Home sweet home

Finally home from our trip! We had a great time, saw a lot of interesting things and just enjoyed it all. I missed Beijing though, and I`m glad we made it home :) 

We encountered a lot of problems with trains because of the Chinese New Year celebration. When we started on our travel, everyone was going back home, and when we wanted to get back to Beijing, the celebration was over so everyone was also on their way back to work. Almost in every city, we had problems with trains or buses. In Xian there were no train tickets back to Beijing so we had to fly. (We had to get home before the 9th). We flew to Tianjin, and wanted to take a bus or train to Beijing. However, there were no tickets left!! So we spent half the night waiting for the next train which had a few hard seats left. We finally arrived in Beijing 6am. 

My tip is to not to go travel in China during Chinese New Year. Everything is more expensive and you think its warmer in the south, but its not because the coldest days in a year is actually during new year! 

Also, almost every taxi driver wants double the price, e.g normal price is 7, but they want 20!

The good part is that there is almost no tourists wherever we go. Not as crowded as during summer, and that we like :)

Now I have been to 4 of the places I wanted to travel to, without counting the cities from Guangdong province. Altogether we visited 9 cities :)

(My post about where I wanted to travel: Travel in China)

Shanghai

88 floors down!

Meeting my friends in Shanghai :D 

Guangzhou, pearl river

Eating chicken feet in Shenzhen

and bird head..

Sunny and warm in Shenzhen!

Eating Japanese food

Shenzhen nightscene

We went to a bar on the 100th floor

Chillin in a bar on the 100th floor in Shenzhen

Spa/Karaoke/Restaurant

Chinese new year flower street market

Its only open once a year; a few days before the Chinese New Year

Turtles

Grandpa teaching Ricardo Chinese calligraphy :) 

Zhanjiang

Guilin

Li River

The picture of the 20 yuan bill is in Guilin! 

Yangshuo, west street

bamboo rafting

Beautiful Yangshuo

Feeding water buffalos

Reed Flute Cave in Guilin

We were in Guiyang for 7 hours, but sadly could not make it into the city. (Arrived 5am and had to take a flight 1 pm. We only wanted to sleep, so we "slept" in the airport for 5 hours ) 

Terracotta warriors in Xi an

Fantasy club

Street food in Xi an

The drum tower

travelling

Dear readers, i am going away on a trip around china for 3 weeks with my boyfriend and a good friend of us. We are going by flights, trains and buses. First stop is shanghai, then we will go down to guangzhou, shenzhen, and celebrate chinese new year in yangjiang and zhanjiang (i have family there). After the celebration we will be headed to guilin, guiyang, xi an and then back to beijing again. I am so looking forward to this trip and going to the warmer south, because beijing is too cold!! (And im norwegian.. everyone says i should be used to this weather, but beijing is actually colder than my city in norway!) 

I will give an update again next year. The dragon year :)

Christmas Eve

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

My mum and sister arrived on Christmas day and brought me a lot of Norwegian stuff. (''Knekkebrød'', smoked salmon, Norwegia cheese, Brelett BUTTER!!!, gingerbread++) I couldn't have asked for a better start on the day:)

On Christmas eve we ate dinner in a really nice Japanese restaurant, then we headed to Sanlitun to party.

Our mini Christmas tree

Too much good Japanese food

Left side: My mum, sister and me. Right side: Yilin's aunt, Yilin and Ricardo

Sister, mum and me

My other family

Starting out with shooters in Nanjie bar

Riding on a tuck tuck to VICS

Partying in Beijing

There are two main clubs in Wudaokou ( the area I live in), Sensation and Propaganda. Everyone goes there because it's cheap and close. Open bar on every wednesday cost 50 for guys and 30 for girls. Every thursday is ladies night, and we get 3 free drinks. (You will actually get 6 free drinks, 3 in Sensation and 3 in Propaganda). It doesn't cost anything to enter, and you can leave your clothes and bags there for free. Every Friday is shot night in sensation, 5yuan for kamikaze or tequila, and during the weekends is so packed, there won't be any space to dance! And I like to have some space when I dance, so it's actually much better to go there early in the night, during the weekdays. The clubs won't be so crowded, and you get free drinking tickets if you go there on a monday or tuesday.

My friends like to go to Sensation more than Propaganda, but it's the same for me. Both places looks the same, got the same prices of drinks and shots, same music, same events, and even the decorations inside are the same. 

Propaganda

Me and Ricardo in Propaganda

Pyros Pizza, La Bamba or Helens Cafe are good places for pre-drinks and having a fun time with friends before going to night clubs, or for just a chill night out.

La Bamba

45 yuan for 3 liters beer at Helen's

Helen's

If we don't want to party in Wudaokou, we go to Sanlitun in Chaoyang district. Sanlitun is the number one party place in Beijing. Usually we go to a club called VICS on thursdays, because it's open bar. 100 yuan for guys, and 60 for girls. There is one big dancefloor+ bar in one room, and a smaller dancefloor+ bar in another room. The music is quite good, toilets are really clean, and we always have fun there. However, the alcohol is really bad. Im gonna write an own post about that later. MIX is the club opposite to VICS, where all the Chinese people go. It is supposely more expensive than VICS, where all the foreigners party. MIX and VICS looks the same inside and outside, with the same music, but I think MIX is bigger.

