This is going to be a great year!  What have you been up to?

This year, I decided I’ll make at least one video every week to show you guys a little of what is going on here in China and anything interesting I manage to get up to.  I hope you have some spare minutes for the following clips!  Favourite the page or subscribe for more

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

2013 is finally here!  I thought I’d take the time to set myself some challenges..  One of them is to visit EVERY single subway station on the Beijing Subway map (below)..  There are currently 261 stations and over 275 miles of track which makes this the longest subway system in the world!  I will visit every single one this year and have a look around to see some places I maybe would never normally have reason to visit.

Beijing Subway map. By 2015 the length of the tracks is set to double, so I’d better get started before they add more stations!

The first stops are Tiantongyuan North (天通苑北), Tiantongyuan (天通苑) and Tiantongyuan South (天通苑南).  I have grouped these stations together because they are all part of one HUGE housing district.  There are over 1.5 million residents in this housing suburb of Beijing, making it the largest of its kind in the capital.

How many people live in your city?  Could they all fit into this one housing community in Beijing?

Come back to see where I go next week!

I had previously felt that there was very little Christmas spirit here in Beijing, but then my friends came to the rescue and brought a little to me!

Christmas here in Beijing is purely a commercial affair..  Shopping malls are lined with Christmas trees and decorations to attempt to get more visitors – it works of course!

However, unlike at home, it stops at the malls and restaurants.  People go about their daily lives on Christmas Day like it’s any other day of the week.  Not a single thought about Santa, family, presents or Turkey.  Ahh..

Well, we have a community of ‘Westerners’ here in Beijing and we tried our best to bring a bit of Christmas spirit to Beijing  It was a lot of fun!

Back home in England, me and some friends have a tradition of going to eat Indian food in the run up to Christmas..  We usually go to our favourite restaurant Rajah in Nottingham, however this time I could not attend so I was there in spirit on Christmas Day eating at an Indian restaurant here in Beijing instead :-p

Haha, I will take that last samosa – thanks!

Then I went with some friends to eat at a Teppan Yaki restaurant in the evening.  So so so so delicious!  So much fun too

Dessert

I am telling you – it was a COLD Christmas..  Freezing cold!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!  See you all in the new year

Any special plans for the new year?

My good friends back home sent some  presents to me!  Thank you all so so so much!  This has really made me smile!

Christmas cheer is nearly obsolete here in Beijing, apart from a few bars and shopping malls who only want my money.  This has made me all warm inside and given me the Christmas boost I needed.

Hope to see you all soon!

They have built huge cities capable of housing 5 million residents, before there is even anyone ready to live there.  These cities come complete with town halls, government offices, fire stations, police stations etc – but no one working there or living there yet!  It’s crazy.  So of course, when I found out there was an abandoned theme park (the largest in Asia!) just outside Beijing, I had to have a look!

Located in Beijing’s Changping district 昌平区, Chenzhuang Village 陈庄村, this park stands out from it’s farmland surroundings.  On the bus, I was thinking to myself ‘how will I know when to get off?’  But there was no way I could miss this monster tower peaking over the hills.  The park carves out 120 acres of previously farmer-owned land.

Car park, but no cars..

Logo suggests they had / have big hopes.

I didn’t go inside.. But the space was empty, HUGE and dark! Spooky..

Maybe I can help them finish building the park? I’ll grab some bricks.

Surrounded now by corn fields.. How strange!

Anything like this around where you’re from?  The land around this tower is actually pretty huge!  However, there are myths that it was illegally ‘purchased’ from farmers who are slowly starting to reclaim it as you can see from all the crops surrounding me.  This project started in 1998 and has been abandoned since then it’s been an attraction to foreigners living here in Beijing.  Most regular tourists don’t know about this place.

For any of you in Beijing wanting to know how to get there:  The cheapest way is to take the bus 919 from Deshengmen Station 德胜门公车占, between Jishuitan 积水潭 and Gulou Dajie 鼓楼大街.  Take this bus all the way to Chenzhuang Station 陈庄站 (about 1 hour).  I don’t have the exact price as I forgot to check when I swiped my card, but it’s around 10元 / £1.

It’s so much fun being around the kids and teaching them new things.  Not only new words and phrases, but about ‘Western’ culture too.  They love to hear stories about what I consider regular every day things, but to them it’s so different.  I am the same, I love to let them tell me stories (in English of course) about Chinese culture and their way of life.  We learn from each other – yes, my teachers are a bunch of screaming 5-11 year olds!

On the camp we saw an amazing dragonfly and I managed to get a nice clip -

In no particular order*click to enlarge*..

