the mountain, and had spent a lot of money for the pleasure, so unfortunately Emeishan didn't live up to my expectations. We went back down and saw some great scenery near the foot of the mountain though, including what the mountain is partly famous for: monkeys! There were some near the top too, but there were lots down the bottom, even though we were still running late so only got to see them for 20 minutes or so. But they would steal people's stuff literally from their pockets; I saw a monkey reach into a man's coat pocket and take a packet of biscuits, and I could have sworn he smiled. We didn't even leave until nearly dark. During the day, I'd gotten the idea that I might go back to Beijing early, that night in fact (Wednesday). The others were going to go to JiuZhaiGou, a national park a 10 hour bus ride from Chengdu, but I decided I'd had enough stress. So when we got back, I had dinner with the others, then went straight to the train station to change my ticket for that night's train. In the end, it was a good call, even though departure was delayed for about an hour in an extremely loud and hot departure hall. I met some nice students on the train, then slept for most of the 30 hour journey.

Finally got back to Beijing, and spent Friday organising some stuff in the morning, and studying in the afternoon. That was part of the reason I came back, originally I'd planned to tell my teachers "I'm sick, can I have until next week?" But that would have been pretty week. Only caught up with one friend on that weekend, but knocked off most of my study, which was great. On the whole, I probably should have stayed in Beijing, but there really isn't long now until semester finishes, so at least now I have even more drive to make the most of it!

In preparation for going to Chengdu, I went to my English teaching company's office so I could get paid, up until this point I'd just gotten a small amount in cash. Their office is on the 28th floor, so they must get a fair chunk of my pay. But still, I collected just over 3000 kuai, or about $500 AUD. I'm sure that won't last as long as I'd like it to, but it beats having to borrow more money off my family. Most of it will probably go towards my next travel destination: Chengdu, home of the Giant Pandas, will be plenty to update on when I get back from there

ANZAC Day dawn service

As part of getting serious about internships, I thought it was about time I got to meet some people in Beijing who might be able to help me out, what's the point of being here if I don't network. With that in mind, I decided to attend the dawn service at the Australian Embassy. Woke up at 3.30am, got home at 8, slept through my morning class, got woken up by Erik reminding me that we said we were meant to be having lunch together, went there then came back to my classroom and slept through my afternoon class. Just to wipe out the entire day, after I got back from teaching in the evening I went out to an open bar night. So while my studies are suffering, I can still tell myself I'm doing something useful; I did meet some interesting people here. The service itself was pretty haunting, and then they had egg and bacon rolls for breakfast for free! That's Australian hospitality. I even met another Australian studying at Tsinghua who lives in the building right next to mine, and we shared a cab back.

Another event I went to for networking, was last Friday evening, two days before I left for Chengdu, another ANZAC Day event, this time for AustCham (the Australia-China Chamber of Commerce). When I was there, I got talking to this guy called Matt, and said I was looking for an internship, and gave him my card. He said, "that name looks familiar... have you applied to IES Global?" I'd actually sent him an email on Sunday, and here he was! Sometimes even Beijing can be a small place. So I've got a few areas of interest open, so we'll see where they go. You never know, can't wait till I get something sorted and eliminate that source of stress

Open mic night @ Lush

What's the point in buying a guitar here if I don't play in public? For that reason, and after applying for internships all day and most definitely not practising guitar, I went to a local bar's open mic night on Sunday and played a couple of songs. Everyone else there was by far better than me, and I played some pretty sleepy songs (Collide by Howie Day, and Boston by Augustana) so I know it wasn't fantastic or even good, but quite a lot of my friends came along and insisted I did well so that's pretty cool. I'll keep practising up and make sure I can play something a bit more interesting/exciting next time I go. Still was good fun. And finally getting onto applying for internships, hopefully hear about that soon and find out exactly when I'll be home!

Another quality night at KTV, that was two weeks ago today (Friday). Don't worry, it wasn't as messy as it looked. Pretty decent song selection here though, one of my favourites is "My Angel is a Centerfold", it's the na-na-na bit that does it, I'd rather go to KTV than to a bar any night :) Plus it means I'm less likely to be hungover in the morning, but did manage to sneak two cans of beer in from a 7/11 with Kevin. Still can't sing any Chinese songs properly. There's time to change that!

