Category Archives: China

Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou

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I’m sorry I didn’t write for so long, but for I can’t easily upload to my blog and I was really busy I didn’t found the time to write. But its really a good sign, I had a good time in Shanghai after my hard start!

Unfortunately I still can’t upload any pictures. The chinese use a great App similar to WhatsApp but with even more features. You can for example share photos there and video chat. The video chat is working better with a bad connection than Skype! If any of you guys like to check it out and have a look at my pictures, just download the english version of WeChat and look for my WeChat ID Yezariael. I would be pleased to see any of you guys there!

Its soon end of the month and I already packed for my transfer to Beijing. Its similar when I packed last month. I just got used to Shanghai and the life here and now I have to move again. Maybe one month is too short planned after all! After my sickness and some starting problems I had a real nice stay in Shanghai. First I still felt a little lost for I didn’t know anybody again in the new city and my chinese friend from Switzerland visiting Shanghai unfortunately didn’t have much time to hang out for she had to work a lot, the poor thing! But the one night we went to a real Shanghainese restaurant will be unforgettable for me! We tried a lot of traditional Shanghainese dishes that evening. Shanghainese like their food sweet, so everything tastes a little sweet. Even the meat or the fish! I think this is really special!Shanghai really is a very big, modern and international city! You can see many foreigners here, so I don’t feel so misplaced and actually it feels pretty familiar although it has the very typical signs of chinese south culture like people driving on small and very old vehicles loaded so full that the things are over their head. I always found that funny!But there are really too many people here! But someone told me its even worse in Beijing! The subway is so full in the morning that you have to squeeze in somehow, no air to breathe left and you surely can’t fall even if you can’t grap anything, so don’t worry about that! If anyone of you guys has to use the S12 from Winterthur to Zurich every day, forget it, in comparison its like the S12 would be empty! I wouldn’t believed it but there is a park in Shanghai that is even more crowded! My teacher told me about and she told me that there are more people than in the subway even on work days. I really didn’t believe it and had to see for myself. But yes, at Gucun park on a Tuesday afternoon there are more people than in the subway! I have no idea how people can still enjoy the park like this for I couldn’t and left soon again.Also some chinese girls tried to get me into a teahouse. This is a well known trick fortunately described on wikitravel to get tourists into a teahouse and leave them with an exorbitant bill! They did this really clever, I nearly fall from them. They asked me to take a photo of them first and offered to take one of me. Then the one girl said she is a local and the other one her friend visiting. She will show her an ancient tea ceremony and if I would like I could join them. I said I wanted to go to Yuyuan garden, but she told me its closed over lunch time, which wasn’t true. For I was feeling really lonely that time and they were so nice I really wanted to go but then reminded myself of what was written on wikitravel. Later I saw them still hanging out on the same spot in front of the subways station trying to get other tourists, so I knew I was write about not joining them. But Yuyuan garden is very beautiful! My teacher then told me that there are many more gardens in Suzhou, really ancient, big and beautiful ones.So on one weekend I managed to book a trip both to Suzhou and Hangzhou, two cities nearby Shanghai and worth the trip! I’m now getting better in buying train tickets and I really like chinese trains for they are very on time, I would even say on the minute! Suzhou is a wonderful city! I arrived in the afternoon and unfortunately my mobile internet didn’t work so first I went completely wrong and then it was almost too late to visit anything. I somehow thought I could manage to visit three cities on the weekend and that a afternoon would be enough for Suzhou for it is very nearby to Shanghai. But my teacher already told me to stay overnight, for it is worth it. Unfortunately I didn’t go back to my place after the lesson but directly on the train for my place is really far away from the subway station. Like this I didn’t bring anything for staying overnight. I visited one garden and was so pleased I called a hostel recommended on wikitravel and reserved a bed. Then I went to the famous street where all the tourists linger. A very beautiful spot with small rivers and old buildings. I found the hostel very quick, a small one, charming, nice people and met a chinese girl who once worked at Suzhou and just came back for a visit. I could accompagny her and for it was a very warm and beautiful night we took a walk through the city and to the wall. I enjoyed this very much! I even tried chicken feet, but I didn’t like it so much. All the chinese keep telling me that this is so yummy but I just don’t like to pull out the bones so much and I still think its kind of weird to eat the chickens feet.Chinese are really very nice! The girl invited me for some snacks, I always feel a little uncomfortable, but she insisted. Chinese girls always link arms with each other, this seems very normal and any I got to know did also so to me. For as I am a Swiss and used to keep the distance to other people I first found this a little strange but actually its really nice and charming and they all do that.I left early the next morning leaving some money in the cats jar. The hostel had a lot of cats and a jar to give money for buying food for them. The hostel really was very cute! And next to one of those small rivers really close to that one street! I visited three more gardens but when it started to rain in the afternoon and got really cold I went back to Shanghai.

On sunday I took a train to Hangzhou. It is a little more far away than Suzhou. Suzhou is half an hour and Hangzhou about an hour. I woked up so early I could easily take a train. The place to visit in Hangzhou is Xihu lake. A very beautiful spot! Also pretty crowded but still bearable. I walked around the whole lake but had to walk back on one side for I took a wrong way which would had led through a military zone I wasn’t allowed to pass. But the military told me very nice and asked where I’m from. It also started to rain heavily in the afternoon so I had to take shelter for some time but still managed to finish my walk around the lake. The whole took me about 5 hours. Then I visited a culture street but with the heavy rain this was really no fun anymore so I went for dinner and back to Shanghai after that. 

For my trip to Suzhou I didn’t book the ticket back before which was no problem at all. I could easily get a ticket back on the next day. For my trip to Hanzhou I luckily booked the ticket back for there were also some trains fully booked already on the morning. So its always wise to book your return ticket if you want to return at a specific time.

My chinese got really a lot better this month thanks to my great teacher. I understand now a lot better and more and can also speak better. I noticed on a dinner with my landlady. She had a friend for visit and they cooked together. Also an other friend came for dinner and I could join them. They all talked chinese in pretty normal speed and I understood pretty much, so I was very happy about that and enjoyed the dinner a lot! My landlady also took me to one of her Yoga lessons. It was a little different from what I know but I recognized most of the figures but I really couldn’t understand the teacher. The lesson was great but I had hell of sore muscles the other day for I didn’t do any Yoga this year!

Now I can even order chinese food in restaurants without pictures on the menu for I can read some of the chinese dishes and also know some of them. I can order noodles with beef, as soup or fried and this is also my favorite food. There are always some chinese cooking on the street, you can get a lot of snacks and I really love those little street cooks! First I was a bit afraid of buying food from them for I wasn’t sure if it would be clean or good, but the chinese also eat it and where many chinese eat it can’t be bad after all. In Suzhou there are many snacks and I tried out several of them. I really like the traditional chinese food! On my subway station there is a small car selling Baozi. A big kind of dumpling with either meet or vegetable filling. This is my usual breakfast and you can also get soup or soy milk with it if you want to. I really love warm soy milk! The guys selling it are always nice and smiling, they are my sunshine on the morning! I really hope I have something similar in Beijing!Of course I also went to Huangpu river and the bund. I wouldn’t have missed seeing the bund at night, its very beautiful! Of course a lot of tourists there! I heard even german speaking several times and spoke once with a group of germans. And you should go to Tian zi Fang if you are in Shanghai, its a very nice place with many stores and handicraft things, the best place to buy some presents for your relatives! 

