In the words of a wonderful new friend, a colleague, a trainee from Poland “Wow, wow, wow!” I think Karolina’s common phrase is actually the best way for me to describe China. I am having the most amazing, one of the most wonderful experiences of my life and I’m not even half way through it. For the past week I have been on vacation travelling China. I left Taiyuan (the city I’m living in) on Saturday night on a train to Beijing, I arrived early the next morning and took a taxi to the apartment of Echo (a president of one of the AIESEC chapters in Beijing) and Dom’s (an AIESEC trainee from Switzerland) apartment. There I went to bed and slept for a couple hours. This was Easter Sunday, though I hardly noticed. Echo and I went out to lunch with David a trainee from Germany and then went to a coffee shop called Bookworm (definitely for foreigners). From there David and I went to a market selling EVERYTHING from shoes, to jeans, to dresses, watches, purses, silk and whatever else one could possibly desire. The special thing about this market is not so much what they are selling but the prices at which they are selling it. I wish I could bring 40kg home with me, I would bring y’all something. Puma shoes for 60RMB, Jeans (Abercrombie or American Eagle…who cares?) 65RMB, awesome shirts (Ralph Lauren?) 25RMB, nice Louis Vuton (I don’t know how to spell it…I don’t really care) 90RMB. So these things may be fake, but the quality seems to be just fine, the shoes don’t fall apart when it rains, I have pulled and tugged on the jeans they seem to stick together so the quality seems fine to me. I like shopping here, so freaking cheap. The prices don’t start out like this, at first they are all over 300RMB and then you fight with the sellers, start to walk away a couple time until you get them down as far as possible in price and some times you still pay more then you should but it’s a lot cheaper then at home. I suppose I’ll get mom a Dolce or Gucci bag.
In the evening I met up with some other friends, Yenny (@er) she has been living in Norway for the past 4 years working for Opera an IT company. She is originally from Colombia but her Norwegian is fantastic, she is in China for several months working for her company. Also met up with her boyfriend and a couple people she works with. We had Peking duck for dinner it was really good. Thanks Yenny! After dinner we went out with a Norwegian business man who works for a German paper company and is starting up his company. He has been working around the world and in China for many years it was really interesting hearing some of his experiences and some of the experiences we have in common in dealing with the Chinese culture (the lack of planning…). He bought us all a drink, our conversation made for a great evening.
Monday I slept in and then went to Tiananmen square, huge and bare, not the most exciting thing in the world but it was cool. While there I checked out an awesome Chinese art exhibit, I really enjoyed the art work, especially a set of paintings with a natural setting in the four different seasons. That evening Yenny and I went out to Mexican food, it was DELICIOUS!!! It tasted really good, just like home…the good stuff! It also had avocado and cheese…you really don’t know how good they are until you don’t have them. We had a Corona with dinner, it was quite good…I’ve found I quite like Corona with lemon (though I’m sure it should be with lime).
Wednesday I went to Tianjin, about an hour train ride east of Beijing towards the coast. Tianjin has been controlled by various European countries through the past couple hundred years so a lot of the buildings are right out of 19th and 20th century Europe. There are streets that look like they were picked up out of London, Germany or France. I don’t know that I mentioned in my earlier updates but back in February I got to go visit some distant family in Newcastle, UK. My (step-mother?) brother and sisters mother Nancy got me in touch with her cousin??? Anya, who lives there. Anya let me stay with her and her family in their wonderful home in Newcastle and I got a chance to explore the wonderful city. One of the things that Anya had told me about that really caught my eye was the Millennium Bridge which looks like a giant eye looking up at the sky (it’s for walking on, not driving). Well, the exact same bridge can be found in Tianjin! That was a big surprise, definitely brought me back to my trip to the UK in February and what a great time I had. I stayed with some AIESEC members in their dorm in Nanjing University…here is something, as Seniors, there are four students to a room, 16 to a bathroom with two showers and three toilets (even worse as Freshmen there are often eight students to a room)! That was really cool, they were all really nice. It turns out that my third year at the University of Edinburgh will be spent at Nanjing University (foreigners get private rooms) so it was cool getting to see the campus, which is beautiful. About an hour outside of Tianjin is the “New Town” which I’m sure has all been built within the past five years, skyscrapers, new buildings, new streets, new landscape, extremely clean and very beautiful…much cleaner then any European city. Part of the campus is located in this new financial district. Near this financial district is a true black market, no body parts but lots of really cheap laptops (most certainly stolen) and a lot of clothing, some sold by weight (haha buy two kg of shoes for 20RMB). I spent my second evening there hanging out with some AIESECers in a British style bar, having a couple drinks (I have now discovered the most wonderful Long Island Iced Tea) and playing Pictionary while I waited for my overnight train to Qingdao which would first leave at two am. I only had a ticket to get on to the train, no seat, no bed. When I got on the train they told me there were no seats and no beds available to I sat on my backpack and started reading in an extremely overcrowded train car. After about an hour an Irish guy passed me and told me that he had just gotten his ticket upgraded and I could do the same (THANK YOU!!!) I found the person upgrading tickets and got upgraded to a bed. YES!!! I jumped in bed at about 3:30am and slept until noon, when we arrived at Quindao…OH I almost forgot, the first evening in Tianjin was spent with a girl from Canton (southern China). I went with her and a friend to a Cantonese restaurant, so we could eat some traditional food from her province…guess what…we ATE DOG!!! That’s right we had dog meat for dinner. At first I had a really hard time with it but it actually tasted quite like steak… it was good, I’ll try anything once. I just thought about this evil dog named Maggie that our neighbours back in California used to have (haha evil Mads).
