26 November 2010

Qingdao! 青岛!

Last weekend was a fun weekend. Sofia, Anna and I spend the weekend together, accompanied by Robin, Max and Mike from my school. We went to Qingdao, a coast city in between Shanghai and Beijing, and it was amazing to be by the sea. I really miss nature a lot, I realized that last weekend when I breathed the fresh sea air and saw something as exotic as trees, something I haven't experienced in a long time.

Qingdao was an interesting city, it has been a German colony and had therefore lots of European architecture, at the same time as the atmosphere and life felt very genuinely Chinese. We stayed at a very pleasant hostel that Max recommended, and it was very worthy its price since we only paid 25 yuan/person a night. We visited all of Qingdao's famous sights, such as the TV tower, the Zhan Qiao pier and the Tsingtao beer museum and brewery.

I'm very satisfied with the weekend, we had a lot of fun together as a group. Next week Sofia and Anna will come to Beijing and then "the liu", as we call us (六=liu=six), will meet again!




18 November 2010

A lot of stuff going on

Hey!

1.  The Han Ban Confucius Institute has invited Sofia, Anna and me to participate in their annual world conference on the 10th of December. I was invited last year to sing as well, but my school wouldn't let me go, and I regret that I listened to them. However, I now have another chance and I'm already in Beijing so no one can stop me this time. It is an honour to be invited to such an event, and I'm looking forward to it very much. To perform together with Sofia and Anna is amazing, we have done a lot of things together in China now.

2. My mother was supposed to visit me between the 3rd and 7th of December, but the rehearsals for the Han Ban conference will take place on the 1st to 10th of December which means that I will probably be locked up in an assembly hall somewhere during that time and won't be able to show her around in Beijing. Therefore, mum is now coming on the 10th to watch the performance and sightseeing for a couple of days after!

3. Tomorrow I am going to see Sofia and Anna again! When I left Shanghai we were so sad because we wouldn't see each other for so long, but then we came up with te brilliant idea that we should meet somewhere in between Beijing and Shanghai. So, this weekend we will meet in the coast city Qingdao 4 hours from Beijing. It's going to be Sofia, Anna and I and also Robin, Max and Mike from my class.

10 November 2010

Tianjin!

Last Sunday Robin, Josh, Philip and I took the high-speed train to Tianjin, a city close to Beijing. Tianjin is one of China's five national central cities. National central cities are described as a group of cities in charge of leading, developing and performing tasks in political, economic, and cultural aspects.Tianjin has a long history, it was settled ca. 340 BC and has many old temples and museums. We found the city very different from Beijing. It is a smaller city with "only" 12 million inhabitants, and it has a much calmer atmosphere. The cab drivers were for example very happy and talkative. Even though Tianjin is only 130 km away from Beijing, Tianjin people have a completely different accent, so we struggled a lot with communication. We went to two temples, a bell tower, one museum and a water park. More photos will appear on Facebook!

Philip, Robin and Josh


The Bell Tower

The four of us


Water Park by night

9 November 2010

Cupping, meeting with Wang Laoshi and class dinner

Nothing special has happened lately, life is pretty normal here. And with pretty normal I mean that something new happens every other day.

A couple of days ago Robin and I decided to go to a massage place to try cupping, a Chinese traditional medicine which involves placing cups containing reduced air pressure on the skin. It was a very interesting experience to have 16 glass cups stuck to the back, it felt like 16 vacuum cleaners. This is what it looks like:




Another fun thing that has happened is that my Chinese teacher from Sweden came to Beijing! It was so nice to see her again, she is the reason why I'm in China right now. Without her I would never have found the Chinese Bridge Language Proficiency Contest and won the scholarship that currently I'm here on. Wang Laoshi was as energetic and bubbly as always and I showed her my dorm and the campus and we had lunch together with two of her other students. Later at night we went to a hotpot restaurant. I like her very much and will always keep in touch with her and have her as my Chinese mentor!

Last Friday some people in our class planned a dinner for the whole class, and we were 12 people who finally went. Pim, a dutch guy in our class, has a Chinese girlfriend so she guided us to the fancy restaurant and helped us choose the right dishes. It was a fun evening with very nice food and good company!

1 November 2010

Johnny Johnny

Johnny is amazing. I have so much fun before, during and after my workouts, even though he pushes me to the limit and I'm ready to throw in the towel after every session. He is just so funny in a very Chinese way. Today for example, when I was warming up he pointed at the girl next to me and said "look at her!". I didn't understand anything, I thought it was because of my lacking Chinese skills. "But look at her face!" I still didn't get it, and he looked at me as if I were an idiot. "Don't you see how small her face is?!" I didn't know what to say. I just hoped she didn't here what he said.

Another time we saw two girls talk to each other while walking on the treadmill. Later they did the same thing on a rowing machine. It wasn't much rowing, of course. They were wearing jeans and regular shoes. I wondered why they even bothered to go to the gym, and Johnny said: "They just pretend to workout, they are here to find some good-looking guys (帅哥) with nice muscles".

I have been meaning to upload a photo of Johnny, but it has not been easy to get a picture of him. After one of my workout sessions I asked him if I could take a picture of him and raised my camera. "不可以!" he replied, which is a very strong way of saying no in Chinese. I was shocked, but he simply said "next time!". So, the next time I asked once again if I could take a picture of him. "Not now, I'm not very good-looking at the moment!". He asked me why I wanted a picture and I told him that I wanted to upload it on my blog. "Well, even more reason to be good-looking then!". He asked if he could send a picture in an MMS to me, but since my phone barely has a colour display I replied "不行", not possible. Now this simple picture thing has become a big issue because he wanted to send me pictures where he's tensing and flexing (he showed me samples), and I didn't have a USB and it didn't work to send them by mail. Why does he have to be so vain, can't he just let me take a picture?!

However, Johnny is amazing and we have many interesting conversations. Last time I got my first compliment ever (he has previously only told me that I eat too much), but now he thinks that both my strength and Chinese are improving. I will get back with another Johnny-update as soon as I have a picture.