My life at CUHK

I have now been following this summer school for two weeks, which means that there is only one week left... So, this will probably be my last blog post.

These past two weeks have been pretty intense. Every weekday I have class from 9u30 to 16u30, which by itself might leave enough time for activities, but that doesn't account for the homework and the time spent studying the new material. Indeed, the usual activity after class is reviewing the new words, expressions and grammar of the day and preparing for the next day of class. Other than that, I also do a lot of sports, mostly going to the gym or going jogging outside. On an average day, I unfortunately do not have the time to go into Hong Kong city. 

For lunch, me and my classmates always eat at one of the 2 canteens close to our college. It's just a 5 minute walk to get there. The food is cheap and actually not too bad, although nothing compared to the delicious food you can find in the city. Dinner can conveniently be taken in the canteen at the lowest floor of my dorm building. Walking to and from the elevator is the only form of transport needed to get a decent meal.

So, what do I do in the weekends? Well, every saturday there is an organized activity. The first saturday, we all went to the main touristic spots in Hong Kong, such as Victoria Peak, the Avenue of Stars and Stanley. The second activity was a daytrip to Macao, the gambling paradise and ex-Portuguese colony just across the Western bay. And finally, last saturday I went to Lantau Island, which is a big island in to the southwest of Hong Kong island. It is famous for its hiking trails and for the Big Buddha statue. These trips have always been fun, but I still feel like seeing some other parts of the city by myself. Because of that, I went to explore areas such as Mong Kok, Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay. Hopefully, next week I will have the time to see some less famous parts of Hong Kong. 

But... Next friday the summer school concludes with an exam. What else could I expect?
The exam is supposedly pretty tough, so I will need to prepare accordingly. Looks like this last week is going to be tense. But after that, I will enjoy a genuinely relaxing holiday at home for a week. :)

To my family members reading this: see you soon! 

The nearly as famous view on Victoria Bay from the Avenue of Stars.

The famous view on Hong Kong Central district from Victoria Peak.

Mong Kok (Kowloon) street view.

Casual lunch at the school canteen.

Me in Macao. On the background is the impressive, but hideous building of the Grand Lisboa casino.

Group picture in Macao.

Dinner party for Nanami's birthday. This picture was taken way too soon. ;)

Group picture in Macao, The Venice casino. They made the place look like the actual Venice, complete with a fake blue sky and everything. Yes, this place is indoors.

好好学习，天天向上。 Everyone is studying in the common study room. We come everyday during lunch break.

The Big Buddha on Lantau Island.

My Campus!

I have arrived at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for the Summer School programme. Here I will study Chinese (Mandarin) for three weeks. The campus is stunningly beautiful. The whole area is built on a hill, with buildings scattered through the forested hillsides. The campus is a city in the city. Everything you need to survive, such as a supermarket, canteens and even a hairdresser, you can find within the campus. A few pictures can illustrate this...

My dorm room. Nice and spacious.

My roommate: Ming Pan. He is a Cantonese native who lives in Sydney.

This is the view from our dorm room.

Here we are taking a tour around the campus. Note: very sweaty.

The main campus, with fancy entrance.

Yes, there is even a swimming pool.

The gym at my hostel. I just have to take the elevator down 7 stories to get there. Time to start working out again!

Fully equipped washing room.

Bathroom on the 6th floor.

On the orientation day, those who wanted to had the opportunity to take a test to determine their level in Chinese. Because I felt my Chinese had improved a lot since I first came to China, I took the test. According to the teacher, my speaking is good enough for the level 2 class, but my reading and writing is only at the of the level 1 - upper class. That makes sense, since I have only been practicing Chinese through speaking with locals. My reading and writing did not improve by a lot. With this feedback, she offered me the choice. I could start in the lower class and go up one level if I felt that I could handle it, or I could start in the higher class and drop a level if it were to hard. I chose to start in the higher class. Tomorrow I'll find out if I can handle it!


P.S.: The weather in Hong Kong is not very pleasant. It is too damn hot and humid here for me. I am pretty much permanently sweating while I'm outside. Good thing there is AC everywhere.

A little bit like heaven on earth.

As I had been recommended to me by both locals and other travelers, I visited the county of Hualien (花莲) in the east of Taiwan. After a good first experience with couch surfing with Kenneth in Taipei, I decided to look for a host in Hualien. Through couchsurfing.com I got in touch with Dylan. He is an extremely nice guy, who takes a very active role as a host. Not only did he offer me a place to stay for the night, but he also accompanied me to see many places in the county, such as the Taroko Gorge. He also invited me to join him and his friends to the night market and to a personal birthday party. Then there's so many other things he helped me with, too many to write about... So Dylan, if you're reading this... Thank you so much! And to the other people reading this, I can gladly recommend you try couch surfing, be it as a host or as a guest. You will find that it will bring you unforgettable experiences that you otherwise would never have had.

