Finally the first message from China!!

On April the 2nd Elias and Edward arrived safely in China... Not too much trouble, except for Elias; his luggage did not arrive with the others (now, April 7th, he has everything).
We took a bus, where we were the only non-Chinese to the city center of Bejing, where the buildings are big and the Westerns few. I have to say that China did seemed less strange than we first thought. Especially Bejing, which is a major, modern and big city: neon lights, lots of cars, party at night, if it was not the for the people and the language, the city looked probably like a lot of capital cities in the world. The first night we stayed in a youth hostel and explored the night life together with our good friend and college Christoph (who know China and Chinese more than we do). First we went to a lake, where a lot of woman asked us if we wanted to visit a lady bar, or if we needed an erotic massage... This place was more for Chinese people, so we went to explore the more western party area; drinking beers between 0,3 and 1 EUR and rum for 1 EUR.


The next day we cruised a bit through the capital, passed the forbidden city and Tien An Men square, had a final lunch with Christoph and took the night train to Nanjing, where our university is located. The people, which Edward likes a lot, are very used to make nose sounds and spit on the floor, except in the train there was a sign that spitting there was forbidden...



We had a very warm welcome from two master students here in Nanjing, the helped us with our accommodation and cleaned our room, invited us for dinner and went shopping with us.
Our case study and project will start soon, after some discussions and formalities, but we are installed well and fine.

Here in Nanjing, the smog is everlasting, the weather is good, 20 degrees or more, lots of Chinese, some foreigners, very nice food (eating with sticks is not so difficult) but impossible to order, the supermarkets very flashy and colorful, they are not so surprised to see white men - but still look at you and sometimes the say 'hello'. Our beds are hard, very thin mattresses...

for more pictures, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/edwardvandevivere

Lots of greetings to all of you, soon more!!