wow, what luggage:
-1 x 100 litre backpack (approx 20kg)
-1x 80 litre backpack (plus small backpack zipped onto outside) (approx 20kg)
-1 (approx 10 kg) suitcase (stuffed with 2 suits and several thick jackets!)
-1 (approx 10kg) rucksack
-1 laptop (approx 5 kg)
and strapped onto all these bags is a tent, a rubber sleeping mat, a scroll (painting) and a cycle helmet plus 2 other empty rucksacks!
quite a lot that it took 3 people to get it into taxi. After a dash around town for dinner and to get the key of my boss's apartment (where i'll be staying this week whilst looking fro other accomm, and cause he is in beijing for a couple days); i then dashed to station expecting a man with a trolley to help me. but i couldnt find anyone so had to carry all of above (1 big backpack on front, 1 on back, laptop around neck and in left hand was dinner +rucksack, right hand was suit case) into station. take it all off to go through x-ray machine. Then put it all on again. Then found a man with a trolley. Said my train is too soon so cannot help me. then told me to hurry up (leaving in 10 minutes).
I started walking, just about, sweating like crazy until i found another trolley man. he said the same thing. Now i was pissed. hot and sweaty, tired and in a hurry for the train. I wasted no time in telling him that the reason i needed him was cause i had little time to get my train. He refused to help me still -told me to hurry. i told him i cannot, unless he helps me! he walks off and 2 ladies (1 in 60s, 1 in 30s) take pity and each grab one of my smaller pieces of luggage (suit case and rucksack). Actually they could barely lift them and hard to share the rucksack between them both. Promptly we hobbled/ran off to the train, making it with several minutes to spare.
My plan was to arrive early, knowing form experience how little space there is for luggage and how much of a spectacle i make of myself normally with just 1 large bag and 1 small bag! now with 2 of each, and arriving 1 minutes before the train leaves... uh oh! After 2 other backpackers got on before me (takin up valuable luggage rack space) i went on. Actually I went in 1 bag at a time.. the whole carriage helps me move luggage around to find space more me. shoes are off, feet are on seats, laughter everywhere.. especially with teh12 yr old kid once i talk to him in chinese. Then i go back for more luggage.. and knock everyone out the way in the aisle..more luggage =more laughter (and disbelief!). I love this kind of experience -talk about an ice breaker.
Eventually its all sorted, i sit down. The little kid asks to swap seats with my neighbour so he can talk to me! yay... great conversations later and i am showing my photos on my laptop to him and another neighbour. practising chinese and making new friendswho all live in Xi'an (where i am about to go, and currently am friendless!). Since I have a window seat, I am now sitting here, typing off-line, an could not be happier.
The rest of the holiday with dad went well and it was a relaxing time. I read the wholoe biography of Mao (the unknown story) which is 650 pages in 4 days on the beach (MUST read for everyone interested in becoming a dictator and runing their country in order to get power!). Realised most readers of this probably have no clue about any thing like the cultural revolution, tibet, great leap forward or anything and will endaevour to put more short history into future posts!
Now after saying some goodbyes (some temporarily as i know i'll be back to beijing for work in a couple of months and cause everyone promises to visit me -and some to people leaving china) I am ready. Excited to meet new people, live in a new place that is so different to Beijing, excited to have such a great boss (more to come on him later I am sure), flexible job and so much more. This train journey sums up China really. As my dad said Chinese people are just so friendly! They are so interesting and so interested in (foreigners, foreign opinions etc), the atmosphere in the hard seats on these long journeys are fantastic. everyone talks to everyone else.. irregardless of age.
True -the beds are more comfortable but the atmosphere is no where close, and in the soft seats -its 100% silent. Hard seat -that is the way to go.
Everyone has been asking me about my salary in my new job.. well it should be enough to cover all my living expenses and chinese lessons. But exact job description and everything is still to be decided. Now, i need to get back to Song Chen Yang (12 yr old kid who has moved back to his seat, bored of my photos, but who i have to email the photo of me and him too) and the graphic designer guy (my actual neighbour -name unknown, but hopefully to become 1st friend in Xi'an!) and another guy who acually speaks some English. new times ahead. Finally i want to congratulate Rachel and James on their wedding that I missed... but send me the photos! and new word of the journey: bo ke (blog -one of those few chinese words that are based on english, but still written in chinese hanzi)
Monday, July 31, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
holiday
After leaving aiesec and sorting out my job i had a few days to relax somewhat and then my dad arrived (1 day late thanks to air france). For anyone doing a few days in Beijing this was our itinerary:
day 1: Beijing urban planning museum-Tiananmen square-Forbidden City-Beihai-Hou Hai-Bell/Drum towers and then to centro bar for a drink in British chamber networking.
