Ciaossu,

On November 7, just 2 days after returning from Fukuoka, Japan, I once again flew off to Shandong China for my Chinese Global Classroom Programme. It was an exhilirating experience to take the plane with all my school mates and I watched the sunrise from my window seat;D Well, the experience on the whole was very new to me. It was the first time I would stay in a boarding school and also the first time I travelled overseas with my friends.

Upon our arrival in Beijing airport, we had to take another domestic flight to Weihai, which took about 1 hour. I had my first taste of Chinese food on that internal flight. We arrived in Weihai in the afternoon and the tour guide decided to take us shopping first. Of course we were all exhausted since we took a night flight to China and really wished for nothing but a warm snuggly bed the moment our plane touched down. There was no helping it and we went to a mall. I wasn't particularly thrilled at the idea of shopping so I sat down with my friend and we had a pleasant chat. She was unwell so we returned to the bus early. After shopping, the tour guide brought us for dinner at a restaurant in a budget hotel. There, I learnt that Weihai locals like stronger tastes and so I didn't really enjoy dinner. The food was tieher too salty, too oily, too sweet, too sour or too bitter. LOL. Besides, I was exhausted and didn't have much of an appetite. We finally arrived in the school at around 7pm. By then, the sun had long gone and I thought that it was already 12am. Surprisingly, the students were still having lessons. A few students volunteered to help carry our luggages to our rooms. I felt slightly embarrassed but extremely grateful since our rooms were on the 6th floor. Just climbing up took quite a large amount of effort. That concluded my first day in China as me and my room mate sank into bed with grateful hearts, falling asleep almost instantly despite the cold.

It was considered winter or late autumn when we went to Weihai. Despite the cold, our rooms were not heated and mornings were terribly cold. Our window would be completely misted up every morning and the taps in our attached toilet dispensed ice-cold water. It was in a way, not all that bad since the cold water woke us up from our sleepy state every morning when we washed our faces. We finally met our buddies on the second day! The local students that would be showing us around met us after breakfast and brought us to our respective classrooms. I was lucky to be in the same class as two other students from my country. We sat near each other and had a great time chatting. There wasn't much time for interaction since classes were -strictly no talking- ones. I was surprised by the amount of discipline the students had when it came to their studies. It seemed like their whole life revolved around school and homework. They had school from 7.30am to 9.30pm and on saturdays, 8am to 5pm. What a life! It must be agony to not be able to do leisure activities on weekdays.

Well, lessons were quite normal. The teachers hardly joked around and they had politics class. I found their curriculum quite propagandic since they tried to instill a sense of communism among students. A student told us that they were socialist moving towards communism and that president Hu Jintao was not seen as the president in china, but the 主席. That was interesting to know.

Well, me and my roommate stuck quite closely together and met these two cute students who randomly decided to take us to the beach. It was pretty:) and we felt special since only the two of us got to go there.

We spent about 10 boring days in this fashion, attending classes and learning about Chinese culture. The days were rather eventful. However, me and my room mate created our own way of entertainment. There was a convenience store in the school and we bought table tennis bats and balls. We got permission to use the table tennis room and had an awesome time playing;D In fact we enjoyed ourselves so much that we decided to skip the shopping trip my teacher-in-charge had planned during one of the days. My friend fell in love with table tennis and our days passed enjoyably.

At the end of the 10 days, we left the school to go touring. It was quite a new experience and I learnt alot of history. Overall I had fun but not as much as compared to Japan. Now I'm blogging, I realized I don't have as much to say. 14 days in China's really too much. I think the best highlight was climbing the great wall:D It was tiring! HAHA XD Also, I would like to stress on the friendliness of the Shandong locals. They were so hospitable and it was an absolute delight to interact and experience their culture during my stay there. Can't wait for my buddy to come over to Singapore in January;D We're going to have loads of fun:D

With that I end my post on China. You gotta experience it yourself at least once in your life time:) So ciao then.

Love,
Elizabeth


PS: If u go to china, bring loads and loads of bottled water!