My first year here, I had no internet access in my home, so keeping you updated on the blog has been a major strain.  I could only access a weak signal of unrestricted Wi-Fi from the corner of the shared bathroom in the apartment.  This was fine for things like checking my Whatsapp messages, glancing over Facebook updates and the occasional Tweet – however uploading photos and videos to the internet was a joke.  So as a result, the blog was neglected.

Now, I have moved into a new apartment and have a reasonable internet connection of my own!  No more hijacking the neighbours from my bathroom (sounds creepy right?).  It’s definitely made a change to my online life!

So, where to start with telling you about my year in China..  Well, the beginning would be a good place.

Why China?

Yea, why??

I always wanted to go to Japan on holiday.  This came from my realisation that everything I thought was cool for a very long time, originated in Japan.  So I figured, Japan must be an interesting place for me to visit and that I’d enjoy learning the Japanese culture and maybe even the language too.  However, at the time me and my friend were planning to book tickets, there was a terrible earthquake in Japan followed by a tsunami and many other problems relating to the damage caused.  This was not the Japan I had dreamt of visiting, so I decided I would not book the ticket there this time.  I still really wanted to go to somewhere in Asia as it was still a place I’d never been to before.  China was selected as it sounded culturally interesting and relatively unknown.  The only thing I had heard about China before was ‘they all eat dogs there and there are a lot of factories’.  Very stereotypical.  I wanted to change this impression and I did.

I still really want to go visit Japan by the way! This will happen another time, I’m sure of it.

I’m here!

So, I came to mainland China for the first time last summer on a holiday to Beijing and Shanghai.  This was a life changing experience!  That time, I didn’t particularly enjoy Shanghai, but I was fascinated by Beijing!  I loved it so much, after getting home at the end of my trip, I wanted to go back so badly – and I did.

Last September after arriving in China, I lived on my friends sofa for the first week or so.  This was because I didn’t come here with any special deal including accommodation and airport pick-up, I came here alone, with no real plan other than to enjoy the next chapter of my life.

After getting here, I managed to get myself sorted out with a job and with some classes to learn Chinese.  It was the perfect combination!  My level of Chinese sky-rocketed in the first couple of months and I could’t believe how quickly it was all sinking in.  I studied French at school for 5 years and within 2 months here I could already say more in Chinese than I could ever have said in French.  School education eh..?

Every day is a different adventure out here and I love it!

Crisis after crisis

I am not sure if it’s me or if it happens to everyone else out here, but there seems to be a crisis I have to endure roughly every 3 months.  First it was my computer, it broke.  Then my iPhone was stolen, then after moving in to my new apartment, I had no money..  The list really goes on.  Sorry and thank you to all my friends for listening to me ramble on (and on) at times!

Beijing winter was a crisis of its own.  I have never experienced anything like it and do not look forward to going through it again this year!  The days had ‘highs’ of -5 and lows of -12.  This alone might not sound so extreme but add gale force winds and a climate so dry your skin cracks no matter how much water you drink or moisturiser you use – it was awful.

If I were to talk about every crisis I have had since coming to China, you might get the impression that I have made some kind of terrible mistake by coming out here!  You’d be wrong though, when I look back on what I have done out here, I have really loved every moment.

Best bits

I have had so many good times here and met so many ridiculously talented and interesting people.  This experience has been so enriching for me and has taught me so much about myself and the world we live in.  My highlights are definitely my times with friends old and new.

My family came to visit me earlier in the year and I had fun showing them around and giving them a taste of my life out here.  They had a great time and it was really good to see them!

I have visited different cities in China and so many tourist attractions.  Cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, Hong Kong and Shenzhen.  I have been to Hong Kong (my favourite city in the world) another few times and thoroughly enjoyed my trips.  It feels good to know I can go there almost any time I want to as it’s a ‘local’ destination.

I am so grateful to have such amazing people around me and amazing people still keeping in contact with me back home too.  I don’t want to say I feel special…  But I feel special!

Oh wow, have I done all of this without mentioning the food!?  The food here is out of this world.  I eat in a restaurant every day, every meal.  I have tried so so many different things.  I don’t know if my mouth can handle going back home to the food I ate in the UK.

Cultural differences

I’ve heard of a guard dog… But not a guard chicken!

From using chopsticks, to the correct time to take a shower, the cultural differences between the ‘West’ and China are immense!  Too much for some to handle, sometimes too much for me!  However, I have definitely learned to adapt to the way of doing things out here.  I am constantly being told things like ‘you can’t do that because…’.  These are for things that I have already been doing all my life, yet somehow now it’s detrimental to my health or the well-being of the others around me..  Oh boy.