Strike a pose.

My turn.

My host Dylan on the right with his best friend Harung on the left.

Coming to Hualien has made me understand why Taiwan used to be known in the West as Isla Formosa (beautiful island). Hualien boasts both impressive mountain ranges and beautiful subtropical beaches. Below, you will find pictures of the famous Taroko Gorge national park and of a relatively unknown, but picturesque beach.

Taroko Gorge. Unfortunately, this picture fails to capture the magnitude of this breathtaking scenery.

One of the numerous hiking trails in the Taroko Gorge national park.

Like paradise.

Random picture of the landscape alongside the road from Hualien City to Wanrong. Compare this to your daily commutation.

At last, time for some swimming. :)

At the night market, Dylan and his friends performed a little dancing show. It was based on the Taroko aboriginal dance, but with a little bit more modern movements added to it. I first helped by taking pictures and filming the whole event, but after a while I was already dancing with them on stage. :p It was a very fun and sociable experience.

Picture of the dancing performance. Will add a video later.

The Taroko aboriginals after their dancing show. On the left is Dylan, my couch surfing host.

I had planned to see a little bit more of the country, but I enjoyed my time in Hualien so much that I decided to stay here until the end of my stay in Taiwan. The 6th of august, I will leave for Hong Kong, where part three of this exciting journey will start: the summer school. There might not be so much to write about, since I will stay in one place for a while, but I will try to upload stories of the more interesting things I will do there.

Arrived in Taiwan! 台湾到了！

Disclaimer: this is the first post in a long while that I create on the day of the experience itself. I am however still writing articles about my past experiences in China, so you can scroll down from time to time to see if I wrote something new.

Time for episode two of my great journey through China!
I have parted ways with my buddies Yixin, Jan and Alice in Shanghai. I now embark on a month of solo travelling. My first stop is Taipei. I have no other concrete plan for the 10 days of my stay in Taiwan, but I'm sure that I will have many opportunities. I'll figure something out. ;)

Airport to city shuttle. I'm the only passenger.

My arrival in Taiwan is not without trouble. My luggage has mistakenly been removed from the airplane when I transferred in Hong Kong and I have not yet received it. I will probably only get it this afternoon.

I am now in the hip hostel called "I'm Inn Taipei". The staff has been very kind with me, helping me with the return of my luggage and many other things. We've had an interesting conversation about travelling, China-Taiwan and Tomorrowland. Since I have a lot of work to do and because I don't have my luggage yet, I am dedicating this day to blogging and learning some more Chinese.

Me writing this artice. Blogception.

Wrote a message on the wall of the hostel, token of gratitude for the warm welcome the staff gave me.

I decided to try something new here in Taiwan: couch surfing. Tonight I meet up with my host. He's a cool guy called Kenneth, 25 y/o, so I expect that we're gonna have a good time together.

P.S.: one big remark! The climate in Taipei is a lot milder than in Shanghai. I was expecting to only climb the ladder of transpiration, but I just love the weather here. This definitely proves a lot of people wrong. :p

Zhangjiajie National Park: a hiker's paradise

Tianmen Mountain

Ah, Zhangjiajie. This area in northern Hunan province is reknowned for its unique mountainous scenery. People from all over China travel to Zhangjiajie to see its famous national park. Popularity has risen even higher since the mountains have inspired the flying rocks in the Avatar movie (with the blue guys, not The Last Airbender).

In the whole area, there are two main 5A attractions. The first one is Tianmen mountain, which can be accessed by cableway from the city centre. The second one is the national park at Wulingyuan. We visited both.

While the view from Tianmen mountain is definitely amazing, I would not recommend doing it, as it is very pricy to take the cable car and the queue is 5-7 hours long. Up the mountain are some nice paths you can take. There are also two glass floor "skywalks", but you have to pay about €2/p.p. extra for that.

Forest path on Tianmen mountain

The really interesting part about Zhangjiajie is the national park at Wulingyuan. Here you can find the scenery that made Zhangjiajie so famous. The park features stone paths and hiking trails that allow for several days of hiking. We stayed in a hostel up in the mountains, which was definitely a good idea, because you can see a lot more of the park that way. You should not expect any more comfort than the absolute mimimum though.

The famous Zhangjiajie scenery, as it is found in the national park.

The park is the most beautiful after the rain, when you can see a "sea of clouds" in between the sharp rocky cliffs.

Our travel party. One person is missing from this picture: Xu Haoshuang, who travelled with us for 10 days.

