To Drink or Not to Drink..!

I shall be honest. I was slightly lazy to drop by to add an additional post in. And yes, I am aware it is only Day 2. But I figured I might as well since I still have the time. FYI, I chose the intensive course, which includes 6-hours of learning each day, after topping it off with supposed given homework and readings, I'm supposed to not have ANY time once classes start. Brilliant!

Day 2 was interesting too. Started the morning with a Placement Test at 8am. If you didn't know a word of Chinese, you'd be there for a total of 5-minutes. Fill in your name on the exam sheet and you're off (which also mean you'll definitely be put into Beginners). I spent about 30minutes on the paper given because of one particular section - a 100 word written passage. Mine was a mixture of Chinese characters, pin yin & English wordings, the teachers must be silently mocking.

Ji-Han (the neighbour) and I then met for lunch, and we decided to step foot off-campus for the first time. Feeling brave, we endured fast-paced bicycle riders, trying to cross a major road with no system (you can forget about jay-walking fines around here!) and figuring directions out. We visited U-Centre, the closest shopping mall to BLCU. I tried searching for a decent jacket, but the prices were slightly too high for my liking, ranging from 700yuan onwards, and it's not even a known brand.

At night, we ventured off-campus too, since I was sick of 'zhap fan' (already!) and met Richmond, my former high school senior, and his friends. We visited a Japanese restaurant, and it was amazing compared to rice and dishes again! They were from Tsinghua University, another option to consider for Mandarin Language learning :)

Today's been another truly exciting day! From spotting 136¥ Jose Cuervo Tequilas (OMG!) and trying to justify the it's-so-worth-it & figuring out if the alcohol is genuine (I should have taken a picture!), as well as purchasing a milk tea from reception. Looked like any other ordinary delicious milk tea bottle, except when I initially opted for a warm one, there was a layer of white sediments on top. The guy was really persistent in selling it to me, and as a silly newbie, I got scared, chose the cold bottle from the fridge as a more legit option and bought it. Eek!

It's been sitting on my table for the past hour. I don't know whether to drink it. Another reason? Bottle-cap date reads "2011/10/26". Is that the manufacturing or expiry date?! Gosh. Here are a few photos of Day 2! I combined them into one photo to make viewing easier, thank me please. HAHA.

Top Left : Pretty side of campus ; Top Right / Bottom Left : Off-Campus U-Center by D&N ;
Bottom Right : My Milk Tea, to drink or not to drink..

Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow! Love x

The Land Where Everything's Made!

0630hours, I pulled into Beijing, China. Surreal. Thankfully for wonderful amazing parents, business class got my luggage out efficiently, customs and immigration were a breeze and before long, I met a representative of China UniPath (highly highly recommended), Michael. We got into a taxi and he briefly outlined today's plan and explained a little about Beijing and what was to be expected. He even threw in numerous good tips about the Beijing party scene!

Since it was rush hour, it took us close to an hour to arrive at BLCU, where I'll be spending my time the next three months. The taxi ride was interesting, listening to two locals (driver + Michael) conversing with strong, accented Mandarin, obviously I was clueless as to the actual conversation topic. I was brought to my accommodation - the Conference Centre, first to drop my 30kg worth of luggage, don't judge! One thing though, I dread the fact that China is still a cash-based society because I had to pay 90days of rent upfront (imagine the responsibility of that cashload on a poor girl like me).

Michael showed me around the entire campus, assisted me to get a local number, set up a bank account, arranged my registration with the university - in short, I could not have done it without him, especially with the massive language barrier. After spending about 4 hours, he was off to work and I was left to explore!

I got very lucky because I managed to meet my neighbour directly opposite me, a guy from Malaysia too! I was so grateful to find someone straight away and thought to myself "I'm not alone anymore!". A really nice chap, we had lunch, got our internet set-up, stole wireless from Dorm 17, got additional essentials and explored even more. Huge campus, tired legs, it's only 6pm but I'm truly exhausted.

One thing that's for sure, it's polluted here. And the air is annoyingly dry. I refused to put on any sort of face mask, no one really does anyways... but you NEED moisturiser and lip-balm. My nose is already peeling, no joke (yuck, i know). Also, water is gross. Yes, even bottled water. Maybe I'm more sensitive than others, but there's a strange after-taste that lingers. So, say NO to tap water, NO just boiling water, buy them bottled water (or the 12L tanks) and boil it. It's a hefty process, but it's the only decent way.

So that's my first day, looking forward to a placement test tomorrow which will determine which level of Mandarin classes I am going to be in. Ending the post with a few photos :)

Amazing breakfast on the plane, for once.

Outdoor Sports at a distance

Gloomy campus; but beautiful

Tiny-ass room..!

Most common mode of transportation

see you tomorrow!
Love x