My first night in Beijing

My first day here was crazy. I hadn´t slept in several hours but anyway I was very awake. I took a taxi and when I arrived to my dormitory I asked for the key of the room I had reserved before. In this moment I started to understand the behaviour of Chinese people. They are quite people, they don´t hurry when talking but they do when they need to go somewhere. Sometimes it is even tired to discuss with them, they pretend that they don´t understand, but you should keep on trying, never give up. Well, after 30 minutes trying to explain them who we were and what we wanted (thanks to my Spanish-Chinese guide) finally we got the key of the room. Rooms are new, so new that the light, electricity, internet was not working.
It took a while to understand how everything works, and one week later we still don´t have a fridge. It is amazing that in the kitchen you have to insert the card of the room in a place to use the water in the sink and the pots and pans to cook must be induction system. After leaving our stuff in the room, we decided to walk around in our area and the uni campus. First thing I noticed was the contamination clouds in the city: it doesn´t smell but it is visible. After that, I had to be really careful to cross the road because here there are no rules: people and cars don´t follow the traffic lights instructions. In my walk around I discovered a Carrefour store, but even if it is very big, it is crazy to discover that everything is Chinese food. It is kind of funny to buy stuff when you have no idea of Chinese. Fortunately there is an international corner where you can find some things that are not available in china, for example chocolate bars, cheese, olive oil, tomato sauce, olives…
The first night I met some international students and we went to have dinner to a Chinese restaurant. It took about 20 minutes to tell the waiter what we wanted (always using the Chinese dictionary) but finally we did it. In a few minutes (the restaurants serve you surprisingly fast) we had a big pan in the middle filled of a kind of soup with vegetables and lots of meat slices to dip inside. There are no knifes or forks in the Chinese restaurants so we tried to eat with the wood sticks. All the people in the restaurant were looking at us and the waiters were bringing us more and more food every time. We really had a nice time and the best was the price: around 2.5 euros per person.

Por fin en Beijing

Por fin aquí estoy otra vez. Después de unos cuantos días haciendo papeleos sin parar por fin me he podido conectar. No ha sido fácil, la verdad, pero así me lo esperaba. El viaje de avión ha estado muy bien, no ha sido cansado y la experiencia de ver los paisajes de Mongolia y China desde el aire merece la pena. En ocho horas llegamos de Amsterdam a Pekin. La vista desde el avión de Pekín es increíble, la inmensidad de la ciudad no se puede explicar. Una vez tomamos tierra tuvimos que pasar por controles de rayos infrarrojos que medían nuestra temperatura por si teníamos fiebre, pero nada más. Pronto recogimos nuestras maletas y en cuarenta minutos de taxi estábamos en nuestra nueva casa durante los próximos meses.
Ya estoy instalada en la residencia universitaria de la universidad. Está genial, sobre todo comparado con lo que hay por aquí. Tengo una habitación bastante grande y un baño compartido (occidental, afortunadamente) en un edificio lleno de estudiantes. Tenemos una especie de salita a la entrada de la habitación donde tenemos una mesa con unas sillas y fuera de la habitación hay una cocina compartida y unas lavadoras. Ya hemos conocido a mucha gente y, aunque hay muy pocos europeos, hay algún norteamericano o canadiense con el que comunicarse.
Un capítulo aparte es el tema de la comida. De momento hemos probado algún que otro sitio chino y algún sitio occidental. Los precios son muy buenos entonces te puedes permitir el lujo de probar la gastronomía local, aunque de momento tampoco me he acostumbrado a los colores y sabores que encuentras por aquí.
El tema del papeleo ya está más o menos solucionado aunque todavía faltan unos días hasta que podamos tener carnet de la universidad y disfrutar de sus ventajas.
Pekín impresiona. Cada minuto que pasa descubres algo que te sorprende, es impresionante. Todavía no nos hemos movido mucho pero es increíble. Espero poder ir poniendo entradas sobre las cosas que hemos visto y fotos, aunque habrá que esperar hasta que esto se normalice. Aún no estamos totalmente ubicados y hay alguna gente que ha estado 5 días con jetlag. Yo me he adaptado en dos días a los horarios, pero entiendo que haya gente que le haya costado más. Hasta entonces saludos desde Pekín.