On my last week here I even managed to see one of the chinese girls again I met at the hostel in Guangzhou. Actually the other one wanted to give me the tour in Suzhou, but unfortunately on Sunday and for I really hadn’t any clothes with me and just bought a toothbrush and paste and I also wanted to go to Hangzhou on Sunday I told her I couldn’t. But would have been very nice of course if she could’ve given me the tour! The first girl lived in Shanghai but I wasn’t sure about that and didn’t contact her, stupid me! She contacted me this week and we went out for dinner together, it was a great night, I enjoyed very much talking to her. It was as we would know each other for years! And I really enjoy any time I get some company for I’m on my own most of the time!

I also bought some books my teacher recommended to me in this last week for I really love books and want to start reading chinese novels although my chinese still isn’t good enough for that. But I wouldn’t be able to buy chinese books so easily again. I sent the books, my sleeping bag and some clothes with a parcel to Beijing today for I don’t have that heavy luggage and will send it to Switzerland from Beijing when I bought all the presents. My teacher and my landlord helped me with that. Now I already packed and will go on for some more travelling on the weekend and then arrive on monday in Beijing. I’m really very curious about the city! And I hope my WLAN there is much better then here for I can’t really skype well with the people from home or update my blog proper! So hopefully write to you again from Beijing! Take care until then!

No lucky start in Shanghai so far

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I didn’t blog for a long time for I couldn’t make any connection to my blog since I arrived in Shanghai. Unfortunately the Wifi at my place is really bad I can also hardly skype with my friends from home, so I’m pretty cut off. Today I managed to publish from my mobile phone over the mobile connection. That’s actually not what I was hoping for but better than nothing. Unfortunately I cannot upload much with that connection either so I can’t show you any pictures right now, I hope you understand that.First it actually was a good start in the new city or seemed at least to be. I already knew that it was still pretty cold in Shanghai and I sent my sleeping bag with a courier to Shanghai so it arrived even before me. Unfortunately because of Chinese New Year the courier just started to work and didn’t want to transport my heater for they were afraid it could break and they didn’t have any wrapping material at the moment. Therefore I sent my heater on the slow trail by the chinese post. I had some nice and warm last days in Shenzhen in company of my teacher and some of here friends. She invited me in her home which was great honour for me and we climbed a small mountain together with her friends. I still would say that it was a hill, but it was a little bit taller than the one I climbed in Guangzhou. At the end of the month I was pretty said to leave, for I finally managed to get around somehow and I really enjoyed the weather! Especially to say goodbye to my teacher was pretty hard for we spent a lot time together, saw each other every day and became really good friends!Nevertheless I had to pack my bags and take my flight to Shanghai where someone from the school should pick me up. I left pretty early to the airport, ate lunch there and checked in in time. I also had absolutely no problem with my big overweight for I booked another 10 kilo on the phone with help of a chinese friend before and so I was pretty satisfied sitting in the waiting hall. And sitting. And sitting. The plane was delayed and no one could tell us for how long. I wrote a message to my contact that the plane was delayed just the moment when they called us. I wrote another message for I thought, we would just leave now, but unfortunately this was false alarm. They just gave us some snack for we had to wait even longer. I tried to send another message, but this didn’t work anymore and I was pretty sure that I had no money left on the SIM card. But I absolutely needed to contact the person again! I run through the airport looking for a shop to recharge the SIM and found one, but a chinese credit card was neede, which I didn’t had. Luckily they could provide me one and I could pay cash. Problem solved. The plane still didn’t arrive, that’s what happens when you book your flight with a cheap airline! 1,5 hours later the plane finally showed up and left pretty quick the ground. I sat in the first row, I never sat there before! It was a pretty nice and quick flight, about 2 hours and we also got dinner. During the flight I read about Shanghai and learned my vocabulary. A guy from staff had to present a lot of things you could buy and do some gymnastics at the end of the flight with us.When landed I already had a message from my contact, that he was all in red today and a little fat. I thought it was very funny that he introduced himself as fat. As I suspected he wasn’t really fat but maybe not so thin as the majority of the chinese people. He was big, really all in red and had a huge smile! I was actually pretty glad that he was so big for he handled my overweight luggage very easily through the subway. The subway was pretty full and he warned me that on normal days you couldn’t even fall down or breathe in the subway, because there were so many people squeezing in! I took it on the light shoulder and replied that like this I could at least get my free hugs a day. He was surprised that there was a person even more optimistic than him. Actually I don’t think I’m really such an optimistic person! He really seemed to think that there were too many people in the city. For he was a local he was surely right about that and I was a little concerned for I had to use the subway every day and the subway is still the only thing I can use without problems!We had to change the subway line and for that we had to leave the subway and walk a good way to the other line. I wasn’t used to that from Shenzhen or Guangzhou where you could always switch lines within the subway and didn’t have to walk over ground. Also there were many stairs and my poor contact carried my luggage up and down. I’m not sure if I would have done that so easily! At the end we took a taxi from the station to my host but the driver didn’t know the address! Luckily my contact could call my host and she told him the direction so the driver could find the place. It was already getting dark when I arrived my new place to stay for this month. The lady was already waiting for us, a woman about my age, she seemed very nice, had cooked dinner for me and showed me my room. I was happy I could eat the dumplings and I liked my room at once for I finally I had something like a wardrobe! It was actually a wardrobe out of cotton, we normally use similar on the attic to store away clothes. I had a big desk with many drawers, but a small bed. She told me she gave me the room where one could learn better. The other room had a bigger bed but only a very small desk and was better to sleep than to learn in. For the first time I could really take all my stuff out of my luggage and put it into the wardrobe and the drawers of the desk. That felt good and I felt like arriving much better. Also the air condition had a heating function and the room was already pretty warm when I arrived. My sleeping bag also arrived before me so I wouldn’t have a big problem for the night. My landlady already spoke chinese with me but she could also speak very well English and seemed be willing to talk with me. My chinese friend from Switzerland would come to Shanghai soon and also another contact from school promised me to show me around in the city. So I thought this month everything would be better!

