Thursday, June 28, 2012

Yay! Apparently the internet works today, which is good :-) I'm in the library again. I need to make corrections to my essay. We have two mid-terms tomorrow,  the best.... But, yesterday I went on an adventure to the mall down the street. It's a huge building and I walked all around. Very confusing, like a building full of Forever Twenty One clothes, except they are all designer. On the top floor, I found some very bored-looking manicurists, so I got my nails painted purple. It was great. They thought I was funny though. After that, I tried to do homework, but only got through 2 hours, so his morning I had to wake up at 4 to finish. This is going to be a long couple of months. Off to study more!

Monday, June 25, 2012

June 25th

Awesome, I finally managed to post something. I have been desperately searching for internet. There is a very nice (but always packed) cafe on the main floor of my ginourmous dorm which has wifi, but I couldn't get it to work.  I have been to a bunch of other places as well, but I finally had to find the library and gain access to a student's login to access this very shaky service.

Anyway, after my grocery store adventure we had orientation where I had my first taste of authentic Chinese food, some kind of eggy birthday cake with loads of strange fruit on top. Food here is interesting, to say the least. Nothing tastes the way you expect. Hot things are cold, sweet things turn out bitter, and things that look solid enough are not chopstick friendly. So far, I like hot cucumber salad and pijiu. Though tomorrow I'm having black beans, because who would have thought that the store would have enormous fill-your-own-bags of cheap cheap black beans.

Today was the first day of classes. I think that class will be fine, the same as at MHC but faster. The best part of it though is that our language partners. Today they took us around campus (enormous) to find things such as the bank, post office, convenience store, and internet. Most of my clsssmate's bought a cable to connect to an internet service in their rooms, so far not too great for them either.
We all have been eating at the cafeteria, mostly, which is arranged by price; cheap stuff on the first floor and then fancy Japanese, Korean, etc. food on the top floor. Yesterday I got some tofu to go with my cauliflower and rice. Not happening again. At the cafeteria there are millions of options. You point at stuff and they load it onto your plate. It's great. All the noodles seem to have meat though :-(
Beijing is 12 hours different from EST, so when its 8pm here, its 8 am in Maine. Right now I'm in the library, on what looks like an abandoned floor.... actually most of them look abandoned... but no ones kicked me out so far :-) I did get a good scare when a cat wandered around the corner :-) CATS CAN ROAM THE LIBRARY!

I am going to go now before its to dark to find my way back, zaijian!!!!!

2nd day in china-June 24th

Ni hao, ma! Sorry that it has taken me so long to post anything, it's nearly impossible to find internet here. Phones don't seem to work normally either, which makes any form of contact difficult.
So, the plane trip was exceptionally uneventful. Los Angeles was  gross though and the people decidedly unfriendly, but it was over in a mere 30 hours. When we arrived in Beijing we took some teeny train to get our luggage, and got picked up by a BLCU graduate student and very disgrunteled cab driver.

Then we got to the dorm, driving through crazy amounts of bikes and pedestrians, we met our professor, and were seen to our rooms. Zero happened in the day and a half that I spent in my room besides a lot of Chinese game shows and reality tv :-)

That morning, after being up all night, I went on a quest to find a grocery store. Several miles and mistaken attempts later, I found a gaggle of Chinese women with shopping bags after wandering aimlessly through some building for a while.

Happiness Mart, as it is called, had all the worldly possessions I could have asked for at roughly 1/5 the American price. Besides the shampoo and dinner plate I purchased, there were onions at 3 for 50c, a whole head of cabbage for the same price, and much more! So great! The one thing that really has surprised me is the distinct lack of tea sold. You can buy Lipgon or Lipton. Take you pick.


Posting  now, trusting the internet connection...

Ni hao

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Off to China today! I am actually finished packing ahead of time for once... Weird. First on the bus to Boston, then the plane this evening to Los Angeles, 4 hour wait in the middle of the night, then the plane to Beijing! I get to Beijing 2 days from now early in the morning! Yay!

I don't think I will have direct access to Blogspot in China, let alone facebook. But hopefully I can post some pictures some times!!!

Zaijian :D

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

2 days

Off to China this Thursday! I have my first tablet to bring with me, very exciting :-) The packing has begun.

Monday, June 4, 2012


Hello world! Been a long time since I have posted on here, 4 years in fact. Last time I was abroad Obama had just come into office, the banking crisis was just beginning, and we were still in the 00's. The caption of this blog is in for some changes, Budapest is in my past and Beijing is in my future. I will embark on my next abroad experience on the 21st of this month, traveling 2 days with a friend until my arrival in China's capital. There I will spend 2 months learning Mandarin and exploring the blossoming nation of China. This country is on the precipice of global supremacy. China is destined to climb the global market and arrive at the top as a world superpower. It is already of huge importance, but for anyone wishing to learn a useful language, German and French are dying and Chinese is growing. I am recreating this blog to encourage others to become interested in the Chinese market and Chinese language. China has much to offer economically and culturally and any with an interest in the growing economic importance of the Asian continent may find my stay in Beijing of interest.