A small update

Being a student at BLCU and in Beijing is fantastic.

All the people you are meeting, the great food you eating ( or cook-me and Yilin are getting better and better in cooking!), enjoying the spare time you have with friends, doing homework in one of the many cafés on campus or in Wudaokou, shopping cheap and nice things, biking around (if you have a bike), walking through the many Hutongs, and so much more!

Right now the weather is lovely in Beijing, sunny and 15-20 degrees celcius. I love to ride around on my electric bike ( btw, I finally got new keys), feeling the wind blowing in my face, being faster than all the walking and bicycling people, not worrying about traffic lights or traffic rules..

But the good weather will not last for long, because the sandstorms are coming, along with its horror. Beijingers says that people can´t go out, or drive, because they can not see anything. In the recent years, it has become much better because of tree plantings, but still, the sand from the deserts in Inner Mongolia and Mongolia is still there and coming closer and closer to Beijing. And after the sandstorms, the heat and humidity will come and kill us all with overwhelming hot weather. So I´m enjoying the weather we have now to its fullest!

This semester has been good so far, and I have actually been studying and doing all my homework. I got new teachers and new classmates, and they are all really nice and fun. And I´m surprised that so many got Chinese girlfriends in my class! (3!) I was asking my Australian classmate the other day how he and his Chinese girlfriend met, and before he even got to answer, I jokingly said : in Sensation?  (a club in Wudaokou), and my other classmate was laughing so hard.. because it was true. Well, the best way to learn a language is in bed, as Ricardo´s father told him..

Speaking about love and Sensation, there are so many new couples on campus! And even my flatmates have some romances going on. It must be the feeling of spring coming :) I guess Sensation is a place for love seeking people to go to. I have a few friends who found their girlfriend/boyfriend there, and some are still together.. Looking at all the couples kissing and hugging around, I envy them a lot. Being apart from my boyfriend is hard, because we lived together and did everything together.  Luckily I´m going to INDIA(!!!!) tomorrow to visit him for two weeks!

I also welcomed two mini turtles and one beautiful rabbit into our family! 

Me and Yilin´s cooking skills are getting so good!! 

But even though our cooking rocks, burgers at Bluefrog at Mondays is a must.. :) 

Marte visiting me in Beijing! In two days we visited 6 different tourist attractions :o  

After Marte left, Runa came. She visited me for 10 days, so more time to check out Beijiing :)

I love seeing a blue sky. We live in the 7th floor of this building.

My two baby turtles. The darker one is the male, lighter one the female. 

My cute bunny. The race is called Belgian Mango Rabbit

And we call her Mango, because when we got her she was the size of a mango, and her nice color reminds us of a mango

The next day my good friend got the same rabbit, but a male, hoping to make some babies.. 

Now my bunny is so big!! No more the size of one mango, but two mangos! 

India, tomorrow <3

Bad Blogger

To be honest, I am not a good blogger at all. 

I blog very seldom, I don´t write good posts and it is probably very boring to read my blog. 

This is because I don´t know what to write about, and I don´t know how to make a blog interesting and fun, and to make readers longing for more posts. Another reason is that I don´t have time to spend everyday blogging, or trying to figure out what to blog about. What I would like to do is just to posts lot of pictures. Pictures tell more than a thousand word right? But that would be too boring for you guys. 

So from now on, I´m going to try to blog at least once per month, like a summary of what I have been doing after every month. And if something very interesting happens, maybe I will blog about that too.

:)

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