So I thought …

So I hoped, but that wasn’t really the case. I went to school for the first two days. I had again private lessons for they didn’t find enough people on my level, but less private hours than in Shenzhen, I have no idea why, maybe they miscalculated the time in Shenzhen and I had too much lessons then, I don’t know. The calculation they made in Shanghai, seemed right, I just didn’t understand, why it was different than before. The building of the school was very close and warm and had great toilets so I liked it from first sight, but unfortunately we couldn’t stay there for they had too much students at the moment. Too much students, but still none on my level for my group lesson, hmm. Maybe that was when it started. They wanted us to have lessons at my place, but my place was very far from the subway station, the room to small for lessons and the living room as cold as a fridge so I really didn’t want to have lessons there. They proposed another location, but now I have to switch subway lines in between and like this I loose a lot of time.My new teacher is very different from my last one and I needed to adapt to the new teaching style. She mostly teached beginners before as she told me. But actually I was pretty happy about the slow tempo so I could review everything again that I learned and going really deep into prononciation and how to build the sentences. So I think this will help me to get on. But after my very friendly last teacher where we got so close it seemed sure to be another type of relation with much more distance, that was at least how it felt for me at the start for we kept addressing each other very formal and I was calling her teacher, which is actually normal for a teacher pupil relation. Its just different from before, thats why I was a bit sad at the beginning. The real misery started in the night to the third day, two o’clock in the morning. The day and especially the evening was actually really good. I was feeling so comfortable at my new place I put on my jogging shoes and went out for a run. It wasn’t even so cold on that day, about 13 degrees and I run pretty far, about 9 km in an hour. That was actually pretty good for I hadn’t been on a run for the last three months! It was also very close to my normal pace so I was very happy after that. I warmed up some noodles the landlady left for me in the fridge and took a shower. This time the shower is separate in the bathroom as I’m used to which is much better than in Shenzhen, but unfortunately it takes a lot time before there’s warm water and the water isn’t really very warm. So it’s more like taking a warm shower with not much water in a fridge!But I had got my own towel and some food so it seemed like I didn’t have to buy everything on my own this month. I skyped home and was in a real good mood and like this I went to bed pretty late about midnight. Two hours later I woke up with severe sickness, pain in the stomach and I’m pretty sure I had high fever for I was freezing so much inside my sleeping bag with three blankets on top that I put on a second trouser, a second sweater and even my winter coat! I stayed awake until the morning and wrote my teacher that I wouldn’t make it to the lesson for I was sick. After that I could finally sleep and slept the whole day. I was to weak to eat, drink or stay on my feet so I simply stayed in my bed and slept whereas it felt more like being in a coma. My teacher wrote me she would accompagny me to the hospital if necessary but I was afraid I was too weak to go anywhere. I was also to afraid of fanting in the icy living room, so I didn’t tell my landlady for I didn’t know when she was around. The second night I sweated some of the fever out but still felt not good at all so I stayed home another day and another day. My teacher was concerned about me and brought me some chinese medicine and breakfast on the second day. I was very happy about that for I really didn’t made it anywhere. I still couldn’t tell my landlady and had a little bad feeling about that she might wonder why my teacher brings me the pills. I’m sure she wondered a little, but after my teacher visited me, she cooked me some food. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to eat anything but the baozi my teacher brought me. I just ate noodles for the next days I cooked myself and some porridge the landlady cooked for me. The one time I tried to eat something else my stomach hurt again and I felt immediately sick again.On saturday, the fourth day of my illness, I went outside for a little walk and bought some basic things like shower gel. I felt like an old lady and walked even slower than the people from the south of china (they really walk very slowly!). And I was exhausted very fast. Right now its much better, I also went to school again, but I still don’t feel all right now. My stomach still hurts and today I suddenly felt sick again after eating a sandwich, so I don’t think I fully recovered. I also had some strange rash and got pretty paranoid if there are any bed bugs now. At least I didn’t see any bugs or cockroaches, but bed bugs are too small to see and for most bugs it’s just too cold right now, but in my room it’s actually pretty warm. This first week in Shanghai was really no good start! I didn’t see anything so far and I didn’t go anywhere on the weekend for I was still too weak and on Sunday it was rainy all day. But luckily I missed the very cold days. All the days I was ill it was very cold, about 4 to 6 degrees. Yesterday I went to school again and after school I visited Yuyuan garden, a very ancient place, very beautiful! Today it was again very cold with 6 degrees but it should finally get better now and on the next weekend it should have about 15 degrees. I’m looking very forward to that! So today I didn’t want to go far, so I went for a little shopping but wasn’t in the mood of buying anything. After that I visited the library and a street with very nice buildings were there are many bars so I might go there one night again. I wanted to visit a street with many book shops when I felt sick again and returned to my place.But my chinese friend arrived now and invites me for dinner tomorrow to a famous place for Shanghai food. I really hope I can eat some of it without getting sick again!My contact from school didn’t call me so far. First she told me that we could meet on sunday but I didn’t hear anything from her again, so I’m still exploring everything on my own and still feeling pretty lonely.I’m just hoping for warmer days and that my chinese friend has more than a little time for me so we can explore some nearby places together on the weekend.

Part 2: You shouldn’t go to Zhuhai but pay the ancient Guangzhou a visit

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The next day I got up very early and went to Zhuhai. Let me say you a thing about Zhuhai: don’t waste your time there!

Zhuhai is definitely NOT the cleanest city in China!

Wikitravel described the city as the cleanest city in China and I can really not confirm that! Because of Chinese New Year almost everything had closed, of course all the restaurants. I walked my feet off, because my mobile went out of battery and my powerbank didn’t work and I didn’t know which bus to take. Actually I rembered three bus numbers I could take. I walked up something like a small shopping street, but almost everything was closed. Then I found the lovers street, a seawalk near the muddy sea full of garbage! The weather was also grey and the bikes that passed me needed at least two people and looked very old. There were also some bikes with four peoples and mostly the people in the back didn’t cycle, how bad of them!You remembered what I told you about China and Toiletts? Yes? So forget that, no toilets in Zhuhai! I couldn’t find any public toilets! Finally I took a bus at the shore to get further up and found a toilette near the beach. What a relief! I mean, how clean can a city without toilets be? I visited a mermaid statue on the shore. There were so many people that you hardly could see the statue. I mean its a nice statue but really, why do we look at such things? I actually just didn’t know what else to do in Zhuhai so I went were everybody else was going. Bad idea! I also didn’t find a place to eat. I tried a seafish restaurant but I would have to wait too long and didn’t get if I had to choose my food alive. There huge fish tanks with all kind of small and big fishes and seafood. So I’d rather not. I went to another restaurant but couldn’t see the menue, that’s why I just sat down, big mistake! I didn’t get the menue at all and for safety reason I just ordered noodles. What I got was cold noodles with cold vegetables for 50 yuan. Cold noodles for 50 yuan? Please! Seems to be some delicacy but for me on this day it was just not what I wanted to eat! I can have a warm meal in Shenzhen for 20 yuan and plenty! I went on with another bus I had to wait on pretty long to see more of the shore. I found a big park with many people and on the shore there were still many more, but there was only one small toilet for all of them! I had to queue pretty long with everybody else and decided to look for a small mountain nearby. Unfortunately the bus didn’t come so I just took another one which of course went in a completely other direction. For I was very tired I sat there nearly to the last station and got off. I had no idea where I was and just wandered around to find another toilet, but of course, there was none! I could see something like a park or mountain but was just too tired. But I found a nice little art museum with very nice pictures. Unfortunately I forgot the name of the artist. I liked it very much especially because it had a toilet!  After visiting the museums toilet I went back by bus. Good decision for it took me over an hour to get back and I really wanted to catch my train! I also was pretty happy I didn’t book a hotel in Zhuhai and could go back to my lovely hostel with my lovely host and have a rest. Actually I found Zhuhai pretty boring, not really beautiful and not at all clean! I just eat something in a small restaurant, because they had a toilet and went back for my train.Back in the hostel there was another chinese girl immediately talking to me. She told me the chinese girl from the first day also wanted to go to Zhuhai! I was pretty said for I’m sure it would have been much more fun to go with her, but she wanted to go on the next day. She asked me how I liked it and I didn’t tell much for I thought maybe its just me. I mean I don’t know how the things really work here and maybe I’m just to stupid to see the beauty of Zhuhai or to find something to eat or even a toilet.What can I tell you! I have to jump over one day for short so the Zhuhai story sticks together. When she also came back from Zhuhai she was really shocked why I didn’t tell her that it was so ugly! I was actually relieved that it wasn’t just me! We laughed a lot that evening and told each other bad stories about Zhuhai and the few toilets. She nearly made her whole visit in a taxi and found it really ugly too! Also she didn’t manage to find a restaurant or a toilet!The day the first girl went to Zhuhai was the day I stayed in Guangzhou and met a guy I met over internet. Remember? I told you about how to make friends and that Internet is the new way doing it? I actually found it easier to meet people in the hostel, but I was pretty excited I could meet a local who could show me around! The second girl wanted to join us for she wasn’t local as well. I liked that for she was very funny and also for some kind of safety reasons. After all I didn’t know the guy. But I first met him alone at the subway station. Just a side note, people of the south are really very slowly when walking. And by slowly I mean slower than a snail! For a northern like me this is horrible because there are also many people on the street and you could hardly pass and I really want to go on quicker than this. The guy that I met was really very fast, faster than me! That alone should’ve told me that he was also coming from the north!We visited a giant book store (Chinese people must really love to read if I look at the huge and nice bookstores, I like that very much!) and had some lunch. After that we went to an island full of buildings in european stile. A very nice place with beautiful buildings and all pretty old! There we met by chance the girl again and she accompagnied us for the rest of the day. We visited some more of nice buildings and places, an old an very nice temple I liked much! We had some soup and then the girl needed to buy new shoes for she wanted us to go on a mountain. The boy also asked me to go on the mountain before and I wasn’t all so happy about that. Actually I would really love to! I love hiking but my feet hurt like hell after I walked about 8 hours every day! But in the end I didn’t go to Guangzhou to sit in the hostel, right? Unfortunately we didn’t find shoes. Guangzhou is the city were the cloths come from, but as it seems not the shoes. We saw a lot of jogging shoes but I wouldn’t go jogging with none of them! They were all not of really good quality but very expensive! Same prices as back home, wow!In the street we saw a giant jeans I found very funny and they took a picture of me under it. The seller had to stay aside for that what he kindly did. Why do I tell you about the jeans? Its actually the story of that day, the giant jeans story! We went to a big shopping center and left the boy alone for a moment to look for more shoes but didn’t find any thats why we went back on the street and I was really sure where to go, because I was in the street two days before. Like always when I’m very sure about something, I seem to be wrong, how embarrassing! When we passed the giant jeans she knew it instantly and I as well and we laughed a lot. She also said that I made a real funny face when I saw my fault. Of course I was also a little ashamed. Later the girl forced me to tell the story in Chinese to the boy. I tried but I’m just missing all the words to tell a funny story in Chinese now! I’m sure it didn’t sound all too funny. The girl wanted to eat some local food for dinner and I was happy I finally had some Chinese friends who could read the menue and knew what to order. But I found out that the girl also didn’t really know what to order for she didn’t know the food and that she looked everything up on a website, that relieved me a little. So even the Chinese have troubles finding the good food! We ate a lot of dumplings and it was the most expensive bill I ever had since I arrived, but the price of 150 yuan was still ok for 3 people. The next day I went with both the 2 girls and the local boy as our guide on the mountain. I wouldn’t call that mountain, maybe hill, it was pretty small but with the very slow walking of the girls it took us 5 hours to get up and down again! My feet were in the beginning really fit but when walking down again they started to hurt again like hell! But we were really lucky for there was no rain and the sight was very beautiful! There was also a very nice temple in the park we could visit, I liked it very much! After going down we had again trouble for finding a restaurant and were all (except the boy) pretty exhausted after the long walk. I also had to hurry up for my train would leave tonight for Shenzhen again. We said goodbye to the boy on the bus and went back to the hostel to get our stuff, when the rain started. It rained really much! The girl than said that this was the cleanest water I would ever find in China and laughed a lot thinking about Zhuhai!I have to say these were the best 2 days in China for me so far! People change everything! Friends change everything! It was so nice to hang out with people and talk to them! The one chinese girl could also speak a little german. For I was nearly a whole month on my own it felt so good to have company! So I was pretty said going back to Shenzhen and to my room I didn’t like so much. But of course I also like Shenzhen and it wasn’t all so bad too sleep alone in my room in my big bed for in the hostel I couldn’t sleep all so well with the 3 other peoples noise.I really hope I can see my new chinese friends again! The girls actually live near Shanghai were I’m about to be going to!

