Welcome to Beijing, off to Tsinghua dàxué

Third posting already and I’m just in Beijing. 😀 After breakfast I decided to check up on some things before the plane landed. Just to kid of prepare me for the things I need to do at Tsinghua. The plane landed at 12:35 local time on schedule, when I got out of the plane I was greeted with a very high temperature of 31 degree celsius. Damn it was HOT !!! But anyway, back to the story. Once off the plane I had to board a bus which took everyone to the airport arrivals were we had to go through two different gates, handing in one form for each gate.

When I got at the luggage conveyor belt I was greeted by my bag and I was quite fast I could finally set foot in China, more important, set foot in Beijing and get my ass over to Tsinghua dàxué as fast as possible. For the people that are really paying attention, I mentioned passing through two gates and handing in two forms. The third one was for customs. For those that didn’t notice, shame on you. 😉 😛

Anyway, I stepped exited the airport ad got to the taxi stand and it was then that it finally hit me in the face … “I am really in China Beijing and about a one hour drive from Tsinghua”. I was brought back to reality when I saw the cue for the taxi’s. My eyes were literaly (O_O). Luckily since the number of people is so extremely large so are the number of taxi’s and the wait was not that long … 15 minutes.

When it was my turn I got into the cab and in my best Chinese I asked him to bring me to Tsinghua dàxué dongbeimer. He looked at me since he didn’t quite understood me, his face had shenme written on it so I tried again and he started to understand me but wasn’t shure if he heared me correctly. So I decided to show him the letter I got from Tsinghua which was in Chinese and Enlish and said how to get to Tsinghua. He read the letter, smiled and started to drive. During the trip he tried to start up a conversation but I couldn’t really understand him. Some things I could understand so I told him in really bad Chinese that I was going to study Chinese on Tsinghua.

When we got near Wudaokuo (this is close proximity of Tsinghua dàxué) I saw the Birds Nest they were building from the highway. I only managed to take one picture but I’ll definately go and take a look at it. It was my first day so more than enough time for that …. I hope.

I got at Tsinghua dàxué at 14:30 and went straight to building 19 to get myself a room before completing my registration for the language course. Getting a room was priority number 1, it was a good thing I did but I’ll tell that in a later post. I found out that the single rooms and AB-rooms were fully booked and only double rooms were available. I decided to take the double room, finished all the paperwork and dropped my stuff off in my room. For the people that want to know how to reach me, this the address you need to use:

Foreign Student Mr. Guy Chen (陳 志 強)
Room 413, Zijing Dormitory No. 23
Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084
People’s Republic of China

SIDENOTES: If you know how to write Chinese please also write my Chinese name because I have used that for most of the official forms.

Ok after dropping off my stuff I went off to building 22 to finalize my registration. I was lucky because I got there at 16:00 and was one of the last people that could complete their registration. Or so I thought. There was a long cue of international students that were waiting whe I arrived at 16:00. At 17:00 it finally my turn, like I said the number of people in Beijing are also reflected on the number of people on campus. I got all of the paper work done, got a application paper for internet and one for a dining card. The only thing I couldn’t do was pay because it was late, so I was told to come back the next day after 9:00 to pay.

With all the paperwork done I decided to check if I could get the internet connection, yeah I know I’m an internet freak. 😛 So I went back to building 19 to walk into a friend of mine (Marc) who was also going to study at Tsinghua. We had a talk and I found out that all of the people that I know that are going to study in Beijing are going to attend classes at Tsinghua. We spoke in Dutch and another Dutch exchance student walked passed us and heard us talking and introduced himself (Hing). He spoke for a while and went off to get a room. Marc gave me his chinese mobile number and we went off our seperate ways untill dinner time. I went to take a look for the internet connection but there was such a long cue that I decided to apply the next day. As I was walking towards the exit I saw Hing coming back telling me that there were NO MORE rooms available and that he had to find an hotel.

I was really glad I decided to book my room before going to the registration office. He asked if he could leave his suitcase in my room in the meantime while he was trying to arrange a hotel. We dropped his stuff of in my room and we went to the on-campus supermarket to get Hing a new simcard. We weren’t succesfull and we were heading back to my room when I saw Marc together with Wijie & Pamela (I know all of them from the Erasmus Uiversity Rotterdam). We told them about Hing’s situation and it so happened that Shenghong (another friend of mine from the Erasmus) had the same problem and was in a hotel. Long story short, Hing and Shenghong spend the night in an hotel. We all went to Isshin (Japanse restaurant near Wǔdàokǒu, the shopping area near Tsinghua) to eat and that was the end of the first, eventfull and LONG day in Beijing.

Some pics, Wǔdàokǒu, Sushi, Udon soup with pork 😛