MIX

On saturdays we like to go to a club called Juicy ( its in Chaoyang, but not in Sanlitun), if it is open bar. There it costs 30 for girls and 60 for guys if you have a Juicy card. If not, it costs 50 and 100. Every saturday there is a competition; bikini, wet t-shirt, best halloween outfit, best dancing competition and so on. The winner gets 1000 yuan and a bottle of wine or champagne.

Juicy, Wet t-shirt contest

Earlier in autumn, we used to go to a club called Kokomo, which is a rooftoop club. But it is too cold to go there now. In the same building which Kokomo is in, there are 4 other bars/clubs. I think two of them are gay bars, because one time me and Ricardo went into one of the bars, started dancing, and the guys there were looking weirdly at us. Two guys started to dance on the pole, and a few guys came up to Ricardo. We went into the next bar, and the same thing happened. This time we noticed that there were lots of guys, all dressed up, and then we figured it might be a gay bar..

Kokomo

Some saturdays we also go to Salsa Caribe, which is supposed to be the best place for salsa. There is a liveband which plays there for 1 hours every saturday, and that is the only salsa music they play. Usually it's just normal clubbing music and reggaeton. The drinks are also really expensive, so we like to go to Nanjie bar (the bar opposite to Salsa Caribe) to drink there first, and then go dancing. But I would not recommend Salsa Caribe for salsa dancing. In sanlitun there is soo many different bars and clubs, but I haven't been to that many yet.

The flower guy which is always outside of Salsa Caribe

Nanjie bar

Salsa Caribe: my latinos

Salsa Caribe. Elizabeth won the contest, and got a bottle of red wine. (The girl with long hair in black and white)

Every second Saturday there is a Latin Party at Pyro Pizza, so all the latinos go there. It's a night full of reggaeton, bachata, salsa, merengue and lots of Colombian music! (the DJ is Columbian).

Latin Party at Pyro Pizza

Dorm 6

I lived in dorm 6 for two months, in a big single room, with my own bathroom. (Room 213)

*Positive things: 

- Super comfortable bed (people living in the same dorm were jealous of my bed, their's were really hard)

- Close to everything: classes, gym, dinning hall, supermarket, cafes

- Everything was clean, and the room was actually really nice

- It was nice to have an own room, my own personal space.

Negative things:

*Fuwuyuans are really bitchy and strict.  (The ladies ''guarding'' the building)

- You have to show student ID everytime. My boyfriend Ricardo came to my room everyday, so they knew him well. But sometimes, he forgot his student ID, and they wouldn't even let him come in for 5 minutes. Also, the rule is that guests can only visit after 4pm, but they do let some come in earlier, just not my boyfriend. 

- They never smile, and act as they don't know a word of English (but they do)

- They won't come and clean your room every week, they will only take out the trashbins every morning (including saturday and sunday). If you don't want them to come in and disturb your beauty sleep, put the trashbins outside your room every night, or at least during weekends, because they will come really early. 

* The kitchen

- On the website, it says there is a ''kitchen'', but in reality, its not really a kitchen.

- There is also specific opening hours, but sometimes the fuwuyuans forgets about it

I really like to cook, but couldn't do it in that kitchen. However, I used the microwave oven quite often to make sandwich with melted Norwegian cheese :)

* Strict rules
- The doors are closed from midnight to 6am. If you want to come in, you have to ring the bell. In the beginning the fuwuyuans used a big lock, so they had to get up and come to open the door themselves. Now they use a magnetic thing, which opens when they push a button which is inside their room, so they don't have to come and unlock it.
Edit: When I lived there, they did not write down your name every time you came late. However, I have heard that they started doing that now. If you have more than 10 times or so, you might get kicked out..

- Visitors can only come from 4pm to 10pm in the weekdays, and 10am to 10pm in the weekends. No one can sleep over. Me and my boyfriend found a way to sneak him in.. but got caught twice, always the next day when he tried to sneak out again.

* The shower

- I couldn't take showers in the mornings, because of the lime ( calcium-containing inorganic materials ).

It made my hair really dry.

lime

* The refrigerator and closet
- Too small. I couldnt fit all my clothes in the closet, and I couldn't buy much food and drinks to put in the fridge. 

I really liked living there, but I couldn't stand the fuwuyuans. The fuwuyuans in the other dorms are much more nice and not strict at all! They let people in after 10pm, people can sleep over, and they do actually smile.

Now I live in an apartment with my boyfriend and 2 other guys, 5 minutes from school with the bike. I think it's much better :)

The story of our bike

 When we first got it in the beginning of October, it looked like this:

After two weeks, we crashed for the first time and the bike looked like this:

Then two weeks after that, Ricardo was drunk and he drove back home with 3 persons sitting on it.. now it looks like this:

Now we have had it for almost 2 months, and we have both lost our keys to the electric bike..

The bike is really fun and nice to have, because its so much faster than walking or bicycling. One guy I met had one of these electric bikes for 7 months, and it's still working. He bought new and better batteries, and thats it. He had no problems with the bike, unlike us. I think we have been to the bike shop at least 5 times to fix it! Our bike will definetely not last for 7 months.