And to finish up this article: here's an old Chinese song I'm totally into. I think it fits my mood in Zhangjiajie well. :p

Night Train to Zhangjiajie

Uploaded a video of the first few moments on the 20 hour train trip from Kunming to Zhangjiajie. After this trip I feel I have to review my opinion about the Chinese trains a little. :p

I still think taking the train is relatively comfortable in China if you have beds, but there are some things that are very different from Europe and some of them can be quite annoying. I have listed my annoying experiences below.

1) There is absolutely no way to open a window. The freshest air you can get is thus by sucking it through the cracks at the intersection of the train compartiments. Okay, I'm exaggerating. But, the lack of fresh air is still very annoying, especially when the train stands still, because then the AC doesn't work.

2) This one is not about the train itself, but about the procedure to get on it. Taking the train in Europe is easy, right? You buy your ticket at the train station or online and simply hop on. Well, in China things are quite different... Taking the train is as troublesome as taking an airplane. The procedure is complete with at least one security check, at least two passport controls and at least 3 ticket controls. Why? 你们的安全! For your safety of course. A terrorist might get through the first two ticket controls, but will surely get caught at the third one.
Also: queueing. In big train stations you can expect to wait 1h30 to just get your ticket. Even if you booked it online, you still have to fetch it at the administrative desk in the train station. This is particularly frustrating, because I don't see any usefulness to it.

3) There is music at the most inappropriate times. You wanted to sleep early, because you get off the train at 5 am? Too bad. Here's some tacky Chinese pop music that'll prevent you from doing that. Sometimes it's even worse, because the train staff communicates safety information (安全，安全，安全!) or publicity over the music at a deafening volume.

4) Hot water. This is actually a positive element. I listed it because it so unique to Chinese trains. In every train there is a water boiler. People use it to fill up the tea cans they carry around at all times and to prepare their instant noodles (THE Chinese train and pick nick food). It is actually very useful. I might introduce it in Europe. ;)

Rant over. But take it with a sense of humour, will you? :)

Beautiful Lugu Hu

Our trip in Yunnan lead us to the upper northern border with Sichuan. This is the location of Lugu Hu (泸沽湖), a beautiful lake amidst the mountains. This place is perfect for hiking. Swimming is, as usually in China, not allowed. We spent 2 nights around the lake, which was enough to enjoy the scenery to the fullest. The second day, we drove around the lake by scooter. It only takes 3 hours that way. The soft climate here is very comfortable. 

It was fun to get into Chinese traffic for a while. Although nothing compared to the business of a bustling city, the driving around Lugu Hu is still the same as in the rest of China, meaning: hazardous takeovers, speeding on small roads and a lot of horn blowing. Below you can find a video shot from the back of the scooter. Unfortunately, nothing exciting happened while filming, but you can get a glimpse of what the roads around the lake look like.

Feeling badass on a scooter...

Improvised hiking trail, not on a map.

Old (?) Lijiang

Ahh, we've arrived in the famous old town of Lijiang (丽江) in northern Yunnan. We've had the luck of finding a very good hostel just by exploring the area of Shuhe (束河), which is the one of the three main areas in Lijiang that is the most comfortable to reside in.

First day, we've strolled around in the old town (古城). The old town has some beautiful parts, but is crowded with tourists, shops and street vendors. The buildings are in old Chinese/Naxi architecture and look very nice, maybe a bit too nice... While 古 translates to "ancient", the town itself did not seem to be very old. If the buildings are actually as old as touristic brochures claim they are, then they have been renovated to the point where their ancient roots have become invisible. The buildings could just as well have been built in 2010 as in 1800. Nonetheless, there is a lot to do in the area around Lijiang and there are a lot of fun pubs and cafés, so we did have a good time here.

Shuhe

Lijiang old town entrance

Overview of the old town

This is the view you get when you turn around...

Typical street in the old town of Lijiang

Arriving in Yunnan

Kunming train station

We've arrived by train in Kunming, capital of the Yunnan province early in the morning of  friday 10th of july. The plan was to immediately continue travelling to the northern part of Yunnan, more specifically the popular sightseeing areas of Lijiang and Lugu Hu. However, since we travelled from Guiyang, a transfer in Kunming was necessary. Guiyang - Kunming took about 9h, Kunming - Lijiang would be be an 8 hour long train journey. We spent one day in Kunming and tried to use our time as efficiently as possible. After a quick noodle soup for breakfast, we visited a Daoist temple, went to a museum about the local history and later on went to Cui Hu (翠湖) park to relax a little bit.

Although dental care is still a big issue in some parts of China, this doctor likes to show off his skills to  people passing by.

Kunming atmosphere.

Cui Hu park entrance.

After a short day in Kunming, we took the night train to Lijiang. If you have berths, travelling by train is actually really comfortable in China. The nasty part is that they wake you up with tacky Chinese music at 6 am for no good reason (even though your train only arrives at 8). ;)

P.S. No, this is not night time. Picture taken the next morning. ;)