Tibet Trip part 2

We were walking out the station and searching for one particular thing: a guy holding up a sign with Annie’s name on it. It did not take long to find him and it also did not take long before we got our first ‘souvenir’ from Tibet: a white scarf. It apparently is the warmest way of welcoming someone new into Tibet. With scarves around our neck, we walked to our van that will bring us to all our destinations for the next 4 days. We went to our hotel, not to rest, but just to put down our luggage and immediately go to our first place of interest, because resting is for the weak! We went to the Jokhang Temple, which is the most important temple for Tibetans, but unfortunately, due to the fact that it was National Holiday, the temple was closed. In the end we stayed around in the surrounding area of the temple and had our first look of Lhasa.

Tibet Trip part 1: the train trip

Hey everyone!

It has been while! Some of you probably thought that I already stopped blogging on BlogSpot, and that is true in some sense; I was considering stopping blogging here and continuing on Youtube only, because maintaining a Youtube blog and a BlogSpot blog is too time consuming. I kept that mindset until today when I came back from Tibet. Yes, I just came back from a 10-day trip in Tibet with (of which 6 days is traveling only) with 4 classmates of mine: Annie, Benita, Mickey and Sander. I experienced many things during my trip to Tibet, and it is not possible to include everything in just one video. Thus I have decided to write a blog about it!

My first week in Beijing

Hey everyone!

Sorry that I have been so quiet lately. Ever since I arrived in Beijing a week ago it has been quite busy: moving in my room, registering for my university, meeting new people and other things. Meeting so many people has been hard as I already am not good with faces and names. Meeting over 30 people within a week and then remembering all of their names is too overwhelming!

First of all, when a person stays for longer periods in another country, he needs to get some housing, which is the first thing I did when I got back to Beijing. I got to my room in Zhongguanyuan Global Village, which are the new dormitories of Beijing University. Settled down in my room, but unfortunately, as the people that watch my vlogs know, I have a wall immediately in front of my window. Watch my youtube video “The rambling in Beijing” for a short tour through my room.

Relative quiet days

Hey there again!

It has been a while again since I last wrote something on my blog. To be honest, not a lot has been happening lately, mainly due to the weather. The last week it has been terribly hot in the area of Chengdu, so hot that it was not possible for me anymore to go visit places. But that does not mean that nothing happened of course!

The giant Buddha of Le Shan

Well hello there again!

This is the continuation of my previous blog post where I visited Du Jiang Yan (都江堰) and ended in my hotel in Le Shan (樂山). Having spent a night in a hotel and sleeping with the air-conditioning on to the max, I felt renewed the next day. I also managed to watch the news in a language that I can understand (English) for the first time since I arrived in China. Both refreshed and updated of the world news, I felt it was a great start of the day. 

When in China, you need to eat the local food, and so breakfast should also be Chinese. I had rice porridge with Baozi (steamed meat buns), delicious! 

And off I went to a place that I have been looking forward to visiting:  the 71 meter tall Buddha in Le Shan! So I got there in the morning using the same tactic as the day before, get there before the main crowd arrived.

My trip to Du Jiang Yan

Hello there!

Sorry that I have not updated my blog lately, I lost my accessibility to Blogger for the last couple of days :( So this blog is slightly outdated...

! I have been walking a lot for the last two days as I have visited two prominent places of interest in the surrounding area of Chengdu.  On the first day I visited the Du Jiang Yan (都江堰)!

When visiting places that attract many tourists, one thing you must remember: get up early and leave early so you arrive there before it’s crowded with thousands of people, which is exactly what I did. It was arround an hour of driving and I arrived there before the heat of the Chinese sun was present.

My first days in Chengdu

Hey guys!


So I got on the plane last Friday at a pretty late time, at 10 in the evening and took off to my next destination. Somehow people in China do not care too much about the entertainment system in planes, because the plane again did not have anything to do in (do something about it ChinaAir!)
I arrived 2 and a half hours later at the land which is known for its spicy food, pandas and pretty girls… Yes, I have arrived in Chengdu in the province of Sichuan. 