Kept my head down after Friday nights' antics, managed to get a new phone cheaply off a friend and even got my old number back. Continuing tutoring this 15 year old student, Ansen, looking forward to being paid for that. I'm actually getting paid something like $40 an hour, which is ridiculously good, even better considering how much further that amount of money goes here. This just stuck me as a nice photo coming back from Thursday night's lesson, this is the foreign student apartments where I live

考试及格了！(Passed my exams!)

Class photo after successfully completing the morning's exam, which was just a play that we made up about a group date. We even got Adam to hit on the teacher, which was pretty funny. I managed to get some study done the day before, still didn't have a replacement phone though. The afternoon's exam was fine too, in the end I passed all my exams, even got decent marks for a couple, which was a pleasant surprise. I've heard that they basically don't fail exchange students here though, which is a relief. Still, working hard and getting results is always a good feeling

Quite possibly the most drunk I've ever been

This is a Saturday night birthday dinner after a very interesting 24 hours. The food here was very nice though, so that did make me feel better. I don't have any photos of that period, but at least I didn't lose my camera, losing my phone was bad enough. So, you remember that photo looking out of my window, there's a tube connecting my building to the next one? Someone decided that it would be a good idea to have a party in there. I'd already completed 3 exams by this stage, and had two more on Monday which I had mostly prepared for, so I figured I could afford a night out. It was great actually, we were expecting to get kicked out but we all brought beer, wine and champagne and got quite drunk before heading out to Wudaokou. I even brought my guitar, and got everyone singing along to 'Wonderwall' and 'I'm Yours'.

Then we went to a bar, had another drink or two, then went to a Korean club called Global, I doubt I will go back there just out of embarrassment. Someone knew this American guy who could get us in for free because he knew the owners or something, then for some reason he decided to get behind the bar and pour out two enormous mojitos, they would have had to be at least a litre each, and get two teams of three to drink them through straws in a boat race. Sirui took a few sips, then backed away, and my brain said "free alcohol? Don't mind if I do." So I stepped up to take his place, and proceeded to finish the whole thing practically by myself. The girl next to me, Lucy, was actually just pretending to drink. I remember turning to Sirui and saying "decent effort by me, huh?" Then apparently I went to the bathroom, threw up, then passed out on a couch for nearly 3 hours. Erik and Luigi, two other friends, had to literally carry me home. I have no idea what happened to my phone. The next day, I woke up at 2pm, and was still drunk. And not just a little; I was still properly drunk, and didn't sober up until 5 or 6. Went to this Japanese girl from my class's birthday dinner, and didn't stay out late. I'm still proud of that effort to drink that much, wouldn't like to do it again though.

Australian (not Canadian) Embassy visit

I've been meaning to visit the Australian Embassy for ages, before I left I had an idea of working there in the second half of the year as an intern. Yes, I know this is a photo of the Canadian Embassy, but the guards at the front of the Australian Embassy wouldn't let me take a photo. I should have just taken one without asking, but I wouldn't put it past Chinese guards to confiscate my camera or something. But anyway, I actually got to meet someone in the Australian Embassy, Clayton, and he showed me around and told me about what it takes to be a diplomat.

Which is quite a lot, as it turns out. The average age of entry into DFAT is 26 or 27, and the people who get accepted have an impressive amount of experience, so that gave me some good perspective for the future. I am definitely going to need to go back to Uni and study a further degree, a Bachelor of Arts really isn't enough. I thought that's what I would do anyway, but I still don't know what that next degree would be. But back to the visit, I got in touch with Clayton through one of Dad's patients, David, who used to be head of recruitment for DFAT and was High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and a bunch of other cool things. So Clayton showed me around the Embassy, then we went for a coffee afterwards. He told me that there aren't currently any interns at the embassy, and he doesn't know if they'll have one in the future. So that kind of killed that idea, which is really the only idea I had before I left for China to fill the second half of this year. But strangely enough, I didn't mind too much. Whatever happens next, it'll just be a chance to gain some experience and hopefully keep improving my Chinese, so I just need to find a different way to do that. Actually finding something is kind of daunting, which is the next big thing that I need to worry about. I'm leaving it pretty late to start looking for positions, but what with study and everything, finding time is pretty hard. Anyway, here's hoping!

So the B-grade didn't end up finding a better opener after all! Very happy to have gotten this news, I love being part of the Uraidla community, and since I'm pretty rubbish at footy, cricket is something I can actually get involved in, so to get a trophy for that is even better.