Por cierto, la respuesta a la encuesta de estos días era bailar. Enhorabuena, ha sido la respuesta más votada: os veo con buena intuición para el chino.

Finally here I am. The last days I have been very busy and t has been crazy to arrange everything at the University. The trip to get to Beijing was long but quite interesting because of the landscapes one can see from the plane: Gobi Desert, Mongolia, Great Wall, etc. As soon as I arrived in Beijing I took a taxi and got to my current address. My dormitory is quite nice, I am happy but I still don´t know all the people living here. In addition, most of them are coming from other Asia countries; there are only a few European or North America students.
Beijing is amazing, even if I haven´t visited a lot of places yet, there is always details that surprise you every time. I never thought this was going to be so different to Europe. I think this is going to be a very nice experience. I must say that we are living still a western life because of the places where we eat and where we go, but step by step we are getting involve in Chinese culture.
It is taking us a long time to get all the things in the university ready, that´s why I still can not connect to internet at home but in the next days, hopefully, I will. Greetings from Beijing.

Note: The answer to the question about the meaning of the word I used for the blog was dance. Congratulations, you guessed it!! You guys are good in Chinese language!!

Five months, three seasons, in 20 kilos.

A few hours are left for the journey to start and I am getting my luggage ready. After almost 2 hours thinking what are the most important things to take with, I think I am finished. I can only carry 20 kilos, but I have included some strange things, for example a bellydance costume, a small calculator (to get the best price in the markets) or a keyring with a watch. What is your favorite item of everything, maybe the fork?

Estoy empezando a hacer la maleta y esto es una locura. Lo peor es que tengo que llevar cosas para tres estaciones diferentes en 20 kilos. Creo que no me olvido nada importante, ya he preparado algunas cosas que no parecen necesarias pero que con la experiencia te das cuenta de que son muy útiles. Ejemplo de ello son la calculadora para regatear, el llavero con reloj incluido, el celo, el carrete de hilo con aguja, las fotos de carnet y una variedad para China: un tenedor. No me voy muy hábil en el manejo de los palillos, así que por si acaso...sin comer yo no me quedo.

Countdown to Peking

It is been a while since I did not write anything in my new blog but the last days have been crazy. I am writing a report about the research I made in Austria while I am preparing everything for China. I must admit that in the last two days I am becoming a bit nervous about the trip, so I decided to share my fears with you. I need some support!!

In four days I will be sitting inside a plane for nine hours and I will arrive to Peking at 7 in the morning (local time). I have been thinking about how to get to my dormitory. As far as I know taxis are legal and cheap in Peking, so I think I will take this option because I can not imagine myself with the luggage being pushed inside a metro. Next step is finding someone in my dormitory to talk in English to ask for the keys of my room. Thanks to some of you I have some contacts in Peking to call in case of emergency. I hope that the room I will be given is the one that I applied for. I won´t be satisfied till the moment I see that my key opens the door of a single room as I asked for. After this, I will check the bathroom and I would be happy to find a western type of bathroom. Once all of this has happened, I will try to find the nearest supermarket, and if I find milk then I would be totally satisfied. And here comes my worst fear; would I be able to distinguish people, or a 20 year old corean student will look the same as a 40 years old teacher?

There are no more fears at the moment. The rest of necessary things to have the best experience ever are all my responsibility. By the way, I shouldn´t forget to bring a fork with.

Bienvenidos/Welcome

Welcome everyone to my new blog about my trip to China. I am leaving in 2 weeks to study Chinese in Peking during four months. It sounds crazy, and it is, but I think is one of those opportunities than you can not let go. I will live between the 4th and 5th ring in Peking city in an international students dormitory and hopefully I will learn enough Chinese to be able to survive there.

I just arrived last night from my internship in Vienna and I have two weeks to get ready everything, to learn a few words in Chinese, and to get my mind ready to remember every single detail of this great experience. I want to invite all of you to follow my life in China during these months through this blog. It will be a good support to have comments from you. Hope you like it and maybe this will make you feel like visiting me! Keep on checking my blog on the following days…