Sunday 15th November was the first day I arrived in Beijing. The first story that I must share is the amount of time spent on traffic. Haha. I arrived at the airport at 3.30pm (BJ time) and didn't get out of the airport till 5pm (picked up by my cousin and my landlord for my accommodation). I booked a 3-bedroom / 2 lounge / 2 bathroom apartment for all four of us to flat together, and it's located in Chao Yang District, in the Roman Garden. 5pm is the time for sunset in Beijing winter, it is just too beautiful today: blue sky, sunset, snow on tree branches and on road sides. 
Few of us took the cab while the the rest went with the landlord's car. This is where the BJ transport experience began. I took the taxi ride and this is the most strangest taxi driver I've ever met. He's not the stereotype Chinese driver I was told, he's not rutheless, not honking at other cars, not driving fast... BUT! He drove at about 50-60km/hour on the MOTORWAYl; and constantly driving on top of the lane, ie. what i mean is that he's driving on two lanes but in the middle, therefore our tax is blocking other cars the whole way... so therefore, we got a lot of honking... lol, i wonder why he's driving like that...
We arrived at the Roman Garden and found our apartment at around 6pm, given that it's Sunday afternoon in Beijing with still quite an amount of cars, my cousin said it's actually not too bad! It was 79RMB for the ride (which in comparison to NZ, it's really cheap). We (my friend, my cousin and myself) waited outside our apartment door for a good 50-60 minutes before the landlord and our other friend arrived. I think this is the extreme of being lucky and avoided traffic, and being unlucky and got stuck in traffic. Lol.
Our last friend joined as at the apartment and now we are a full group again. The apartment is newly built and the landlord only took the house in June this year. It's a very spacious apartment, around 120 metre squared including the pulic areas, simple but good quality furniture, still with the smell of paint and building materials. The two boys in our group will be sharing the master bedroom (on two different beds) and the two girls occupies the two single rooms. Throughout our planning for this trip, we've made it quite clear that we will set minimum housekeeping rules in order to make sure we have the BEST time flatting together (it's the first time for all of us to flat)! Look forward to an awesome time!
How's Beijing weather? hmmm, very interesting. In comparison to Auckland, it's a complete opposite of winter (BJ) and summer (AKL). When we landed at 3.30pm it's about 0 degrees, and now at the night time I think it's definitely minus something. Today is a very clear blue sky day in Beijing, I saw the sun set in the taxi and the bright blue sky just made my day. There's still unmelted snow (which is now solid like ice) on the street, cars and trees. But the worst thing is the strong wind, blister cold, hitting hard onto my skin and I really had to fight through the cold and wind to walk forward.
Our landlord kindly offered to take us to buy Chinese sim cards and this is turned out to be the first bad experience we had in China. We went to a nespaper booth (common in Beijing, a booth selling drinks/magazines/newspapers/phone cards etc) on the street and after some discussion, finalised on the plan that we will go for, Dong Gan Di Dan, aka M-Zone.
It offers 10RMB for 120 texts, cheap calling rates after 9pm and it's the most popular among younger generation. The sim card was 89RMB (where other sim cards are around 50-60, but more expensive rates); and we all bought a 100RMB top-up prepay cards. I bought and paid mine first, then my two other friends. When the last person finished paying, the friend who paid second asked me whether the sim card has been topped up, i replied her 'no you have to take the top up card and do it yourself'. then she said 'i was never given a top up card', and then we realised she's missing the card. We hasn't even left the booth yet so we turned around and asked the guy running the booth for the card. But the guy said 'I gave her the card just like how I gave the cards to all the rest of you'. Both myself and the last friend got our sim card + top up card, but no the friend who paid between us. After 15 minutes of debating and searching for the card in my friend's bag, we eventually concluded that no there was never a card given. The guy at the booth argues that he gave the card, but from his experession we know he didn't. But what can we do? There's no evidence showing that he didn't, no video cameras, no receipts, no inventory stocktake. I guess our experiences in NZ really made us naive and inconsiderate of every little details to prevent being cheated on, and this is something that I hope this trip will teach me on.
A background story about myself and why my friends are in BJ: we are all part of the world's largest student organisation, AIESEC.
Initially all four of us are planning to find an exchange (one of AIESEC's core products) in China, and eventually I confirmed with an internship in Fonterra China. Now my other three friends are also in Beijing and very closed to be matched to their perspective exchanges. Given it is the world's largest student run organisation, arcoss in 108 countries and over 1000 universities, the PKU (Peiking University) AIESECers invited us to a 'welcome dinner'. This is a common reception by the local AIESEC groups and it's the best way to get to meet new friends (similar age to us) and to find our way around a new city easier.
So, why talk about AIESEC? we met with the AIESECers in a restaurant next to the west gate of Peiking University and enjoyed our first meal in China. The food was getting cold because we were 2 hours late (the delayed traffic and the incident at the booth); but good food is still worth eating for =P
This concludes the end of our night... getting home at around 12am and rest before a long day coming.