Study break



Got back from Qingdao, and depressingly realised that I needed to do lots of study. I wasn't very confident for my exams at all. You will notice that I am writing this in the past tense, I keep neglecting to update this blog, but given my time constraints I think I'm doing pretty well. Anyway, I realised that I'd been doing a whole lot of fairly unproductive socialising up to this point, so I decided to pull my head in after getting back and get some stuff done. So there aren't many photos of the week leading up to midterms, seeing as most of that time was spent in my room. The weather, however, was gorgeous, so on occasion I did take the time to chill out, there's always time for that, and what better way to do that than to play guitar in the sun. I should do that much more often, I miss Australia's sun and weather. But spring really has taken off here, which does make me feel better, the weather has a surprisingly large influence on my mood

Weekend in Qingdao

Going back to Qingdao was, on the whole, a far different experience than I had expected. After having lived there for 5 months, experienced my first independence and something approaching adult life, I was very much looking forward to going back to the place that has arguably most shaped me as a person, outside Adelaide. This time around was very different though. I had a strong feeling of "been here, done this." Which is probably a good thing, but it made me a little sad that Qingdao will never be the same for me. The first time round I was there with very close friends, this time I was with different groups of people with different priorities and some people I'd only known for two days, which wasn't bad, I think it just made me feel like a stranger in my own city. The local was being renovated, so we couldn't drink there! I was so disappointed. Le Bang had closed, there was no longer a buffet lunch on the TV tower, for some reason fresh beer was hard to find on beer street and places kept trying to charge us Y40 for one jug. There's a subway now under construction in Qingdao, which was being talked about when I was there. All that said, Qingdao remains a beautiful city, a great place, but now I feel very ready to grab Beijing by the horns.

I did have a great time when it came to sitting down and drinking fresh beer (even relived the thrill of Baijiu, why I thought that was a good idea I don't know), went back to Feeling with the bouncing dance floor, everyone enjoyed that. I definitely wish I went back and visited my old school. Unfortunately I have mid-term exams next week, and yet am still procrastinating by updating this blog. I don't know when I'll go back again, but I will, hopefully they'll speak to me in Chinese not English this time and help me practice

Happy birthday Alain + Qingdao here I come again!

Again, missed out the week days, it's hard to remember to carry my camera everywhere. But I still manage to get away whenever I like really, I'm determined to enjoy my time here and not get dragged down. So in that spirit, went out to Alain's birthday on Wednesday night after teaching, met him and the crew at KTV, I really forget how much I love KTV after I haven't been for a while. Gotta learn some Chinese songs though. Ended up getting home at 2, rode my bike there sober but tired, had a great night, so nice to be able to have the independence to do that whenever I feel like. Birthdays are pretty common here as you might expect, and where there's birthdays, there's cake! Tiramisu this time, went down a treat.

Coming soon: my trip to Qingdao! Going there this Saturday, it'll be the first time I've visited since living there for 5 months in 2009, it'll be a very special trip for me. I won't have time to visit my old school, I'll do that on a different trip soon just on my own, but going there with a bunch of friends on Saturday, going to explore a few old haunts. I'm totally pumped! :)

The next day, Sunday. Went to IKEA with a friend, which was absolutely huge, dwarved the Adelaide store, 3 floors. Still enjoyed the cheap hot dogs. But it was the first time I'd been to an IKEA outside of the Adelaide one, and it got me thinking, so for the rest of the day I felt really down. I'm feeling like there are lots of highs and lows in my life, it's easy to get up, but also really easy to get down. Despite having lots of friends, I have only known them for a short while, and we'll probably all go our seperate ways at the end of this semester, at least for a while, so it's actually surprisingly easy to feel alone. But I guess that comes with the territory. Being that I don't have very much direction at all at the moment, it's very easy to worry about that direction, so I need to keep convincing myself it's the right one. But before I start sounding too emo, I've been feeling a lot better lately.

My Excellent Saturday - part 2



Last Saturday was so good it deserves two photos. Even though I was really tired, I had no choice but to go out for Hannah's birthday. Good thing it was totally worth it, we had pizza, cake, beer shots, and this place had great music, was so keen for KTV after this. Found my second wind, and kept insisting to everyone, "this is just fantastic. Seriously!" "Yeah... I know, I'm here too, haha." Amazing how I can seem like good friends with so many people after having been in Beijing for a matter of mere weeks, but it's something that I'm really treasuring. Highlight of my night: cheese! You have no idea how much I miss that stuff.

