The first week

My first week here has been a lot of fun. Until late Wednesday I was still recovering from my illness and stuck with eating rice porridge and bread and things. But, I've made a lot of new friends and found some interesting things around campus. I neglected to mention in the previous post that my roommate, Alfonso, arrived while I was very sick (possibly at the worst possible time, his welcome to the university was me mopping up vomit).


Alfonso's bed also collapsed during the week, not through any fault of mine.

Our placement test was on Monday morning, and involved a small written test and a short conversation with a teacher. Results were posted Tuesday, which give the class you have been assigned to for Wednesday. In my case, this turned out to be C2. The letters are A through F, where A is absolute beginner, and then each letter is divided up into a number of levels. Classes are from 8am to 12pm each weekday. When it all started Wednesday morning, I had a chance to meet my classmates - a few Filipinos, an American, a Canadian, some Italians, and a few Koreans, among others. They are a nice group of people, and interesting to talk with. Alfonso was in a B class, but transferred a few times during the week, and ended up in C1.

The teachers here are excellent. We have 4 teachers, for speaking, reading, listening, and comprehensive lessons, and each is engaging and entertaining. We also get ten minutes each hour to go downstairs and have something to eat or drink - there is a stall in the building serving tea, coffee and snacks, although nothing is particularly good, it is cheap. There is homework, but not too much. So, we have a lot of free time. So far this time has mostly been spent getting our room in order - unpacking, buying essential items, and decorating. I've bought some posters, like a map of China, and some with pictures of fruits with their Chinese names as study aids for the walls. The room is feeling quite homey now. I've been eating mostly on campus, in fact, mostly at the one place, a Muslim restaurant. Muslim apparently means Uyghur, which means great lamb and noodle dishes, spicy kebabs and fresh bread. Food here is cheap and very good.


Path to the Temple of Heaven

I've been able to catch up with another friend in Beijing on the weekend, and we went to the Temple of Heaven. It's probably in the largest green area in Beijing. We also went to another Muslim restaurant in the middle of the city, which offered whole roast lamb for 988 yuan. I also went to Zhongguancun during the week, twice, which is the place to go in Beijing for electronics. It's a bit like Singapore's Sim Lim Square, but much larger, and more open to haggling. The second time, Alfonso and I bought electronic dictionaries, which I've found very useful so far. We also had a strange trip to Sanlitun, the hip part of Beijing, where we couldn't afford anything.


Zhongguancun

I've spent most of my time this week making friends and setting up the room. Hopefully I will have more time from now on to do more interesting things. When I do, they will be posted here! It snowed again today, probably the last snow of the season.