Part 1: You shouldn’t go to Zhuhai but pay the ancient Guangzhou a visit

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I had this idea of visiting one or two more cities when I had the time over spring festival and already knew that it’s not a great idea to travel when all chinese travel! I got that train ticket for a very slow train to Guangzhou. Normally there is a fast train which takes only half an hour, but there were no tickets left. I went to the station really early to check in, make the security check and find everything. And then I waited with all the others and there were pretty much of them! I already knew that this wouldn’t be all so easy. But I was pretty impressed that the train left on the minute although they had to squeeze that many people including baggage in! We also arrived on time!I booked a hard seat for this was the only thing I could get. It seemed not so worse first, but after the two hours ride my ass hurt pretty well. Also there was really not enough space for all the things the people were carrying back home to their families, presents mainly, but the guy next to me had that many computers and electronicle stuff he had to stove it under all seats, so there was no place left for another pour mans baggage and I had to sit half the way half on it. Luckily the man with the many computers didn’t use his seat so I could at least place my bag there although I didn’t really have space for my feet! The people were complaining about the guy maybe that’s why he didn’t stay and after half the trip he also took all the packages away and vanished with his whole stuff so I got some room for my feet! But I had enough time to learn vocabulary and read about Guangzhou on http://wikitravel.org, a great page for travelling that held more information on Guangzhou than my Lonenly planet! So when I arrived Guangzhou I already knew some places I could visit. First I went to the Beijing Pedestrian street. A big shopping street where at least everything was open even on Spring Festival. Because the rest of the city was pretty closed on the days I stayed, which was not so good. Most of the small shops including all the recommended restaurants were closed! Also in the Chinese Culture road there was barely a shop opened. In the pedestrian street I tried to find something for lunch and ended up in a restaurant where you can choose your food yourself and than the cook makes something out of it. Not very good if you don’t know lot about chinese food or vegetables. I had no idea if my ingredients fit, because I just chose what looked interesting or known. I also said please not spicy but in the end it was still spicy (the damn chilli is really everyhwere as well as coriander, the one spice I really don’t like! It was in every meal, really every!). The whole food was also swimming in oil, but tasted good. Unfortunately my decision wasn’t so good after all, because my stomach didn’t like it so much. But the one thing I really like about China is, that there are toilets everywhere in the big cities! At least the cities I knew by then (this will change, but I tell you later). After visiting some shops, the culture street and the river I got pretty tired, my bag pretty heavy and my stomach was still unwell, so I decided to look for my hostel. I found the street and the building but didn’t know which floor so I called the owner, a really nice guy, who catched me in front of the Ikea and guided me to the place. The hostel was actually a private apartment with three rooms, 4 beds in each room, a living room, a kitchen and a small balcony. He asked me if I knew that it is Chinese New Year and I said yes whatever that meant. He than told me that there is only one other guest in the hostel right now because it is Chinese New Year. I was very relieved as he told me, that the next day the hostel was fully booked again, because I’ve chosen it not only because it was so cheap, but to finally meet some people (a friend of mine told me to go to hostels to meet some Chinese people! Thank you so much, worked like a charm!) The owner told me further that he was going to cook dinner for us because of Chinese New Year and asked me if I want to join them. I was more than happy about that! He than told me about a flower market nearby I could visit before dinner for this market was only on Chinese New Year.I went to the market which was really beautiful and I liked very much that everybody was buying flowers and plants and small wind wheels. There were also some market stands with handicraft things and of course stands with toys for the kids. The handicraft things were really nice and I bought a small sheep for my bag, because it is year of the sheep this year. Than I got back, a little too late. But I found a guy on my way back home selling beautiful made flowers of some kind of plant. Unfortunately I missunderstood the price for the Guangzhou people have Guangzhou accent and don’t pronounce ten as I’m used to, so it sounded for me more like four. It was then not four yen but fifty yuan in the end and like this I had bought a pretty expensive gift for my host!The other guest was very interesting, a guy from Nigeria studying medicin in China! He lived for the last 5 years near Beijing and could speak Mandarin pretty well. We had a similar personality for we both like more to explore many things than going too deep into one and he also could play many instruments and was interested in the culture of China. Unfortunately he had to leave early the next morning. His flight was leaving from Shenzhen!The dinner was simple but nice, it felt so good to talk to somebody (in English)! There was also a guard of the building invited who was very funny, smiling all the time and wanted to take pictures of me, of the other guy of all of us together of him. He wanted to know if any of us was married. The guard could only speak Chinese, that’s why I didn’t understand much. The host explained me that he was rather a simple guy and that they had only one thing in mind. The host translated that the guard said he was horny and the guard wanted all the time that I searched another girl for my country for him. Actually I was pretty happy that I couldn’t understand him!After dinner we watched THE chinese new years show. A very big show over several hours and the host explained me the Hongbao, a kind of money gift you can give to others or receive from others. There was also a big Hongbao given by the government over WeChat. At a specific time we all could shake our phones and get some Hongbao. I didn’t get any but my host got about maybe 3 yuan. He told me the statistics the next day, I can’t remember but I think that about every Chinese (not only in China but every country on the world!) shaked their phones!The next day I visited more of Guangzhou, at least the stuff that had opened. I went to a nice book mall mentioned on wikitravel, but didn’t manage to get breakfast, because all Chinese seemed to have been clever enough to have a reservation for the dumplings restaurants! I decided to go to the train station first for I wanted to finally manage buying a train ticket of my own for I wanted to visit Zhuhai. The station was pretty far away and I said my line and didn’t understand the answer as always, but the girl could also speak English. Actually a lot of people in Guangzhou can speak English and I had the thought that maybe I should have studied in Guangzhou (would have been possible). Also I liked the city pretty much for it’s so old and full of history, nice buildings and trees and many cool people I saw on the pedestrian street. But I decided for Shenzhen, so my fault and I couldn’t change it anyways. But I might decide different now, although I also like Shenzhen. I got my ticket for Zhuhai for the next day there and back and went on visiting Guangzhou.I found a wonderful gothic church to visit, but was still very hungry. For really no chinese restaurant was opened I was so desperate I had to go to McDonalds. McDonalds! I went to China to eat Chinese food every day and what do I get? But at least I know what I can expect and get. I know how to order and I know the menue also very well. After eating I went with about 1000 other chinese to a temple. Thats what Chinese do on New Year, so maybe not the best idea to visit a temple on that day but I really wanted to get the full feeling of that New Years day! It was actually very nice but pretty dangerous because of all the incense sticks. I got burned several times and was pretty happy that no one burned my hair!My feet hurt like hell after the whole walking for I was on my feet for the entire week. Walked 7 hours through a real beautiful park in Shenzhen on Tuesday, went to Guangzhou on Wednesday and walking, walking, always walking. As soon I was back in the hostel a Chinese girl talked to me on English (I couldn’t even take off my shoes) and wanted to know all about me. That made me feel that it was the right decision to go to the hostel! A chinese guy who couldn’t speak English at all added me on WeChat and showed me a lot of photos from his travels, but I didn’t understand much of what he said.

