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Alex's year in China
Ni hao true believer! Welcome to the second blog of Alex Kidd's exciting gap year in China! This weeks installment has car chases, action and even a little romance!** **(contents may vary from packaging)
16 of us left for Bejieng Wednesday (the 21st) and what a trip that was. I travelled down to London with my friend (Stephen Erhorn) and partner for the year (Stephen Rowland). A big standard flight later and we found ourselves in terminal 3, Heathrow. The place is huge but once we found check-in we found the Project Trust pack. It was nice seeing everyone again and getting reaquainted but little did we know th next 12 hours were to be the most restless of our lives. We boarded the plane at 6:15 (Xi jian Britain). We sat down and looked at the built in TV screens and thought 'Cool community season 4! ADVENTURE TIME! Arrow! I will be so busy for the next 12 hours!'. Naive of me looking back. 6 hours in and we tried to sleep but to no avail, the seats didn't recline due to the lovley passangers behind us who refused to move there drinks trays up but eeeeh well. After a sleepless night we arrived in Hong Kong, took a transfer flight and finally arrived in Bejieng. Once we all had our bags (not one went missing, good job by the airline company) we met the lovley Mike, our Chinese speaking in country rep and we were shuttled off to the hostel.
First impressions of China: the whole city stinks. I mean really stank. The air was quite difficult to breath and it all felt quite overwhelming. But on the bus journey the stench became bearable (albeit, still not cologne but not like sulphur) and it became exciting and amazing. The tall towers, hunderds of thousands of people milling about and the traffic. Dear god the traffic. A green man in China is the recognised symbol for "cross now and you're less likley to get hit', honestley, cars just do as they please in what Mike described as the 'strong man' system. Whoeveres willing to take the biggest risk and go at 70 across a busy road without so much as blinking is the winner and manages to get across. The roads are going to take some getting used to. We arrived at the Ming Courtyard hostel and it was amazing! Such a cool place with (like the name) a huge courtyard with tables, comfortable chairs and weird leaf shaped seats to sit on. Such a lovely place and the resident dog (Che Che) was the most adorbale creature ever. And at 4 quai a beer (40p) I was never going to complain.
That night was our first experince of chinese food in a banquet style and it was chaos. We split in to two groups and Mike went with the other leaving us non-mandrin speakers to deal with the staff who promptly shouted at us until beer and food arrived, then they scuttled away satisified we were all throughly confused. I loved the food and tried everything (don't ask me what I ate, I have no idea) and it was an all round good night. Next morning was a talk from China's education board (fairley bog standard) then to Tianmen square where we had to make our own way back to the hostel without Mike. Tianmen is exactly as you would excpect ; a big square of govermental buildings and tourists. For one of the most reknowned attractions in China it seemed we were more intresting. People are always asking for photos and I was more than happy to act the rockstar. Occasionally they didn't ask, they just took the photos and that was that (rude to me, perfectley acceptable here so I rolled with it). We got back to the hostel via Subway (nowhere near as bad as you'd excpect for crowding and it had air conditioned!). We then ate at a bejing duck restaurant; it was gorgeous but I never excpected anuthing less.
Then the great wall. Bright and early the next day we climbed up past market sellers flogging t-shirts of Obama as a communist (brilliant) and began the climb up to the wall. By the time we reached the top I reckon a trout could have happily inhabited my t-shirt and enjoyed itslef swimming up the backsweat. Backsweat is just another thing you need to get used to in China. The heat in Beijing was about 40 degrees celsius so we cooked quite nicley and i've gained a never fading 'geeeoride shore' style tan. The view from the wall was absolutley gorgeous and you could see for miles around (photos will be uploaded when I remember my camera). We romed the wall for a while and then qued for an hour to tobogan down. It was so worth it. We all absolutley belted it down for the first minute but nearley crashed (about 8 of us) into a Chinese gentelmen going at roughly 5 mph. But nethertheless it was great, really enjoyed it. That night a few of us decided to hit the Beiings clubs. T'was a good night out (details excluded for the sake of not being 'gap yah-e').
The next day we we and did an 'instgram challenge'. Essentially we were sent to quite a touristy street where we had to break off into our respective partnerships and get photos to match hashtags (#thisisprojecttrust was not on their *scorn*) so me and Stephen had an explore, I bought a very Heavy metal t-shirt (photo to come) and we headed back for further food. You never go hungry in China. Ever. Food is just rammed down your throat at break neck speed at every opportunity possible. I love this as the food is delicious, others less so but each to there own. Mike orgainsed a BBQ with a few of his friends in the hostel ,it was really good and we met a few intresting people who told us about our respective areas of China in detail. More cheapy beers ensued and the next day we prepared to leave the hostel and go on our orientation language course and to spend a week with a host family....
TO BE CONTINUED
Thanks for reading that hefty lump of text but to sum it up CHina is simpley amazing. I will be updating the blog fairley rapidly as the events detailed happebd nearley two weeks ago. Next time in 'Alex's blog in China' I detail my escipades with the host family, the evening activities we took part in and an unexcpected twist which kept us all on our toes,
Excelseor!
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