My departure and arival to Beijing

Finally the day has come. I have been looking forward to this day for years. As I said goodbye to my parents and family, it finally sunk into me: I am going to China. We stepped into the car on this hot summer day, one of the few these last months, and off we went to the airport of Dusseldorf. One and a half hour later I arrived, said goodbye to my mother (she was the driver) and my adventure begins. A feeling of both nervousness and excitement went through me, as this was my first time that I leave to a far country on my own, let alone stay in a foreign country for half a year!

Walking around makes people hungry, just as it did to me. Here and there I had something to eat, including some nice pancakes. The first portion of pancakes I was supposed to get somehow exploded in the waitress’ hand as she was handing it over, which caused pieces of pancake to fly around over the bar.  Plate shattered, pancake everywhere, chocolate sauce over my hand, it was quite a scenario. I did in the end get a second portion for free, but what a waste for the first one to “explode” as the pancake was de-li-cious! 

There is only one thing remaining before I leave to China, and that is waiting…

Well, I didn’t wait that long there actually, only about 45 minutes. Got on board of the plane, chased some Germans out of the seat I was supposed to sit on, and laid back and enjoy the onboard entertainment… But faith didn’t want me to amuse myself onboard. There was no entertainment at all in the plane, so my flight became the longest 10 hours that I have experienced in recent memory.

The first thing I noticed when I finally arrived in Beijing is that everything is big. From the airport, to the flat apartments, from the campus to the city itself, the scale of things outweighs the scale of the Netherlands by at least 5 fold. It took me well over one and a half hour by metro to reach my hostel from the airport! Heat is another something you cannot ignore in Beijing. The best way to describe the feeling is as if you open a hot oven, and instead of moving back, you force yourself into the oven. Sweat covered my entire body within minutes.

I checked into the hostel, took a cab to Beijing University to meet my contact person, got a tour around the campus, had dinner and went back to my room to take a refreshing shower and we have ended up where we are now, and that is in my room typing thing blog entry.

Unfortunately I couldn’t take many pictures after my arrival in Beijing, but I promise you guys that in the future, there will be more pictures!

See you,

We Fong

Introduction

Hey all!


First blog post that I have ever written in my life here. This blog is going to be about my life and adventures during my stay in China. I will be going on an exchange to Peking (Beijing) University and I will be staying in China from the 3rd of August till the 15th of January. 
So what do I hope to learn from my exchange? Of course I will learn some new things from attending lectures at the university, but why go to a far country if that was my only goal? No, I hope to learn more about the Chinese language and culture.


But, let me introduce myself first. My name is We Fong (伟峰) and I am a Dutch-born Chinese. Being raised in the Netherlands means that my mind is more similar to a westerner than that of a Chinese one. When I was younger I wasn't interested in my origins at all, I found it even annoying; I looked different, I was treated different by other people of my age, I had to learn another language and more. I liked Japan more: anime, manga, crazy people on tv, "what more do you want?" was my thought back then. My interest in China only began a small 4 years ago due to my 'discovery' of Chinese pop music. From that point on I read more and more about the history, culture and media and my interest began to grow, but I would also say that maturing also contributed to this.


I am 20 years 'young' and just finished my second year of my bachelor in Economics at Tilburg University. Studying there for two years sparked my curiosity in China even more, as almost half of all the students in my program are Chinese students that came to Tilburg to study. I asked them many questions regarding how life is in China and how their way of thinking is. I think this opened up my mind that not everyone thinks the same as people do here and that I should be open-minded for that.
Ever since my divulgence in China, going on an exchange to China has always been one of my goals. If you want to know more about a country, what way is better than going to live and study there for a longer period of time. I think my exchange to China, even though it is just for half a year, will be an important part of my life and an eye-opening experience.


So why am I blogging? Well, there are multiple reasons. Writing this blog can help some people considering going on exchange to China or that are just interested in China. It would be nice is this blog can help people making decisions regarding going to China or not. Another reason is that I can regard this as some kind of personal diary, which is nice for in the future to look back at. And let us not forget the financial compensation that I receive from my University to write a blog, which is never bad.


I hope you will enjoy reading and following me experiencing China first-hand. If you have any questions, comment below or send me an e-mail.   :)


We Fong