How to make friends and finally getting a train ticket

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I tell you right at the beginning the solution to both of them: Internet. Seems like we cannot live without it anymore. I knew this before, but right now I’m shocked how true this is! Does anyone remember the days when we couldn’t simply skype with our friends back home but had to make an expensieve phone call or write a letter? When we had to buy a map (I’m speaking of a paper map, have you seen such a thing lately?). I actually bought a map from Shenzhen but didn’t need it really though. My map app is much easier than searching street names in Chinese. Life has become much easier and still I don’t get along! How frustrating!
So I wasn’t able to talk to any Chinese on the street. I thought about going online to make some friends here, because this is actually they way we seem to find friends today. Scary, isn’t it? But all the people in the subway staring at their mobile phones are surely not learning Chinese vocabulary as I am but chatting with someone. But this way is also much simpler and less frightened than talking to strangers on the street. I found a page, shenzenstuff.com, where you can see what’s going on on Shenzhen and talk to other people living here. There I found an event of a vegetarian group who checks out all kind of vegetarian restaurants and they had a meetup just the other day, so I subscribed. I’m no vegetarian, but I’m really into the topic for the last month and I thought it would be a good topic to talk on and I was really interested in what people do think about it in China and how they manage and live it. So I was looking very forward to this!
The description seemed easy enough even I should find it. I was at the subway station early and I saw that the exit we should meet was closed. For I was way to early I went up another exit and studied a little bit outside enjoying the nice weather. When I got down again on time, the station was very crowded and I couldn’t pass from one side to the other without checking my bags again and the queue was very long! So I didn’t manage to get back in time and might have missed them for I couldn’t see anyone. But I also didn’t know how they look! I stayed there about half an hour, talked to some girls, if it was them and even called the number I had from the website, but there was only a Chinese girl answering which couldn’t speak English (and the ones on the webpage could speak English). I wrote a mail and got no reply and then I looked for the restaurant by myself but couldn’t even find it. I tried really hard but all for nothing.
After this I was really really frustrated! And because I was so happy I could finally talk to anyone and get to know some people. On my way to the restaurant I passed another one which had a light sign on top saying:

Vegan Awakening

That sounded really good and I wanted to visit the place anyway so I went back to the vegan restaurant. My first vegan restaurarant I had spottet so far in China, I couldn’t believe it! China goes vegan as well, nice! The restaurant was a pleasure! I can really recommend it to anyone visiting Shenzhen not only vegans. It might be a bit more expensieve than the ordinary chinese restaurant but is really worth it! Just take Line 1 to Chegongmiao and take Exit D. The restaurant is just around the corner. They have books to read, even some in English, the boss was speaking a little English, the staff isn’t. They also have raw food and food lightli cooked (about 40 degrees). The place is very light and clean, very cosy! The house cat was strolling around. The stuff is absolutely lovely and the food was great! A main dish costs around 48 yuan and I had two of them, because I wanted to try. The soup was really spicy and huge! And I had the best tea in my life, but unfortunately cannot remember the name.
On the next day on friday I managed to wash some clothes the first time. My teacher translated me the washing machine and I had a chance to ask the girlfriend of my host how the machine works. So it actually worked and I was able to wash and hang up my clothes. No big deal to do back home in Switzlerand, but big deal to do here in China! The mashines work different than ours. They have no washing programs with degrees as it seems. My teacher said that they don’t heat up the water. Also the design was different. Beside washing I tried to book a train ticket to Guangzhou online. This seemed easier but not easy enough. I checked that there were still free seats in the train and booked a bed in a female 4 bed room in a hostel. I decided against the luxury version of a single room in a common hotel for I hope I could meet some other travellers in the hostel like this and the bed is really cheap, only 57 yuan per night. If I don’t make it to Guangzhou is not much money lost. After that I couldn’t book the train ticket. Actually I could book it but after paying I got a mail that my booking has been cancelled. I tried 3 times to book a ticket with ctrip and then I tried another webpage which seemed to work. I was actually not believing that I would really get a ticket but I recieved both vouchers. But still I had to pick up the tickets on monday at the train station in Shenzhen and I already knew how bad it is to go there.
On the weekend I planned to do some tourist activity and I went to Window of the world. A miniature park with some of the greatest buildings of our world just in miniature. There was the Eiffel Tower in 1:6 and you could even climb up the stair or use the elevator. The entrance is more expensieve than other things to do in Shenzhen with 180 yuan for a day ticket and you have to pay for any other thing to do in the park like using the Eiffel Tower elevator or take a ride somewhere. The food was also more expensive and the seller in the shops were really aggressive and the things pretty expensive. When I entered a shop I instantly had a seller on my heels following me all around the shop and showing me all kind of things. Because of the sun I ended up with a new hat for I might have payed too much (90 yuan) and still got a little sunburn. The park was nice and I stayed all day and also watched the big nightshow and the firework over the Eiffel Tower. The only thing they had of Switzerland were – of course – the Alpes. Actually a building where you could ice skate and skiing inside. The evening show was a great artistic show with all kinds of artists. But I think the whole park is more like a family event. No one goes alone to such a place. No one but me. At lunch I think a woman stealed my food, because she just took it and after that they didn’t want to give me my food and I did what Chinese people do and screamed and cursed (but on English) and finally got something to eat.
I had an exhausting touristic day, still no friends, but at least I didn’t end up in some restaurant with hearts as decoration because it was Valentines Day. And some stranger, a chinese girl, took a selfie with me on it. She asked me to do a picture with me. I have absolutely no idea why she did that! Do you do selfies with strangers? Maybe I’m so exotic here, I don’t know.
It rained on sunday so i didn’t go to a park my teacher told me about but went to the cinema. The cinema isn’t really cheap. I payed 90 yuan for my ticket. I would pay the same price back home with my Carte Bleu (about 13.- Fr.). The newest movie, some chinese action movie, was completely sold out for the whole day and it was shown about every hour during the day! So I watched a drama of a chinese girl in Prag. Not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but I could listen to a little Chinese and lucky me the film was subtitled in English and because it played in Prag there was even some English spoken in the movie and I could follow pretty well. A nice chinese man even carried my umbrella after me which I forgot after the movie (I always do!).
Then I wanted to learn and went to the Starbucks nearby my school and in the building of the great book mall at grand theater station. I couldn’t even start when a man asked if he could see my book. He watched it very interested and tried to talk English with me. He is learning English for he needs it for his job. He didn’t speak fluently and had to think a lot before speaking but actually he spoke pretty well and far better than I speak Chinese. I’m still missing the vocabulary! I still didn’t dare to speak much Mandarin. Only a few words. What is wrong with me? I should really try harder! I’m so afraid of speaking, I can’t explain why this is. But we had a very nice chat for about 4 hours and he is the very first local person beside my school contact and my teacher I talked to. 
Actually I think he was pretty shocked that I went to Shenzhen all on my own without knowing anyone and without a single friend and that he was the first person I talked to after 2 weeks. I had a feeling that he was thinking that I’m a little mad. But maybe I am. He couldn’t also believe why someone would want to learn Chinese just for fun when not need it for work or anything. But he was very interested in life in Switzerland. 
So I was thinking it is important to learn Chinese for the future and he thinks it is more important to learn English, funny thing!
I had my very first chat but still didn’t learn and went home pretty late, even my favorite restaurant in Gangxia had already closed so I had to eat some Chinese fast food I still don’t get how to order and what. When I went back to my place the shower didn’t work again, but a huge cockroach passed by and I remembered how I dislike the apartment and was really angry and sad. I left a note to my host about the shower and went to bed early but didn’t sleep all too well for I was still angry and knew that I would have to collect my train tickets the other day.
In the morning the shower worked again, the host fixed it and apologized on my note. So my mood got a little better. My teacher was sick and moved our lesson to the afternoon so I decided to go to the train station right away. First I checked which one and noticed that it wasn’t the one I thought. It was Shenzhen West, a different one and pretty far away. I looked up in the Internet (Internet again!) how to get there and needed about half an hour with the subway. When I got out at the subway station there were again some notes that all exits were closed except one. When I exited through it I was in nowhere land, really! There was nothing there, it was all just on the way to be built. It was all a real big area under construction, maybe a new district or an old one that is rebuilt, I don’t know. I had no plan where to go, for there were no big streets or signs or anything. I walked up a little way and some policemen send me back. The mobile internet on my phone didn’t work and I was lost. Back at the station a man on a motorcycle asked me where I had to go and I said the Chinese word for station and he answered: Jump up! So I jumped up and he started the vehicle. When he was driving he said it’ll cost 30 yuan. I read about taxis and I’m pretty sure that a reasonable price would have been somewhat between 10 or 20 yuan but actually I had no other choice than this man, because I had really no clue where to go! It wasn’t then so easy though and I finally got why there were no taxis but men with motorcycles. The new street was closed and the man drove on the street first than on the sidewalk and down a smaller hill over some grass. The whole ride was really adventurous and somewhat not from this world. I felt like in the movie Mad Max!
But I ended up at the station which was still in nowhere land but I could see the city live beside it. The station was small and also under construction. Some nice stuff helped me to find the ticket corners and I finally got my tickets very easily. Now I have my train tickets to Guangzhou and will stay there 5 days over Chinese spring festival. I think I’ll go to the station one hour before, for I have seen that you have to kind of check in with your ticket and do some security checks. I went back to another subway station on foot and I think I need an hour from my place to the train station. Half an hour by subway and half an hour by foot but I should actually easier find the way then from this strange new station. Hopefully I will visit Guangzhou this week and if I manage to buy another train ticket from there to Zhuhai I might even visit another city these days. I just hope the subway is as easy as everywhere and that I can find my hostel!
Shenzhen people all return home over the holidays so the city will be pretty empty. This is because Shenzhen is a very new city, my new friend told me, and all the people are not born here but moved here and are therefore not origin Shenzhen people. In Guangzhou there are more origin people and also Guangdong dialect spoken as he told me.
So after this second week I managed to buy 2 train tickets, wash my clothes and got a new friend. We will stay in contact over Skype and WeChat and try to practice some more English and hopefully also Chinese!
My teacher was still sick in the afternoon so my lesson today was cancelled. And for I was so busy at the weekend and didn’t feel all so good by myself today, I decided to stay in my room for just one day and learn and write to you all. 
The rain actually stopped, but it is very foggy outside, also very hot and humid. Resting one day after two active weeks seems a good plan and I really hope I don’t get sick as well!

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs. Bugs are everywhere! First Homesickness.