My Excellent Saturday - part 1

So, stayed out until nearly 5 at pub golf, then woke up at 8:30am to go on a trip to the Summer Palace organised by the Buddy Program of Tsinghua. Surprisingly enough I wasn't hungover at all and barely tired, in fact I had an iced coffee and was buzzing all morning telling people "the weather is so nice today!" I even took my jacket off and sat in the sun for a while, ate a sandwich and looked out over the lake. So nice. Then of course I started crashing, was pretty tired but still absolutely loving life, was just lucky enough to have one of those days where you feel really good, that might have helped cancel out the lack of sleep

The Lost Week + Pub Golf

It's already been two weeks since I updated this? My sense of time is getting warped, what with never-ending things that need to be done. Things that won't be covered in the next few posts in detail but are still very interesting:

1) It's been 20 degrees here most days this week, I've even worn just a t-shirt sometimes. Remember, it snowed last week. They say that Beijing doesn't have Spring and Autumn, there's just Winter and Summer, and it certainly seems that way to me. Loving it, though.

2) I got a job teaching English, 3 evenings a week, which has left me with even less time, but on the other hand I am earning some decent money

So that, plus study, basically occupied last week. So naturally, I was fairly keen for the weekend, and what better way to celebrate than a round of pub golf, organised by one of the language students here. Each pub is a hole, and to get par you drink what the scorecard tells you to. I got considerably below par. Above is our group photo, in front of Helen's (fast becoming the new local). Was great timing to be doing this on the same night as the Engi Pub Crawl, it let me feel a little bit of a connection to home strangely enough

Snow in Spring

Woke up this morning, went on facebook, someone posted that it snowed last night. "Pfft, no way, it's not that cold." Looks out window: WHAT. Frolicking time. Bikes and trees outside the apartment neatly laced in snow, apparently there was more but I woke up late at 10:30 so a lot of it had melted. Even worse, it was snowing heavily at midnight last night and I chose to stay in and study for the first Saturday in like forever so I missed it! I've never seen snow actually falling before. But on the bright side, I am finally not sick, and stand a chance of catching up to my study requirements (yay!). Waking up with snow outside, and being warm and comfortable inside, is a very nice feeling

Guitar!

Bought a guitar today! 450 kuai, about $80, for a new guitar, pretty decent quality too. I signed up to the guitar club with my buddy James, we're going to go to lessons on Saturday together, then practice Chinese afterwards. 'Buddy' means he got assigned to me by the buddy program of Tsinghua, he's helped me sort a few things out so far, and he's really keen on helping me learn Chinese, which is great, I always want to practice with more native speakers. Also super keen ot learn some songs in Chinese, and having something to do in my room other than study and bu around on the net. Maybe I'll upload a video of my singing one eventually :)

Man I'm tired right now. Just to illustrate that, I went out last night to a pub quiz at a bar called Lush, and after it finished at 10 I actually went home and slept. That was on one of the corners of this intersection, the main one in Wudaokou, the local drag of bars and shops. Just behind me is the subway station. At least I'm not hungover today, but I've been sick for ages, now I'm in that stage of getting better where you're not actively sick anymore, you just feel drained. My body is probably trying to tell me something. Still very much overawed about how much work I'm going to need to do to catch up to my classmates/improve my Chinese to where it needs to be. Sigh. In the meantime, I'm trying to enjoy the little things like pretty cityscapes

A taste of Beijing nightlife

Just to give you an idea of how awesome clubs in Beijing can be, and what I've been doing most weekends, this is Mix of the famous duo Vics and Mix, just across the road from the Teppanyaki restaurant. It has three dancefloors, this was the main one I think, so confusing to find your way from one to the other though. We managed to bargain to get entry for our whole group for $6 each, but inside a bottle of water cost $5, which one of my friends actually bought, I made the perilous journey outside to get one for 50c. Needless to say, I didn't buy any actual drinks, but I didn't feel like it at the meal. Going out in Wudaokou has made me get used to extremely cheap/free drinks anyway. The nightlife there, near Tsinghua, is pretty good too. I've been taking full advantage so far :P

PS. I'm not the biggest fan of this song, but the drop is amazing.



'Teppanyaki' is Japanese for 'kick ass'



I really wasn't focusing on making the best use of my camera this night, because I was busy eating as much as physically possible. I actually felt quite ill the next day as a result, but I'd still say it was worth it. They cook the food right in front of you on that stove, using spatulas like wands, it's pretty impressive. All you can eat, anything you want on the menu, and all you can drink sake, beer, wine etc. My highlight would be scallops, fried in the shell with a garlic and butter sauce. Pretty expensive (at about $30) but I've been looking forward to this for 3 years since I was here last, and even though I didn't know it, I booked the exact same restaurant!

