Sooooo I've been in china for well over a week now and only just managed to find a wifi spot to sit with my laptop and write my first china blog post. which means i'm sat with some of the girls in our local (the irish bar) stealing the internet and eating a "chicken" burger ... yep being very cultured I know.
I literally don't know where to begin with what's been going on over here, it's been a massive blur of nights out, hungover sightseeing and probably far too much western food.
So I guess I'll start at the beginning.... THE HAPPY DRAGON.
I decided to get into Beijing early to sleep off the jetlag and get a headstart on getting used to the Chinese culture before orientation began. Instead, after getting robbed blind by a taxi driver from the airport with my long lost twin sister Beth (apparently), we met up with some other westerners and got drunk on cheap Chinese beers which resulted in my first Beijing night out and Chinese hangover. Oooooooops. After a quick trip to Tian'men square and the forbidden city, it was back to the hostel to get ready for the start of Chinese New Year. I'll be honest, I wasn't really sure what Chinese new year was all about before I arrived and was kind of assuming it would be similar to NYE in England with a bit of a countdown and a few cheap fireworks. Ohh how wrong I was. When midnight rolled round, we all left the hostel bar to go watch some fireworks the hostel was putting on for us. Instead of fireworks in England with red tape everywhere and health and safety madness, these fireworks were being set off in the middle of a road (which cars and bikes were of course still driving down) which was about two meters from where we were all standing. What health and safety? A bit of firecracker actually shot me in the arm... welcome to China! Aside from these, fireworks were being let off as far as you could see into the distance on every single street in Beijing, which was an amazing sight that I will never forget. I thought I could watch them forever they were so beautiful. A week later however when the bloody things are still going off at EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY EVEN FIRST THING IN THE MORNING the novelty kind of wears off. But still an amazing experience that I will never forget.
So after an incredible, blurry few days at the Happy Dragon with about 30 other teaching interns, we alll made our way to the University campus for our orientation. The campus wasn't really what I was expecting, with a quite nice room and no squat toilets (so far). It didn't take us long from moving in our stuff to find our local Irish pub which of course pleased all my new Irish friends. The 10Y beers kept me quite happy too. 8am starts every day was a bit of a shock (I haven't got up that early in years unless someone was paying me to do so) but after a few intense days of TEFLing I can officially say I'm trained to teach english as a foreign language - but still couldn't feel any less prepared if I tried. We don't find out our placements for another week so everyone is trying to keep that at the back of their minds and enjoy Beijing, which turns out to be a pretty cool place to be. Aside from the pollution, that sticks in your clothes, hair and up your nose from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, and some Chinese people who want to take a million photos with you and find it hilarious when you attempt to speak mandarin. I know I'm not really selling it but I really like it here. Everything is weird, from the adverts on the walls to the food (mmmm, vacuum packed chicken feet). But in such a hilarious way. I hope I get placed in a big city and not in the middle of nowhere... the amount of people who stare in Beijing is apparently nothing compared to in a smaller city, so I don't fancy dealing with 5 months of that.
Tomorrow we head for our "tour day" which is the day we've all been waiting for.... THE GREAT WALL. I'm so excited and hopefully the pollution won't be too bad so we actually get a nice view.
There's so much more to say but I literally can't think right now. I think a mix of jetlag, hangover and general tiredness has had a negative impact on my ability to form sentences so sorry if this made very little sense. I can't believe I even had to consider whether I wanted to come here.... if you want to travel just do it, every day is so different.
for now I'll leave it at that because all of us on our laptops are slowing down the wifi in the bar and none of us are even eating or drinking any more and the chinese lady behind the bar is getting a bit annoyed. To anyone who made it to the end of this post, well done, and more to come soon.
Love you long time x
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