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Arriving In China
Beijing, China
As of writing this, I am on the train from Beijing to Urumqi. The train left at 10am on 31st August and is due to arrive approx. 6 hours from now, at 6:20pm on 1st September. There are 11 of us currently making our way to Xinjiang - Jordanne, Liesbeth and I (Kuytun), Tom and Tom (Caramai), Kieran and Joel (Aletai), Calum and Mac (Bagang) and Ben and Calum (Fukang). We have been in China for 17 days now, our plane left London on 13th August. We spent the first two nights in downtown Beijing, staying at the Capital Normal University (not suspicious at all…) with the CEAIE (Chinese International Association for International Exchange). After we had arrived in the morning, Mike - Our in country rep - took us to Tiananmen Square and left us with a challenge, to make our own way to Fuxing Men Station. He only told one of us the name (and spelling) of the street we're going to and promptly left. I had had the forethought to bring a map, and the place we were going had been passed along to me, so we set off… towards Fucheng Men Station. I guess that is why they call it Chinese whispers. It was incredibly hot that day (or felt like it was as nobody had acclimatised yet) and after 20 minutes of traipsing around in la large group everyone was tired sweaty and irritable. None more so than myself. There were a small group at the back who kept disagreeing with me and decided eventually to ask a policeman for directions. He directed us in the complete opposite direction from where I'd been taking us, and it finally came out that we were going to the wrong place. I maintain that if I had been s=told the right place, I could have got us there, but this did nothing to help my mood. We did eventually make it to the right place, 20 minutes late, after splitting up and just hoping that no one was lost. We were then straight into a meeting with the CEAIE, and I fell asleep. Full on, head back, mouth open, asleep. (my impression is that they didn't say anything particularly important but I still feel kinda bad…) Due to my partner, Abbie, dropping out at the last minute (literally 10 hours before the plane took off) I was meant to have a room to myself but at this meeting it came out that a new employee of the CEAIE (I think she was an intern) hadn't found any accommodation yet so I got a roommate! Her English name is Katie and it was really interesting to get to talk to her, hearing about china from a native's perspective. I slept through dinner that night - one that some still call the best meal they have had in China - due to jetlag but it was a fantastic night's sleep. When I woke up briefly around 10pm, Katie gave me some of her pizza from dominoe's (pineapple, with NO TOMATO SAUCE!!!). I had a quick - cold - shower and went straight back to sleep. The next day we all met in the lobby and decided what we wanted to do with our free time before dinner. We went to the zoo!!! It was a pretty good day. We had to queue for tickets… several times before we found the right one, and it was still freaking hot af but the animals that we saw were all pretty cool. We saw bears and big cats but it was really difficult to find our way around and we went in circles a few times so didn't have time to see much before we wanted to head to the supermarket. If you get a look at the map (I'll try and google one), we pretty much covered the bottom right corner. The pandas weren't doing much, but neither was anything else because it was so hot. There was a cage dancing Lemur that stood out but I can't get my photos off the camera - I forgot my cable - but they will be up as soon as possible. We went to the local Carrefour after the zoo and got all the essentials and things that we had forgotten (for example, I hadn't brought any shorts so was roasting alive in joggers) Dinner that night was lovely, we had a banquet with all of the other people who were on same the TEFL* training course with the CEAIE as us and there were a load of speeches given by various important people. We ate in the traditional Chinese banquet style, in which all the dishes are palced in the middle on a Lazy Susan and everyone would help themselves with chopsticks. The food was lovely and it was a nice opportunity to get to know some of the other teachers we would be spending the next 12 days with. The rest of the night was fairly uneventful and the next day - after a hurried repack - we were on a bus, heading off to our separate training camps.
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