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My contact took me to a very tall house, how else could it be, there are only tall houses here in Shenzhen as it seems. She phoned someone until we found the right house and could enter the door. In every house there’s a security guard in the entrance hall, which lets you in. I asked my teacher about it and she said it makes the people feel safer. But are they really safer? Does the secure guard know every one of the building?
We went up to the tenth floor and I entered a small apartment. I got two keys and a number code to my room and left a deposit for the keys. My host which actually lives in the place as well, wasn’t there and should come back on Monday. That wasn’t what I expected but more what I was afraid of. No host family but just a single room and a toilet to share. The toilet, by the way, very small and I didn’t see the shower at the first glance. But there is a shower head at the wall and it seems like you just have to take a shower next to the toilet on the bathroom floor. I’m so spoiled as a Swiss but I’m not used to something like that. How will I take a shower without flooding the whole place? Doesn’t seem like this is possible, but I’m gonna find out. 
Therefore I wasn’t very happy. There is a kitchen, but the kitchen isn’t often used as my contact told me. No meals with at a family table, no discussions and possibilities to speak Chinese and have a glimpse into a family culture as it seems, but I have to buy my own toilet paper and meals and eat alone as it seems. Fortunately in China most things are very cheap. 
My contact took me to a very small store around the corner to buy a towel and a cup and some toilet paper to start, because I didn’t know I would need any of these. She brought me back to my place and left me at the entrance. We arranged to meet again Monday morning at another subway station exit near the school where she will lead me to the iMandarin school in Shenzhen.
There I stood at the entrance of the hall and felt very lost. First I didn’t know how to get inside again and open the door next to the guard, second I rarely new which floor but when I got there I couldn’t remember the right door, because I didn’t pay attention and I didn’t knew the number of the apartment. So I had to check my keys on every door, embarrassing! The keys are not so easy, so I didn’t manage to find the door on my first round. Fortunately there aren’t that many doors on the floor. After a second try I found the right door but couldn’t manage to open the inner door, because I didn’t knew on which side to turn the keys and the door wouldn’t just open. Sometimes I can be really stupid in such simple things. After some minutes I managed to open and even to enter my room code and there I sat, all desperate and homesick.
What did I say about expectations and how to master to be disappointed? Never mind, I’m still working on it.
First of all I checked out what was working and what not. What worked out was:
WIFI, toilet, WhatsApp, Yahoo Mail, my bank account page. In that order.
What didn’t work out was: Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Google, my proxy set up on my webpage to reach them nevertheless, my open door app to reach them nevertheless.
And instagram doesn’t work either.
My room is very small but has a double bed in it with a same same blanket, but it is very cold, much colder than outside! Outside it has lovely twenty degrees, but inside it is very cold and I didn’t take that much warm clothes with me, because I saw how warm it will be. Although I must confirm that my chinese friend told me that there are no heaters in the houses in the south. And guy who sat next to me during the flight told me that the houses are very poor isolated and it can get around five degrees inside during the night or in the morning in winter. And I wanted to leave cold snowy Switzerland and didn’t want to freeze any longer. Major fail!
I didn’t stay long in the room and started shaking. So I went out to eat something. My contact pointed me in some direction for restaurants before and I wanted to look very well where I’m going so I can find my way back again and don’t get the same problem with finding the right apartment again. 
It took me some walk to find some restaurants and first I didn’t know which one to take. I went to Jayne’s Easy, which is very easy for foreigners. It’s just a buffet where you can point at the food you want on your plate. Very convenient if you don’t know the language well enough! I didn’t take much for I didn’t know how expensive it will be, but it only costs 10 yuan which is practically nothing. When food is that cheap I can understand why people don’t cook anymore! I’ve seen other restaurants which aren’t that cheap but still, it’s not much to pay for what you get! But I suppose, people don’t earn much either here.
Then I went to a supermarket. Not a huge one but a real one, not like the little store I went with my contact. I bought something to drink and looked for something for breakfast which wasn’t so easy. As the guy from the flight told me, there is not much bread in China. But there are some buns covered with pork which looks like wool and I saw them and bought them. But the Chinese seem to buy those instant noodle soups where you can just put hot water in. And hot water you can get on many public places. 
I also saw some strange snacks like welded chicken feets and I wasn’t sure if you can just eat them or have to cook them. There are right beside the gums and sweets. 
I didn’t understand the cashier but we managed to communicate with hands and I could read the total price from the cash.
When I got back to the apartment where it got even colder I made a disgusting discovery: a cockroach peering under the WIFI router and not a tiny one as far as I can tell. Ouch! That’s not something I wanted to see! Or know.
And there actually is a lady cleaning the place. I saw her when I first got there.
I left the cockroach but killed two tiny little bugs in my room later. I was very tired and freezing so I just played under the blanket and closed my eyes a little. At ten thirty I went to bed but couldn’t sleep just for two hours. I woke up because someone was using the shower at midnight. And I’m always annoyed when some of my neighbors move in the night! And yes I had earplugs in my ears. Next time I woke up at three o clock in the morning and couldn’t manage to sleep for some hours, damn jet lag!
But I got up in the morning for my very first Chinese lesson in China and eat the two buns, which where tasting sweet. Good for me, because I shouldn’t get lunch before four o clock in the afternoon!
But first another bug drama I have to tell you. So I put on my clothes and felt something moving inside the sleeve of my pullover. I put it out quickly and out came a large green bug which I trampled to death, sorry bug! No, I’m not sorry at all! Bugs don’t have to stay inside sleeves! I don’t think I will hang my clothes once more over the chair but put them into my bug instead. No more bugs please! I really don’t like bugs. Not the one I make in life or programming and not at all the living ones. They are disgusting, disgusting, disgusting!
And I surely didn’t want to start my Monday with a bug!
After this I went to the subway and met my contact of the school. She led me a mazy way to the school I’m not sure how to find again on my own! There I met my teacher and she really is a very very kind person! I liked here from the first sight! She liked my Chinese and told me that I have good pronunciation. My Swiss teacher always told me that and I didn’t believe here!
We moved on very quickly and did an entire lesson on this first morning. My school contact called the school in Shanghai for me for my home stay address next month. She told me that they didn’t find a homestay family for me thats why I had to stay in the apartment (BUGS!). My teacher told me that it’s hard to find a homestay family in China so I might not get one in Shanghai and Beijing either. She said that the Chinese aren’t just used to that, because they don’t have the possibility to travel around as we Western people can do it. So people from the West are very open and used to help or host other people. Chinese people just don’t know how difficult it can be to get around in a foreign country when you don’t speak the language and that foreigners might need more help or help at all. She told me that it can happen that you ask someone to help and he just moves on.
After my lesson she helped me buying a Chinese SIM card, which wasn’t so easy. We were in kind of Supermarket building in a kind of pawn shop corner where they sold some SIM cards as prepaid (which Chinese mobile doesn’t seem to, but I’m not sure, because my host didn’t really got what I meant with prepaid). You need a Chinese ID card to buy one, no passports allowed. But she gave here ID for me, which was very kind of here! Now I have a Chinese number and mobile internet, phew! She had some long discussions with the lady who sold it to us, but she didn’t seem to know all so well about phones, cards and so on.
Oh, by the way, Chinese are all watching their phones, like us. Everybody has his head down on that phone, talking to it, earplugs on, typing in it, nothing goes without a phone, that’s really the spirit of the 21 century as it seems.
After that she helped me buy a card for the subway which is also prepaid and can be recharged so I don’t have to pay each time when using the subway separately but can pay with the card. The subway is really easy to use and very much the same, wherever I used subways before like in Berlin or London. But it is really crowded! 
After that I went back to my place very late and went out to eat again and bought some more toilet paper. I got my schedule for the entire month and have even four days off because of spring holidays and chinese new year. But I don’t have a clue now what to do then or on the next weekend. I want to explore some more of the city and maybe go sightseeing someplace near by train ride. But I don’t know yet.
There is no other student in my class for there seems to be no other student right now I don’t know? So I don’t have other students to plan with or do something and it seems like I’m on my own for this first week. No family to talk to, no students, that makes me feel alone and a little sad. And my room is really very very cold at night! And full with bugs! Bugs, bugs, bugs! I’ve seen another cockroach in the bathroom a few minutes ago. But a tiny one, at least.
Just one month. It is just one month and then I can move on to the next buggy place. If it stays that buggy!
I’ve seen the center of the city today with the big supermarkets and I will hopefully explore more of it tomorrow on my own. When I can find some subway station I’m always safe, because my place is just next to the station and I can always get there by taking the subway. 
So this night I put my clothes back in my bag and hope that the bugs don’t come into my bed! I hope I learn fast so I can start talking to people and manage things on my own and maybe don’t feel that lost anymore.
Oh, and I’m sitting here in my down jacket while writing. I just loved to have a heater!

