So I've decided to revive this blog. Its been a few years, but the title still remains accurate. :P
This summer I was blessed to have an opportunity to attend a Summer Exchange Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. It was entitled Experience China 2016 and consisted of 140 students from 70 Universities across the world. (Photo Cred: Tom Widdowson).
I've decided since I did not have access to Facebook, Google, Instagram, etc. for the entire month I would do daily posts for the month of September with each day being the activities I did one month earlier.
I was supposed to start yesterday so today's post shall be two days, my day of flights and then the first day on campus before the program started.
The flight was from Sweden to Dusseldorf, then Dusseldorf to Beijing. There were a series of lighting shows on the later portion of the flight from Dusseldorf to Beijing.
By the time I arrived at the dorms I had been awake for roughly 50 hours (due to Festinord in Sweden I didn't sleep and had to be at the airport by 4:00 am). I had about an hour to settle in my room and then I met up with a girl names Charlotte (from Belgium) to go wander campus and find a SIM card! After a long and arduous journey being sent to various locations across campus and a lunch break. I found this random little stand with a girl who spoke broken English. We communicated enough to determine I needed a SIM Card. I handed over my passport and my phone and away she went into the little booth. After a bit she handed me back my phone with the SIM card in it, but the passport got handed to a different guy, who then pulled up his scooter and showed me on his phone a translation of "Take to real operator". It all was looking a little sketch, but he had my passport so I hopped on. A 10 minute scooter ride we were at this store where they had me sign some chinese paper, scanned my passport and then off i went back to catch up to Charlotte.
She only wondered slightly if they would ever find my body... but hey I survived. AND got an authentic ride on a Chinese scooter. (Video of the outing located below).
After that I had a rather uneventful trip to the student market close to campus to purchase various snacks (Including what I thought were mint oreos but were really green tea), then supper and finally SLEEP. (by the time I hit the hay I had been awake for roughly 62 hours). Although my bed consisted of a slab of wood with a 2 inch foam mat I slept like a baby.
That's all for now folks.
