When in China | part 1

In the back of my mind, I have always been a bit apprehensive to go to china. The media, although you shouldn’t believe everything you read, created a distorted reality of china, one drowned in censorship and strong cultural vales. Having been here just over two weeks, I have come to some very stop opinions about this place (which I may share in a separate post) but nonetheless, it has so much to offer.

Currently in mainland china, Chengdu, it’s a rapidly growing city with construction going up at the blink of an eye and probably mire bicycles than Amsterdam.

My first two weeks here have been about survival Chinese skills because trust me, you need them out here. Exploring a different culture and understanding how it was built to the way it is today. It has taught me that if you keep at something and are constantly trying to use it, it will actually stay in your mind. And as you can see, we all graduated and its such a comforting feeling knowing that I can go out an have a small conversation or order myself food or ask for directions.

We also had a lot of different museum talks and tours from the famous alcoholic drink in china Bijiu to the Chinese culture and structure that we know of today. Monastery and the streets of china are just one of many sights not to be missed. Chengdu is also home to many of the worlds pandas and they are just the most adorable things I have ever seen. I cant even describe it to you.

This is the must see Sichuan Opera house where at least 1000 people gather to watch the magic of the face changing opera and derives from the Chinese principle of showing face and guanxi.

The food here is questionable but also amazing. Depending on your taste buds, there is a wealth of treats and courses to try. I love me a bit of ramen noodles but those off white dumpling looking things are filled with melted sugar and are sure to melt in your mouth. Its hard to come across your traditional western takeaways Chinese here but the food is still good regardless.

One of the most amazing trips I did was to a very special nature driven place which I will talk about in a separate post as well as something a little cheeky that I did. I am up to the point where I am 1 week into my internship and fully immersing myself into an experience of a life time. I have a lot more content coming up but for now I have just been enjoying myself and making friends. Hope you are all having an awesome time.