Silk Market

Ok, so now I think things are back in order. Hard to put time aside to update this blog, so I'm kind of doing it in large chunks, but it's still getting done. I don't have any classes on Thursday, and for some reason I decided to go out on Wednesday night, so although I was planning to study that wasn't happening while I was hungover and sick (this is what I mean by 'still adjusting to study requirements'). So instead I went shopping in the Silk Market with some friends to do something "productive". 5 floors of mainly clothes, shoes and pearls. A few of my friends got tailor-made suits for around $100, I might give that a go if and when I need a suit. I got a pair of shoes, a jade necklace, some pearl necklaces, a wristband and a t-shirt for about $90, so I was pretty happy.

798 Art District

One of many street sculptures in the 798 Art District, these were actually the highlight of the whole area. It's an ex-industrial area that now has a bunch of galleries instead. It actually feels like a lot of other things in China: they needed a world-class art district, so they've kind of just shoved a whole lot of art into one place and hoped that it works, which it doesn't really, when combined with the fact that so many places here are still being built, and are just not presentable in a world-class way. But I think even that says something about China, they want to develop in every way possible but are still clearly finding their feet. That said, there was some great stuff here. I actually went here the day after KTV (but felt fine!)

My room!

It's about time I let you all see where I'm actually living, I actually need to spend more time here studying and sleeping, even after 3 weeks of classes I'm still adjusting to how to divide my time most effectively/smartly. You may be able to see above that I've put post-it notes up around my room to try and encourage me to learn new vocab, makes me seem like an excellent student I know but not there yet. I'm on the third floor, with not too bad a view, I mostly just see the other apartment block across from mine, they're 11 stories tall, and for the foreign students there are 6 buildings, we have seperate accomodation to local students, which is actually kind of annoying, I'd love to have a Chinese roommate. But I'm enjoying the privacy of my own room and my independence. I've made it pretty homey, feels like a good sanctuary.

Taoliyuan canteen, the second-largest canteen on campus, of which there are about 14 I think. Your standard meal here will cost about $1, and are surprisingly not terrible. I eat most of my meals with other people, there's always someone to catch up with or classmates to go with, since we're all going to be eating at the same places anyway

KTV



First KTV session, surely many more to come. As seems to be happening these days, someone said "apparently there's some people going to KTV tonight, let's go too" and in that way, about 60 people came to this massive room, so there weren't many drinks to go round but I was too busy singing myself, although I did go out afterwards and got 5 free drinks cards from Wu club, they play great music there too actually. Highlight of the night: singing "Already Gone" Kelly Clarkson

Remember how I met Gerard, the Sino-European investor who's father was a Kuomintang ambassador? He invited me and Hannah out to dinner at his socialite friend's house, Elisabeth Doudinot de la Bossiere, a French lady who has lived in Beijing for 20 years and still doesn't speak any Chinese. There were about 8 of us and Hannah and I were the only non-French speakers, which was a little awkward. But we did get to spend the evening with the above gorgeous French girls (ignoring the strange expression on Stephanie's face), and got to drink Spanish wine, I never thought I'd have so many chances to drink red wine in China

Just because surprising Manwei at midnight wasn't enough, and because everyone loves a good banquet, we went upstairs at one of the canteens that actually has nice food that you pay more than $1.50 for. Meals like this where you share the various dishes are the best, so social and lively, and others invariably get full before I do, I ate far more than was natural this night. I didn't drink much though, so far I've almost exclusively been able to drink free alcohol, thanks to the deals at bars around here and being bought drinks, but that's a double edged sword. I'm actually sick right now so I need to rest up, easier said than done though :P 

Surprise!

Last night, at midnight, we surprised Manwei for his 19th birthday, which is today, was awesome. We might have woken him up, and I had to get up early today so my god am I tired (and I was already sick)but the delicious cake was worth it, my stomach always leads my decision making somehow. Ugh I hope I get better though, getting serious about my study now, finally. Anyway, Happy Birthday Manwei!