Day 2: Summer Palace-Zhongguancun (cheap IT stuff)-Qingnianhu park (near andingmen station, which has a water park in it)-Peking Duck just off Wangfujing (nice and not too expensive)
Day 3: Cycle to great wall at HuangHua with tent-camp overnight on wall
Day 4: Cycle back to Beijing by mid-afternoon.
we were staying in jade dragon youth hostel which is convenient with good private twin rooms. though the cycle is not that exciting for the journey outside of beijing, once getting into the country its great, and if your knee has issues (or you get bored of cycling back in rush hour) you can just grab a minivan and rent it for the rest of the journey!
On day 4 (Sunday) we flew off to Sanya in Hainan island.. a biggish island (size of Ireland or bigger probably) known as the Hawai of the east. weather is great all year and though its well-known in china -chiense only mostly go when the rest of china is cold in the winter. so going in the summer is cheaper and not so crowded. A great decision. 1/3rd prcie 5 star hotels and discount flights led us to spending teh first 2 days on beaches and strolling around the local area, including going Scuba Diving (still love it). Dad is still taken aback with how cheap stuff is -I am quite used to it!
Today was 3rd day on Island and we went to the JianFengLing Rainforest. Wow. 2 hour bus journey around a bit of the island (its about a 16 hour round trip all around!) and we got dropped off at the edge of a motorway, grabbed a taxi-motorbike and went through a 100% typical chinese town in the countryside: food-markets, shops selling the same stuff, everyone hanging around doing nothing, bulls and pigs roaming around bossing the road etc. Then 20 kms into the rainforest and 1,00 m up we got to Heaven lake: stunning. photos will be uploaded soon. A nice 'peasent-style' lunch later and we carried on into the rainforest to a health resort which sits near a waterfall. us 2, plus our motorbike guide went up the river, spent a while swimming under the waterfall (not the biggest in the world but refreshing and great to have it alone) and then went back to the lake for a walk. We encountered ancient trees, buterflies and other birds that sounded like chainsaws (but were not!) -no leopards unfortunately, but the whole trip was topped off once we missed the last bus and had to hitch-hike in a chinese blue truck transporting lots of rocks!
What's great about this trip is there are so few tourists; mostly russians at our resort, though replaced by chinese on the beach once the sun goes down. some locals try to sell fruit (yummy) and other stuff but are not too bad, and the beaches are great. The hotel's service is fantastic. The local city, sanya, is buzzing with young people and opld alike.. everyone is out walking past the empty shops, drinking and eating on the streets, playing chess on teh street and giving the place a nice atmosphere. The rainforest was totally empty, the path is a track, but they had a brochure with some english in, some signs in english and all the buildings were tastefully done, nothing was rip-off expensive. i could go on and on, but most toursit sights in china are SO badly done and this was just..perfect. even down to the fact that its hard to get to and no-one there speaks any english -so it will keep out most other tourists in the future!
Haian is an isalnd with huge tourism potential, that it only seems to have started exploiting in the last 5 years... so it has learned from other parts of china, and is doing a better job than most. Its got a fair few fancy hotels, but mostly its an agricultural economy with most people using bulls and cows as transport in the fields (though motorbikes on the roads). As parts of China goes, its got great beaches, great countryside and by exploring its very easy to see the real China.. the crappy towns that are full-of-life, the old people working the fields and the young babies everywhere. its hard to see so much of 'typical china' and enjoy yourself whilst relaxing in china in 1 place -hainan is highly recommended, and not just for the beaches.
day 1: Beijing urban planning museum-Tiananmen square-Forbidden City-Beihai-Hou Hai-Bell/Drum towers and then to centro bar for a drink in British chamber networking.
Day 2: Summer Palace-Zhongguancun (cheap IT stuff)-Qingnianhu park (near andingmen station, which has a water park in it)-Peking Duck just off Wangfujing (nice and not too expensive)
Day 3: Cycle to great wall at HuangHua with tent-camp overnight on wall
Day 4: Cycle back to Beijing by mid-afternoon.
we were staying in jade dragon youth hostel which is convenient with good private twin rooms. though the cycle is not that exciting for the journey outside of beijing, once getting into the country its great, and if your knee has issues (or you get bored of cycling back in rush hour) you can just grab a minivan and rent it for the rest of the journey!
On day 4 (Sunday) we flew off to Sanya in Hainan island.. a biggish island (size of Ireland or bigger probably) known as the Hawai of the east. weather is great all year and though its well-known in china -chiense only mostly go when the rest of china is cold in the winter. so going in the summer is cheaper and not so crowded. A great decision. 1/3rd prcie 5 star hotels and discount flights led us to spending teh first 2 days on beaches and strolling around the local area, including going Scuba Diving (still love it). Dad is still taken aback with how cheap stuff is -I am quite used to it!