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Arrival in Hong Kong and journey to Shenzhen

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There I was, starting my travel to china in a swiss snowstorm, where I wasn’t sure if I would reach the airport in Zurich alive. Lucky me I did! The plane took off with one hour delay because of all the snow on the wings they had to put off first. But off we go and started with dinner at local swiss time one o clock in the morning, which made no sense at all, because it was neither dinner time in Switzerland nor in Hong Kong where we were flying towards. But I guess the Swiss Airline always serves dinner before they took out the light and the passengers can go to sleep, because this is what you do, before going to bed, eating something!
I didn’t think that I could sleep, because I never can, neither in airplanes nor in cars or trains. But I could, at least sleep some hours, waking up from time to time. The flight was a bit turbulent, we all got shaken nearly the whole night, which could explain why I felt so dizzy after landing all evening. After waking up in the plane the next food was breakfast, I mean, what else should you eat after sleeping? Therefore I got two perfectly meals all lactose free with some also celiac diet bred, which was so dry I couldn’t eat it and two cakes I set aside for later. The warm part of the meal was yummy, but altogether I didn’t eat much.
Next to me sat a young swiss man, who studies in Hong Kong and we talked a little. He gave me some hints how to get the train at the airport and said that it was all very easy at Hong Kong. And true he was! I get my baggage fast and the way to the airport express was just natural. I hadn’t got a plan how to get a ticket and the train just arrived, so I asked a man just waiting next to me, where to get one. He said that the queue is just too long and that I can still buy one when arriving and so I mounted the train. After arriving on Hong Kong island the last shuttle bus of my hotel has already left, therefore I took a cab. The cab looked very old, the trunk and seats very used. The driver didn’t speak at all with me, but read the address on my note and brought me to the hotel very fast and very cheap. 
The hotel was a recommendation of a friend and as good as she told me, a nice (for Hong Kong even big) room with enough space and at a good price: The Bishop Lei. I was on the top floor, 23th, because of the great view, but the elevator also takes longer.

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That’s the point where I started to feel really dizzy. I thought this was because I didn’t sleep and eat so much and completely forgot the all night shaking flight. So I went downstairs and even more down to the city Hong Kong to find a place to eat. Hong Kong made a real good impression to me, very modern, very international. Of course I could see more Chinese faces than in Switzerland, but I saw also many european faces as well and heard many people speak English and even at one corner swiss german! The restaurants also were very international, Pizza, Steak House and I wanted to eat Chinese food! I found a little and nice Chinese restaurant where the waiters were very kind. I didn’t feel all so hungry but more and more dizzy and decided to order just some vegetables and noodles. But I got a big plate of noodle side dish, which seemed to be for 2 or more people like the waiter told me later. I couldn’t manage to eat this all! But the friendly water just gave me a food bag with the rest of it for take away and I already had some breakfast. 
Sitting all alone in the restaurant (which I don’t like much, that’s why I don’t like to go out alone), I felt like sitting on a wave and suddenly remembered the troubles of the flight in the night. It’s like getting of a boat back to the ground and I got sort of sick.
I wasn’t far away from the hotel, for I could find it again (my sense of direction actually sucks!), just following the escalators and taking them back up again. After that little walk I returned to the hotel and tried to sleep, which wasn’t so easy with that dizzy feeling and my inner clock all turned upside down after the seven hour time shift. The room was very cold but I had a thick blanket and a cosy bed.
I slept longer than I thought after waking up several times during the night and watching my handy if there is any news from home. I eat my noodles, took a shower and packed my bags to get the shuttle bus of the hotel this time. A very nice service bus which took me safely back to the central station where I felt a bit lost the first time. But it wasn’t a problem at all, I found the metro and had my printed plan which line to take. I had no idea how to pay for the ticket again, but again it was very convenient, there was a ticket vending machine where you could just tap on the station you want to go and pay the price. I had to change lines several times, but it all was very easy and last I took the east rail line to the futian checkpoint where I should cross the border to China. I had to wait about an hour at the immigration queues. First you have to pass the queue to leave Hong Kong and then another one to enter China, where I had to fill out another form. The police people don’t really talk to you, just look at you and your passport and your data, that’s all, but my validation took a bit longer and I’m sure that I was the only european face in the whole queue. But lots of Chinese with diapers bought in Hong Kong were in front of me. I cannot imagine diapers being cheaper in Hong Kong, for the prices and the shops seemed very common for me. All the big names I’ve seen in Hong Kong, also a Porsche Design Store (and other very expensive labels). But maybe the diapers are better for the children? I have no idea!
But they let me in and there I was in China and yes it looked different from the very first sight than Hong Kong. Until now all seemed so easy to me! I was afraid how to find my way to the hotel after my landing and how to find my way to Shenzhen the next day, but it was really very easy, easier than I thought! 
Getting a ticket for the metro in Shenzhen was a bit harder, but nevertheless easy enough. I queued up but recognized watching the people in front of me, that my smallest banknote was 50 yuan which was far too big for the ticket which costs about 2 yuan. So I went to the ticket counter and got some change and a ticket afterwards. There were just one change of line and a few stops of the subway left. 
I should meet my contact person of the school at the Gangxia station exit B, but I was nearly one hour early, so I stood around and observed the people. The corner wasn’t very nice, a building lot and some begging people around the corner. My contact person, a very young woman arrived on time and lead me to my new home. 
Until now it was all so easy, really, but it couldn’t just continue that way, couldn’t it? No, of course not … I will tell you about my start in Shenzhen in the next post.
I hope you forgive me if my china posts are not well layouted. But I cannot preview them for my page is blocked. The wordpress app is not, phew! But I can’t access neither facebook, twitter or google from here now so please leave your comments on the blog for I can’t see it when you comment on twitter or facebook!

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Time Wall or Chinese Wall

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Only a few hours to go before my flight to Hong Kong takes off from Zurich Airport. 11 hours to fly and 7 hours time shift. I was planning on that day for the last few months and now it arrived so quickly!

Today is the day of my time wall. I can’t think behind it. I can’t even think after my 4 months stay in China when coming back, because I have absolutely no idea how the stay will change me. I can’t just think my life on like it was until now, all normal. So time stops today and I will be glad when I can pass this wall in my head and time will catch up again tomorrow.

Staying 4 months all by myself in a foreign country I don’t speak the language so well and I haven’t got a clue, what I’m expecting, is a bit scaring me. I will be glad if I find my way to my Hong Kong hotel tomorrow evening and if I find the way to my homestay family in Shenzhen on Sunday. This really is a big adventure for me!

It was hard to say goodbye to oll my loved ones, I’m really not good in that and especially not when I myself can’t still believe it that I’m leaving for so long! My mother wished that all I’m expecting comes true. But what do I expect? Do I expect so much? Keeping expectations low always helps to be on the plus side, but of course I’m expecting a lot of things, even when I didn’t think about it.

I expect that I will better learn Chinese and I can speak more fluently and can actually understand when people are talking.

I expect that I will meet a lot of people, expierence a lot of things, see a lot of things and get to know the Chinese culture and people, not just the tourist point of view but a glimpse into reality.

I expect that my homestay family is nice to me, likes me and I won’t have any trouble with them.

I expect there to be a toilet in my appartment (really, I do!), a shower and a washing mashine.

I expect the school I’m going to be teaching me the language in a good manner, that the teachers will be good and excited and that the school also takes care of me.

I expect me to come along with all that new impressions, the Chinese culture and people, that I always find my way and that I don’t get lost, don’t despair when there is a problem or when one of my expectations doesn’t come true.

And I expect all my beloved ones to be still there when I come back and to looking forward to that moment.

I will miss you all!

I will keep you up-to-date in my blog and write about the things I’m going to expierence. So my next post will be from China. I hope you are as excited as I am!