Did you know, for example, it’s ‘completely going to ruin your stomach if you drink cold water’..  ’mosquitoes only bite people with sweet blood’..  ’if you eat spicy food you will get acne’..  ’Coca Cola is bad for your teeth, but sweets/candy is ok, so is not brushing your teeth twice a day..’  I have been (un)educated about the things I/we do in the ‘West’, every day is something new and equally confusing, but I just accept it and find myself doing as they do.

I have been to Chinese school, worked in different English schools and met so many people.  Every step of the way I have been reminded that China is still developing, the systems and processes of doing things feel alien to me and sometimes frustrate me.  I think of China as a giant baby, very powerful, but still learning.  I have studied a little Chinese history and realise now that there has been HUGE progress made and it is still happening now.  I have never been somewhere that has so much development going on at once and at such speed.  It really is a superpower!

Moving forward

I have decided I am going to focus more on the things I enjoy.  My friend here in Beijing sent me a video of Steve Jobs at Stanford University which got me thinking.  I need to focus on only the things in life that make me truly happy.  Everything else should hopefully fall into place.

I plan to be here in China for another year, learning the language and travelling a lot more.  I really want to go back to the UK with a sense of accomplishment, I don’t want to go back with any regrets, or wishing I’d have studied or travelled more.  I have a great set of friends out here and I am always making new ones every day.  I am very grateful to also have an amazing group of friends back home in the UK who have been supporting and encouraging me since I came here – I will see you all soon!  I can’t wait to see my family at home too!  I want to have some home cooked dinners and a good catch up!

My aim, is to get my level of spoken and written Chinese to a level so I can look for jobs where I can put these newly acquired skills to use.  I really love learning the Chinese language and all about Chinese culture.  Some really strange aspects and some really interesting ones too!

我觉得来中国时是我第最好的决定！我没想到我会非常喜欢中国但是这是我现在的想法！谢谢你中国欢迎我！我希望在这里的另一个快乐的一年！

One of Beijing’s six Ring Roads, the Second Ring Road is just one part of Beijing’s HUGE traffic network. 北京的西二环路。

There was once a time when I only associated China with bicycles and factories..  That hasn’t changed much, but I have learned so much more about this nation since arriving here a year ago.  Everyone’s dream is to own a car.  More specifically a German made car such as an Audi, BMW or Mercedes.  To be fair, this dream is echoed around the world in developed and developing economies.  The problem here however, is China’s massive population and the practical issues of accommodating this recent surge in China’s wealthy and their demand for cars.

These cars are creating bottleneck traffic throughout all the major cities in China.  With 21 million people, Beijing isn’t even China’s largest city, yet the traffic is at times unbelievable.  I had never even seen a road 16 or 18 lanes wide before coming to China!  Yet even with these monster sized roads, I could go outside at midnight in some places and find traffic comparable to rush hour in any major city around the world.

Now, there are still many bikes too, whether pedal bikes or E-Bikes (electronic bikes), however they are ridden mostly by the people who are yet to reach their dream of owning a car.  You see people driving cars through the tiniest of streets that clearly were not designed with 4×4 cars in mind.  Yet the status achieved by driving a car makes every driving struggle worthwhile, in the minds of the drivers here.

The only benefit of owning a car here is for ‘face’ value.  This means, if people can see you own a car, they think you are more wealthy and you gain some points for respectability.  Something I have still yet to understand completely.  Owning a car says something about your character?  Well, it does here.

How is the traffic where you live?

Imagine everyone looking at you in amazement because you know how to get on or off a city bus.  Or people stopping, mouth wide open, cigarette dropping from their bottom lip, amazed at the sight of you doing nothing but walking..  Well, that was what it was like!  Funny times!

I couldn’t live there though as there weren’t enough entertainment or cultural events taking place there.  I think China right now is 90% pivoting on Beijing and Shanghai.  If there is something ‘happening’ it’s in one of these cities.  I wouldn’t rule Tianjin out though, it may well get there in the near future as it’s currently China’s fastest developing city.

Have a little peep at some of the photos I took while I was there.  Can you tell the difference between here and Beijing?  I’d be very interested if you can!

I have sampled so many varieties of food since coming to China that I would never have been able to experience back home.  It’s amazing!

There are many foods I have already posted pictures of but here are some I have found after a quick skim of my iPhone.  Enjoy!

This is the only one I didn’t enjoy at all…

The best cookies in the world. Done.

Now I’m HUNGRY!  I need to eat, bye until next time