Monday 16th November will be my first day at work, looking forward to my internship!
Few of us took the cab while the the rest went with the landlord's car. This is where the BJ transport experience began. I took the taxi ride and this is the most strangest taxi driver I've ever met. He's not the stereotype Chinese driver I was told, he's not rutheless, not honking at other cars, not driving fast... BUT! He drove at about 50-60km/hour on the MOTORWAYl; and constantly driving on top of the lane, ie. what i mean is that he's driving on two lanes but in the middle, therefore our tax is blocking other cars the whole way... so therefore, we got a lot of honking... lol, i wonder why he's driving like that...
We arrived at the Roman Garden and found our apartment at around 6pm, given that it's Sunday afternoon in Beijing with still quite an amount of cars, my cousin said it's actually not too bad! It was 79RMB for the ride (which in comparison to NZ, it's really cheap). We (my friend, my cousin and myself) waited outside our apartment door for a good 50-60 minutes before the landlord and our other friend arrived. I think this is the extreme of being lucky and avoided traffic, and being unlucky and got stuck in traffic. Lol.
Our last friend joined as at the apartment and now we are a full group again. The apartment is newly built and the landlord only took the house in June this year. It's a very spacious apartment, around 120 metre squared including the pulic areas, simple but good quality furniture, still with the smell of paint and building materials. The two boys in our group will be sharing the master bedroom (on two different beds) and the two girls occupies the two single rooms. Throughout our planning for this trip, we've made it quite clear that we will set minimum housekeeping rules in order to make sure we have the BEST time flatting together (it's the first time for all of us to flat)! Look forward to an awesome time!
How's Beijing weather? hmmm, very interesting. In comparison to Auckland, it's a complete opposite of winter (BJ) and summer (AKL). When we landed at 3.30pm it's about 0 degrees, and now at the night time I think it's definitely minus something. Today is a very clear blue sky day in Beijing, I saw the sun set in the taxi and the bright blue sky just made my day. There's still unmelted snow (which is now solid like ice) on the street, cars and trees. But the worst thing is the strong wind, blister cold, hitting hard onto my skin and I really had to fight through the cold and wind to walk forward.
Our landlord kindly offered to take us to buy Chinese sim cards and this is turned out to be the first bad experience we had in China. We went to a nespaper booth (common in Beijing, a booth selling drinks/magazines/newspapers/phone cards etc) on the street and after some discussion, finalised on the plan that we will go for, Dong Gan Di Dan, aka M-Zone.
It offers 10RMB for 120 texts, cheap calling rates after 9pm and it's the most popular among younger generation. The sim card was 89RMB (where other sim cards are around 50-60, but more expensive rates); and we all bought a 100RMB top-up prepay cards. I bought and paid mine first, then my two other friends. When the last person finished paying, the friend who paid second asked me whether the sim card has been topped up, i replied her 'no you have to take the top up card and do it yourself'. then she said 'i was never given a top up card', and then we realised she's missing the card. We hasn't even left the booth yet so we turned around and asked the guy running the booth for the card. But the guy said 'I gave her the card just like how I gave the cards to all the rest of you'. Both myself and the last friend got our sim card + top up card, but no the friend who paid between us. After 15 minutes of debating and searching for the card in my friend's bag, we eventually concluded that no there was never a card given. The guy at the booth argues that he gave the card, but from his experession we know he didn't. But what can we do? There's no evidence showing that he didn't, no video cameras, no receipts, no inventory stocktake. I guess our experiences in NZ really made us naive and inconsiderate of every little details to prevent being cheated on, and this is something that I hope this trip will teach me on.A background story about myself and why my friends are in BJ: we are all part of the world's largest student organisation, AIESEC.
Initially all four of us are planning to find an exchange (one of AIESEC's core products) in China, and eventually I confirmed with an internship in Fonterra China. Now my other three friends are also in Beijing and very closed to be matched to their perspective exchanges. Given it is the world's largest student run organisation, arcoss in 108 countries and over 1000 universities, the PKU (Peiking University) AIESECers invited us to a 'welcome dinner'. This is a common reception by the local AIESEC groups and it's the best way to get to meet new friends (similar age to us) and to find our way around a new city easier.So, why talk about AIESEC? we met with the AIESECers in a restaurant next to the west gate of Peiking University and enjoyed our first meal in China. The food was getting cold because we were 2 hours late (the delayed traffic and the incident at the booth); but good food is still worth eating for =P
This concludes the end of our night... getting home at around 12am and rest before a long day coming.
Monday 16th November will be my first day at work, looking forward to my internship!
is that really sim card looks like? as that pic has been PSed a lot on line. it was a pic from news, and that guy was carrying a knife and fighting with guards, haha, that is really funny.
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