I can't believe how quickly time is passing - already nearly a week into my Chinese trip and I have finished the classes here in Beijing! It has been quite hectic, with, 20 classes between Tuesday lunchtime and today (Friday lunchtime). Excuse any lapses as I write, but my stomach is crying out for my favourite lunchtime portion of spicy pork and veggies at the local Chinese fast-food place! I have learnt a lot in the classes: an incredible amount of vocabulary to cover the range of situations I might find myself in over the next few weeks as well as practicing pronunciation! This remains one of the most challenging aspect - and I suspect will do for quite some time!
On Wednesday evening a group of us from the school went to have Peking Duck in a well-known restaurant! I don't recall having ever eaten Peking Duck in the past, but it was very good, and good fun watching the chef slice up the duck in front of us (apologies in advance to the veggies among you :)). Overall on the food front, I am gradually mastering the intricacies of the Beijing menu: following the recommendation from one of my teachers on Wednesday, I have made the local fast-food haunt my regular destination of choice since then. As predicted by many people, it also helps being English in these kind of environments as everyone wants to speak English with you - I normally have a rather bizarre discussion with the employees there, them speaking in English and me trying out my pigeon Chinese!
Yesterday evening I caught up with another Beijing contact (again courtesy of my work colleague Bernadette - thanks again!) Ben, who does PR at Hill and Knowlton Beijing. The phrase "isn't it a small world" came to mind when I turned up and met his colleague and a visiting representative from UK Trade and Investment based in Hong Kong, but up in Beijing scoping out extending their activities here. A enjoyable evening was spent drinking tsingtao and losing badly at a very competitive speed pool competition!
So, the first week closes and I am now looking forward to starting my trip to Tibet! I join the tour later this afternoon, and after spending the weekend here visiting the Great Wall, Forbidden City and taking in an opera, I'll be heading off to Xi'an and the terracotta warriors on Sunday evening - from there it's a mixture of train and car across the northern regions of China to Tibet! I'm very excited about the trip and also keen to see the contrasts with the big cities like Beijing and the rest of the country: I have seen and heard a lot of contradicting points about China already - perhaps Ben summed it up best when he said "one country many cultures"?
Lots to discover anyway and more to come soon :)
Rob
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