Holiday is over :(

Last Friday I ate with a Korean friend at the hypermarket near to us. He explained to me what everything was and how it should be eaten. There was a pan with boiling water in front of me and basically you just put your meat and noodles in the water and wait till it is ready. If it’s ready you grab a piece of lettuce, you put the meat with some tofu in it. Add some spicy peanut sauce and soya sauce. Then wrap it all up like a kind of wrap and eat it. It tasted very nice however for Chinese standards it was somewhat more expensive, but still cheap. Shane also gave me some tips how to eat with the chopsticks and since then I can eat with the sticks

With that same person I’m also looking for another room to stay in. The place we live in now, is small, not very suitable for studying, and quite far away from the university. We will try to find an apartment in the Wudaokou area. That is the place were practically all students live and the place to hang out.

On Sunday we went with a bunch of people to the forbidden city and the temple of heaven.
It was organized by the university, but all people knew each other already. We first went to the forbidden city for 3 hours. It is very big there and not possible to see everything in one day. However I don’t think it’s necessary to see everything. It is a place you want to see, because it’s a part of China’s culture, but every building looks the same there. So after an hour I was a bit bored there, just like all the others. All the buildings there look the same. They only differ in size and the purpose what they were used for in the past differ. It is funny even though that all the emperors and empresses have walked there in the past and that I was walking there at that moment on the same stones as they did.
After that we had lunch at a place where only western people that did trips come. The restaurant was western orientated. They even had cutlery, what you normally won’t find in a Chinese restaurant and the dinner wasn’t spicy at all.
After the lunch we went to the temple of heaven. It is a big piece of ground with grass and trees and some place to walk. At some places there are some Chinese temples. These were different than the ones in the forbidden city. The roof of these buildings were blue, which means the sky or heaven. The Chinese people used this place to make sacrifices for a good harvest for that year.

After the excursion we were hungry and we decided to eat with 4 people. My Korean friend knew a Korean bbq restaurant where we were going to eat. In the restaurant was a big round bbq from glass in the table where the meat was prepared by a cook. Several Korean side dishes comes served with the meat. Everything tasted delicious and we were all stuffed. And again we laughed about the price.

The Monday morning I discovered there was something wrong with my timetable. Some of my courses clashed and I wasn’t able to take all courses and I wouldn’t have my 30 ECTS. After some mails to my academic advisor and my exchange coordinator a solution was born.
I’m now allowed to take 2 courses of the Master level to solve the problem.
That also meant I had to go to class on Monday already and not on Wednesday. So my holiday was 2 days earlier over than expected.

So I actually had my first class on Monday; Managing across cultures. Almost all lectures last for 3 hours, what is very long. In Tilburg the lectures will last for 1,75 hours with a 15 minute break, while here you have to sit and listen for 3 hours with a 10 minute break. If you’re lucky you will get 2 breaks. Wednesday I had my 2nd and 3rd lecture, Marketing channels and Chinese economy. The first one will be nice I think, but the 2nd one will just be a book of facts that I will have to learn. Today I had a class of introduction to programming. That will be a nice course too. However it takes much concentration to listen for 3 hours to the teachers!

Furthermore I received my bankcards yesterday, so I will have money again:D