Apr 29 2008
Settling in to Life in Beijing
Well I’ve been here for 5 days now, spent two of them in bed hungover (old habits die hard) and have still managed to accomplish a couple of things in the meantime.
I’ve bought a cell phone for 500RMB ($71) with a sim card. It is cheap and crappy looking and I’m sure I could have bargained them a bi tlower but I had an employee of the hostel helping me and I felt stupid bargaining through a translator.
I haven’t been out doing the tourist thing much but I have figured out the subway system after taking a trip out to Wudaokou, the university area. I had originally planned to live out there so wanted to scope it out a bit and see what connections into the city were like. The subway is pretty good but seems to be packed at all times and I’m starting to realise why foreigners tend to cab it everywhere.
As for the apartment hunt, this sounds dodgy, but I met some American dude in a bar the other night and got chatting to him. He needed a roomie sharpish, I needed a place to stay, we chatted some more, I went to look at it and now I’m sitting in the lounge room typing away. My room is huge, the apartment is massive, it’s nice, pretty central in the Guomao area and at 2,300RMB ($330) a month it’s a lot cheaper than what I was expecting to have to pay for my own place. Plus I can stay for six months, he’s ok with me having people stay for the Olympics, he’s been here a while and has lots of connections, speaks a bit of Chinese and is a generally laid back kind of guy. Should be good.
Today’s goal was to suss out the language school scene. There’s a place up the road from me that has a class starting next Monday for $530 for four weeks. I am pretty keen to get started somewhere but this place is four hours per day starting at an agonising 8:30am five days a week. Gadzooks. I’m not sure I want to put myself through that but it’s near to my house, the price seems ok, and if I don’t have a reason to get up in the mornings I can see myself wasting all my time here. Still thinking about it…
I’m also on the hunt for a gym to join and apperently there are quite a few in this area. It’s funny wandering around here because I have no decent maps, can’t read the street names even if there were any, and I don’t even know what to tell a taxi driver if I were to get lost and need to take a cab home. It’s pretty exciting but daunting at the same time.
I’m up for a challenge though so we’ll see how it goes!
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go.
Its fun finding your way around a new town isn’t it! Must be double fun trying to do it in a foregin alphabet!
Nice one. Don’t forget to register at the police.
Hi K,
Welcome to China!
New Concept Mandarin is a good language school, but alittle pricey. Is that the one you were looking at?
Also, most of the serious Mandarin language students here in Shenzhen recommend Chinesepod.com. Very good lessons about real, everyday, stuff.
I second what Mike says… make sure to register at the local PSB. The gov’t is cracking down on foreigners without proper residency papers. (I’m not talking about visas, but a temp residency permit. If you are staying with that fellow, then he needs to register you as a guest.
I have a good friend in BJ if you need a local connection.
Cheers
-Expat-
I agree with the times on the language school. I moved to France and I was taking French classes at 9AM 5 days a week for 4 hours a day. It was great because I learned a lot, I had a routine, but the mornings were sometimes tough. I had to go to keep my VISA so that motivated me too, I couldn’t miss more than 10 classes in a 3 month period. I think I missed 2.