Today was 3rd day on Island and we went to the JianFengLing Rainforest. Wow. 2 hour bus journey around a bit of the island (its about a 16 hour round trip all around!) and we got dropped off at the edge of a motorway, grabbed a taxi-motorbike and went through a 100% typical chinese town in the countryside: food-markets, shops selling the same stuff, everyone hanging around doing nothing, bulls and pigs roaming around bossing the road etc. Then 20 kms into the rainforest and 1,00 m up we got to Heaven lake: stunning. photos will be uploaded soon. A nice 'peasent-style' lunch later and we carried on into the rainforest to a health resort which sits near a waterfall. us 2, plus our motorbike guide went up the river, spent a while swimming under the waterfall (not the biggest in the world but refreshing and great to have it alone) and then went back to the lake for a walk. We encountered ancient trees, buterflies and other birds that sounded like chainsaws (but were not!) -no leopards unfortunately, but the whole trip was topped off once we missed the last bus and had to hitch-hike in a chinese blue truck transporting lots of rocks!
What's great about this trip is there are so few tourists; mostly russians at our resort, though replaced by chinese on the beach once the sun goes down. some locals try to sell fruit (yummy) and other stuff but are not too bad, and the beaches are great. The hotel's service is fantastic. The local city, sanya, is buzzing with young people and opld alike.. everyone is out walking past the empty shops, drinking and eating on the streets, playing chess on teh street and giving the place a nice atmosphere. The rainforest was totally empty, the path is a track, but they had a brochure with some english in, some signs in english and all the buildings were tastefully done, nothing was rip-off expensive. i could go on and on, but most toursit sights in china are SO badly done and this was just..perfect. even down to the fact that its hard to get to and no-one there speaks any english -so it will keep out most other tourists in the future!
Haian is an isalnd with huge tourism potential, that it only seems to have started exploiting in the last 5 years... so it has learned from other parts of china, and is doing a better job than most. Its got a fair few fancy hotels, but mostly its an agricultural economy with most people using bulls and cows as transport in the fields (though motorbikes on the roads). As parts of China goes, its got great beaches, great countryside and by exploring its very easy to see the real China.. the crappy towns that are full-of-life, the old people working the fields and the young babies everywhere. its hard to see so much of 'typical china' and enjoy yourself whilst relaxing in china in 1 place -hainan is highly recommended, and not just for the beaches.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
found it?
A way of experiencing more about China, of learning more Chinese, of utilising my recent experience, of learning new things.
Hopefully my next step will be all this and more. In 2 weeks I am moving to Xi'an, one of the ancient capitals of China. It is in the middle of China, and is where a global NGO (Headquartered in the UK) called Plan has it's China head office.
Plan works across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, in communities where many struggle to meet their basic needs. Working in partnership with local people of all ages, we support them to end poverty in their community. www.plan-international.org/ It focuses on working with children, and areas such as education, health, habitat, livelihood and building relationships.
I'm going to be working partly in the field on education issues (not teaching!) and partly in the head office working on corporate partnerships and assisting one of the Director's of the NGO in China. I also plan to take a couple of hours of chinese every day.
So, hopefully it will be everything that I want.. the job I am looking for..at the moment. I'm very excited, and cannot wait :-) I'm committing for 6 months at least (until Chinese New Year), and then we'll see where I am, and what to do next!
In the meantime its a 10 day holiday with my dad.. and then i'll be in Xi'an!
Hopefully my next step will be all this and more. In 2 weeks I am moving to Xi'an, one of the ancient capitals of China. It is in the middle of China, and is where a global NGO (Headquartered in the UK) called Plan has it's China head office.
Plan works across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, in communities where many struggle to meet their basic needs. Working in partnership with local people of all ages, we support them to end poverty in their community. www.plan-international.org/ It focuses on working with children, and areas such as education, health, habitat, livelihood and building relationships.
I'm going to be working partly in the field on education issues (not teaching!) and partly in the head office working on corporate partnerships and assisting one of the Director's of the NGO in China. I also plan to take a couple of hours of chinese every day.
So, hopefully it will be everything that I want.. the job I am looking for..at the moment. I'm very excited, and cannot wait :-) I'm committing for 6 months at least (until Chinese New Year), and then we'll see where I am, and what to do next!
In the meantime its a 10 day holiday with my dad.. and then i'll be in Xi'an!