I love Qingdao. Qingdao is located on the coast of the Shandong province, on the Yellow Sea. It is truly a beautiful beach community with a population around six million. Qingdao is a rather developed city, China’s fourth biggest port city. I could totally move here after university. In fact I went and met with a real estate agent to get an idea of prices for renting here in Qingdao and we talked about her estimate for the change in prices over the next five years (In 2008 some Olympic events will be held here…I think sailing and volley ball). I can get a one-bedroom apartment equipped with kitchen (all appliances except oven), living room, bathroom (with a toilet and washing machine) for 1500RMB/Month and that’s a three minute walk from the beach. There are many job opportunities here and if all else fails, I can always teach. I really have put a lot of thought into the economics of moving here and paying off student loans and what not and it works out quite well.
The beaches here in Qingdao are beautiful. There are some quite nice sand beaches but no waves. There is a harbour and a sidewalk path all along the coast. The architecture here is fantastic. As the city was occupied by Germany for many years, it like Tianjin has a very European style to it. There are some foreigners here but not nearly as many as in Beijing (naturally). Last night I went to a Russian restaurant that was designed to look very traditional Russian (which I actually thought looked quite Swiss) with beautiful wooden walls, tables, chairs and floors along with some fantastic Russian art. The dinner was delicious and accompanied by two entertainers singing traditional Russian songs and using traditional Russian instruments. After dinner I went to a nice European style coffee shop and read for a couple hours while enjoying an Irish Cream Coffee followed by a Baileys Mocha. Oh goodness, I also went to the bathroom while at this coffee shop, the toilet was um… interesting. The seat was heated, you could tell the toilet to wash you, dry you… I took a taxi home at 1AM, on the way I realised the Cab driver was driving 100km/hour and I had no seatbelt on (there was none in the car…there rarely are seatbelts). Crazy crazy.
It’s amazing how much construction is going on here in China. Everywhere you look there is a crane building a skyscraper. In the economic areas, the business areas the streets are so clean (I even took pictures of people washing the street like we wash carpets). Everyone seems so excited about the 2008 Olympics and everything is about the 2008 Olympics. There are five bears that are the mascots for the 2008 Olympic; one can see them everywhere. There is a true build up for China 2008.
Well that’s it for this time. I have plenty more to write about but I’m sure half the people reading this didn’t make it all the way through. Any longer and I’m sure you’ll fall asleep. I really do miss home (wherever that is…California, Denmark…) but I love it here in China and hope to make this more permanent at some point in my life. Do come visit me, the money you save on Christmas shopping here will pay for the plane ticket. I know the writing in this update isn’t my best but I’m in a hurry to get outside again so it will have to make do. Let me know what is going on with you.
In the evening I met up with some other friends, Yenny (@er) she has been living in Norway for the past 4 years working for Opera an IT company. She is originally from Colombia but her Norwegian is fantastic, she is in China for several months working for her company. Also met up with her boyfriend and a couple people she works with. We had Peking duck for dinner it was really good. Thanks Yenny! After dinner we went out with a Norwegian business man who works for a German paper company and is starting up his company. He has been working around the world and in China for many years it was really interesting hearing some of his experiences and some of the experiences we have in common in dealing with the Chinese culture (the lack of planning…). He bought us all a drink, our conversation made for a great evening.
Monday I slept in and then went to Tiananmen square, huge and bare, not the most exciting thing in the world but it was cool. While there I checked out an awesome Chinese art exhibit, I really enjoyed the art work, especially a set of paintings with a natural setting in the four different seasons. That evening Yenny and I went out to Mexican food, it was DELICIOUS!!! It tasted really good, just like home…the good stuff! It also had avocado and cheese…you really don’t know how good they are until you don’t have them. We had a Corona with dinner, it was quite good…I’ve found I quite like Corona with lemon (though I’m sure it should be with lime).
