Blogs from Beijing, China, Asia - page 17

Hey everyone! So the news for the week is that on Saturday I moved into my homestay! While I've known that I would be moving into the homestay for the past two weeks or so, it wasn't until lunch on Thursday that we were given any information about our families. By the way, only four of us moved into homestays, as it is a part of the language intensive program to live in homestays for half of the semester (yes, that means our midterm tests are this Friday. So soon!). Anyways, when I say we were given information, it was very minimal, as in who has siblings, and whose family will have a car (critical information, as we were all wondering how we would get our stuff to the new houses). So on Friday, I packed ... read more

Well its been an experience getting here! Such a long flight leaving Melbourne at 11.30p.m. on the 12/10 and arriving in Guangzhou at 6.00a.m. on the 13/10, Gloria having no screen working, so no movies, news or docos....they couldn't give a rats a...... thats China Southern! Another 3 hours to Beijing and sat on the runway for 20 minutes before they could find our bay to go in....??? just in the middle of the airport...down the stairs....bus for a long, long way and then 45 minutes to get luggage... was told they operate on chaos time here....true that! By the way if anyone wants to contact us do it through John's email only: westburyjr@gmail.com as Facebook, Instragram and gmail banned!!! John has his gmail going through apple mail so OK but mine not working. Met our ... read more

Hey everyone! I guess I should start off with saying that the most interesting part of my week was getting a tattoo. Yep, a real tattoo. I've been planning on getting this tattoo for a little over a year now, so it wasn't a on-the-spot thing at all, but I had been originally planning to wait until after graduation to get any tattoos. Yeah, that didn't quite work out. It started when Ian mentioned that he wanted to get a tattoo (紋身 wénshēn) while in China. I thought about it, and figured China would be as good a place as any to get my tattoo, since the style I wanted is originally Chinese (see picture). So on Tuesday Ian and I went to a couple of nearby tattoo shops to inquire about prices/safety with one of ... read more

While I was in Beijing, at the end of the summer, the downtown was still very hot, heavily polluted and an escape, away from the chaotic city, was definitely needed. Around Peking there are so many interesting and lovely sites. I headed to the great Summer Palace, that is easily reached by tube from the city center. I left from "Xidan" underground station to "Beigongmen" station and in about one hour I was already to my destination. As I expected, I was welcome by numerous street vendors selling any kind of thing your heart may desire. The Haidian District is about 15km from downtown Beijing, but it was enough to regenerate myself by the stifling hot and tough contaminated air I inhaled. It was very pristine, the lash vegetation and flowers, surrounding the place and the ... read more

Hey everybody! So I have successfully finished my first week of classes... And I have concluded that I have chosen probably the most difficult study abroad program that I possibly could have. It seems like for most of my friends/most of the stories you hear about being abroad, being abroad tends to be easier than school in the US, as school is supposed to be easier in order to give you more time to explore the area you are in and whatnot. Not so much. I average about 5 hours of class per day, with between 5-7 hours of homework per night. It seems like that would leave plenty of time to relax and sleep, but between mealtimes, travel time, procrastination (because it's impossible not to), and time for socializing (which is not usually a relaxing ... read more