Friday, July 14, 2006
next...
hmm, so the last job was great, because it seemed to match with me: interesting, fun, working with people, using my skills, something i was good at.
finding something else that does all that too might not be so easy. it might require learning chinese first or not. it might require trying to do something on my own, if i can think of what exactly, if i can be brave enough...
it will probably involve me doing a combination of things that get work experience, get money, get chinese ability up, are fun, allows me to explore some other options on the side.
For the short-term it would be nice to take advantage of the 'China experience'. It makes sense to try to get something tangible from being here... to look at what opportunities there are, and then to leave and take the learnings and experience elsewhere.
finding something else that does all that too might not be so easy. it might require learning chinese first or not. it might require trying to do something on my own, if i can think of what exactly, if i can be brave enough...
it will probably involve me doing a combination of things that get work experience, get money, get chinese ability up, are fun, allows me to explore some other options on the side.
For the short-term it would be nice to take advantage of the 'China experience'. It makes sense to try to get something tangible from being here... to look at what opportunities there are, and then to leave and take the learnings and experience elsewhere.
No more AIESEC
its 2 weeks after the rest of my team finished their term in AIESEC and I have almost finished mine. Actually the last real activity was Tuesday night -when a British AIESECer (Lucy) came here for a few weeks to help me and some Chinese students. Since then I went to the AIESEC conference for a couple of days to say hi and bye to people, and now am trying to sort out the future.
There had been a few other activities before that, which had kept me busy over the weekends and evenings. Tuesday's though was a bit different: our chinese members played a really big role and did a really great job -and we might now have found our role in engaging with external organisations. Good luck to the guys who have to do this and everything else next year.
For a few other random bits and pieces...
-the new MC office is great because of the cheap chocolate '99' ice creams downstairs, the freshly squuezed ice mango shakes down the road and the great free-delivery lunch place at the other end of the phone.
-the 957 bus, previously my favourite in all of Beijing (due to speed, air conditioning, convenience) has become a training ground for China's next Forumla 1 Racing drivers. It's happened twice so far. Each time 2 957s come along at once. Then they race each other to the next bus stop, but make sure they leave the bus stop at the same time in order to make it a fair race to the next one. Beijing's traffic is scary normally, now its just hold-tight-and-pray...
-the new AIESEC appartment is great because there are 8-10 people living in 5 bedrooms with a couple of living rooms and 2 bathrooms. Now that's real progress from our place of 6 people in 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom!
-I turned my feet into 2 big blisters playing football in unsuitable shoes during FuLP (Fun Leaving Party) -ouch, and damaged my knee cycling back from the conference (110 km in 4 hours 15 minutes, including 20 kms downhill -beating the outward journey by 15 minutes even with the injury!) -seems all better now!
-air conditioning uses up lots of electricity. It used up all of ours 2 days before we had to leave our last appartment, and i had to pack in the dark (when i tried adding electricity to the card, using an atm, i managed to withdraw 400 rmb and add 0 rmb to the card. I think my atm card doesn't give me the option to add electricity, since i tried every feasible option on the chinese langauge atm!)
There had been a few other activities before that, which had kept me busy over the weekends and evenings. Tuesday's though was a bit different: our chinese members played a really big role and did a really great job -and we might now have found our role in engaging with external organisations. Good luck to the guys who have to do this and everything else next year.
For a few other random bits and pieces...
-the new MC office is great because of the cheap chocolate '99' ice creams downstairs, the freshly squuezed ice mango shakes down the road and the great free-delivery lunch place at the other end of the phone.
-the 957 bus, previously my favourite in all of Beijing (due to speed, air conditioning, convenience) has become a training ground for China's next Forumla 1 Racing drivers. It's happened twice so far. Each time 2 957s come along at once. Then they race each other to the next bus stop, but make sure they leave the bus stop at the same time in order to make it a fair race to the next one. Beijing's traffic is scary normally, now its just hold-tight-and-pray...
-the new AIESEC appartment is great because there are 8-10 people living in 5 bedrooms with a couple of living rooms and 2 bathrooms. Now that's real progress from our place of 6 people in 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom!
-I turned my feet into 2 big blisters playing football in unsuitable shoes during FuLP (Fun Leaving Party) -ouch, and damaged my knee cycling back from the conference (110 km in 4 hours 15 minutes, including 20 kms downhill -beating the outward journey by 15 minutes even with the injury!) -seems all better now!
-air conditioning uses up lots of electricity. It used up all of ours 2 days before we had to leave our last appartment, and i had to pack in the dark (when i tried adding electricity to the card, using an atm, i managed to withdraw 400 rmb and add 0 rmb to the card. I think my atm card doesn't give me the option to add electricity, since i tried every feasible option on the chinese langauge atm!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)