Wednesday I went to Tianjin, about an hour train ride east of Beijing towards the coast. Tianjin has been controlled by various European countries through the past couple hundred years so a lot of the buildings are right out of 19th and 20th century Europe. There are streets that look like they were picked up out of London, Germany or France. I don’t know that I mentioned in my earlier updates but back in February I got to go visit some distant family in Newcastle, UK. My (step-mother?) brother and sisters mother Nancy got me in touch with her cousin??? Anya, who lives there. Anya let me stay with her and her family in their wonderful home in Newcastle and I got a chance to explore the wonderful city. One of the things that Anya had told me about that really caught my eye was the Millennium Bridge which looks like a giant eye looking up at the sky (it’s for walking on, not driving). Well, the exact same bridge can be found in Tianjin! That was a big surprise, definitely brought me back to my trip to the UK in February and what a great time I had. I stayed with some AIESEC members in their dorm in Nanjing University…here is something, as Seniors, there are four students to a room, 16 to a bathroom with two showers and three toilets (even worse as Freshmen there are often eight students to a room)! That was really cool, they were all really nice. It turns out that my third year at the University of Edinburgh will be spent at Nanjing University (foreigners get private rooms) so it was cool getting to see the campus, which is beautiful. About an hour outside of Tianjin is the “New Town” which I’m sure has all been built within the past five years, skyscrapers, new buildings, new streets, new landscape, extremely clean and very beautiful…much cleaner then any European city. Part of the campus is located in this new financial district. Near this financial district is a true black market, no body parts but lots of really cheap laptops (most certainly stolen) and a lot of clothing, some sold by weight (haha buy two kg of shoes for 20RMB). I spent my second evening there hanging out with some AIESECers in a British style bar, having a couple drinks (I have now discovered the most wonderful Long Island Iced Tea) and playing Pictionary while I waited for my overnight train to Qingdao which would first leave at two am. I only had a ticket to get on to the train, no seat, no bed. When I got on the train they told me there were no seats and no beds available to I sat on my backpack and started reading in an extremely overcrowded train car. After about an hour an Irish guy passed me and told me that he had just gotten his ticket upgraded and I could do the same (THANK YOU!!!) I found the person upgrading tickets and got upgraded to a bed. YES!!! I jumped in bed at about 3:30am and slept until noon, when we arrived at Quindao…OH I almost forgot, the first evening in Tianjin was spent with a girl from Canton (southern China). I went with her and a friend to a Cantonese restaurant, so we could eat some traditional food from her province…guess what…we ATE DOG!!! That’s right we had dog meat for dinner. At first I had a really hard time with it but it actually tasted quite like steak… it was good, I’ll try anything once. I just thought about this evil dog named Maggie that our neighbours back in California used to have (haha evil Mads).
I love Qingdao. Qingdao is located on the coast of the Shandong province, on the Yellow Sea. It is truly a beautiful beach community with a population around six million. Qingdao is a rather developed city, China’s fourth biggest port city. I could totally move here after university. In fact I went and met with a real estate agent to get an idea of prices for renting here in Qingdao and we talked about her estimate for the change in prices over the next five years (In 2008 some Olympic events will be held here…I think sailing and volley ball). I can get a one-bedroom apartment equipped with kitchen (all appliances except oven), living room, bathroom (with a toilet and washing machine) for 1500RMB/Month and that’s a three minute walk from the beach. There are many job opportunities here and if all else fails, I can always teach. I really have put a lot of thought into the economics of moving here and paying off student loans and what not and it works out quite well.
The beaches here in Qingdao are beautiful. There are some quite nice sand beaches but no waves. There is a harbour and a sidewalk path all along the coast. The architecture here is fantastic. As the city was occupied by Germany for many years, it like Tianjin has a very European style to it. There are some foreigners here but not nearly as many as in Beijing (naturally). Last night I went to a Russian restaurant that was designed to look very traditional Russian (which I actually thought looked quite Swiss) with beautiful wooden walls, tables, chairs and floors along with some fantastic Russian art. The dinner was delicious and accompanied by two entertainers singing traditional Russian songs and using traditional Russian instruments. After dinner I went to a nice European style coffee shop and read for a couple hours while enjoying an Irish Cream Coffee followed by a Baileys Mocha. Oh goodness, I also went to the bathroom while at this coffee shop, the toilet was um… interesting. The seat was heated, you could tell the toilet to wash you, dry you… I took a taxi home at 1AM, on the way I realised the Cab driver was driving 100km/hour and I had no seatbelt on (there was none in the car…there rarely are seatbelts). Crazy crazy.
It’s amazing how much construction is going on here in China. Everywhere you look there is a crane building a skyscraper. In the economic areas, the business areas the streets are so clean (I even took pictures of people washing the street like we wash carpets). Everyone seems so excited about the 2008 Olympics and everything is about the 2008 Olympics. There are five bears that are the mascots for the 2008 Olympic; one can see them everywhere. There is a true build up for China 2008.
Well that’s it for this time. I have plenty more to write about but I’m sure half the people reading this didn’t make it all the way through. Any longer and I’m sure you’ll fall asleep. I really do miss home (wherever that is…California, Denmark…) but I love it here in China and hope to make this more permanent at some point in my life. Do come visit me, the money you save on Christmas shopping here will pay for the plane ticket. I know the writing in this update isn’t my best but I’m in a hurry to get outside again so it will have to make do. Let me know what is going on with you.
Mads!
Sounds amazing! I am envisioning all of this and just so excited for you!
Keep up the fun posts, and enjoy every minute!!!
Posted by Kaitlin | 21/4/06 19:37
Damn you can talk
Posted by Preston | 7/2/07 22:06
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Posted by Anonymous | 1/3/07 00:14
Mads we miss you a whole lot, but love to see the pictures and hear about the wonderful time there...please be safe..
Love MOM
Posted by Sanne | 9/7/07 09:29