:)

Spent most of today studying in my room, so here's my favourite painting from the exhibition yesterday. Upstairs was the main attraction, the exhibition from Francesca Mitterand (as if that will mean anything to anyone) but downstairs there was a whole collection of children's paintings. Some gems :)

The high life

A friend got a text message from a lady she met in a bar months ago, inviting her to an open art exhibition yesterday afternoon. It was free, but totally fancy, free drinks and wine (we arrived too late for the food). Fantastic opportunity for networking, where I met the son of one of the Kuomintang's ambassadors and current Sino-European investment guru, who said he'd keep us in touch for future events. Like I said, China makes you feel lucky



Welcome hall of the main building of Tsinghua, on our way to the welcome meeting for all the foreign students, of which there are over 2,000 here at any one time. Not much of a story to tell, but a nice picture :)

Beijing Nights #1

First night out in Beijing! First day I arrived, met some people who said come out, and I did, and didn't get home until 3am I think. Much randomness yet to come I hope, but still determined to study hard dammit!

Typical campus scene, this is outside the main campus supermarket in the shopping district. There are in total about 100,000 people who live within the bounds of Tsinghua University



The first week I was here, I basically spent sorting stuff out, such a hassle. Had to find a phone, buy a bike, get my accomodation sorted, unpack... seemingly endless tasks, which I'm still finishing nearly two weeks later. The campus is huge! Don't know what I would do without a bike. This is the front gate of the school, which has expanded way beyond this point but still very cool. One of the best things about arriving here is everyone is new, so everyone wants to meet everyone else. The two guys here are Kyun (from Korea) and Kevin (from France) and I'd say that we're already great friends, there isn't much I wouldn't tell these guys, we hang out a fair bit. I rarely eat a meal alone because someone always wants to catch up and since we all go to the same dining halls, we may as well

It was *this* cold

The next day, I  left at 7am from the town near Changbaishan, spent 4 hours on a bus followed by 23 hours on a train to get back to Beijing at 11.30am on Tuesday the 14th. I was slightly hungover actually, because I got taken out for dinner by my two friends, one of whom knew a girl who he went to school with in this town, and his Dad took all of us out and bought us all baijiu and beer (again, lucky!) The trip was fairly boring, so here's a cool photo: after climbing the mountain, ChenZhen and I decided to swim in a bathhouse, which uses water heated entirely by natural springs on the mountain. There was one outside pool, and after spending 5 minutes out of it, my hair froze!

There And Back Again, A Hobbit's Tale

I'd decided that after getting back from skiing, I'd go on a trip to Changbaishan, a mountain that an Iranian recommended to me, but I had very little idea of how to get there and back. Amazingly, as I walked back into the hostel to get my bags to go, two Chinese guys said they were going there too, and basically became my tour guides for the next couple of days. I'm finding that China has a way of making you feel really lucky, seems like this kind of thing happens all the time. As you can see, Changbaishan was worth visiting. The photo seems like a postcard I guess, but it's hard to make a frozen lake filling an extinct crater at 2700m of altitude not look cliched. Those mountains in the distance: North Korea. I forgot to bring a gold ring and hurl it into the lake. The rest of the mountain was brilliant, with typical snow-covered scenery everywhere. I'll probably upload some of those on boring days here in Beijing. Feeling pretty good at this stage, not necessarily about my Chinese but enjoying myself anyways.

First time skiing: lots of firsts

I've already been in Beijing for a week, but I'm determined to keep this blog relatively up-to-date. I just had my first lessons today, and they were really, really hard, so it's nice to reflect on the simpler times. Snow! And skiing for the first time in my life, lots of firsts on this trip. My instructor only spoke Chinese obviously, but we still managed to make progress, and by the end I was pretty comfortably making my way down the slope without hitting anyone, it was pretty crowded. I think I actually most enjoyed taking a break and going for a walk in the woods

Water, water everywhere...



Got to the Harbin Snow and Ice Festival at like 3pm, and heard it was better at night, so had to hang around for two and a half hours in the freezing cold for it to get dark. Luckily, a nice lady running a Korean place in the food court gave me free hot water to sit over. Waiting was worth it, there were huge buildings sculpted entirely of ice several stories tall, which someone told me before and I actually thought they were exaggerating. Above is a scene from Romeo and Juliet.

I spent a couple of days in Beijing, mostly sleeping and booking tickets, so I'll just skip to the interesting stuff. Two days after arriving, I left for Harbin, a town in Northern China near the Russian border, nto far from Vladivostok (sp?); maximum of -10 during the day. It's famous for street ice scupltures, as you can see ^^ I was doubting whether it would be worth leaving early to fit this trip north in, doubting a lot really, but I was pretty excited by this stage :)