Bye Beijing

My time in Beijing has been amazing. Not did I only travel to a new country and a new city that I have never visited before, but I also met some great people and had some delicious Chinese cuisine. This was also the first time I´ve travelled somewhere completely alone without knowing a single person at the destination and I´m so happy for this experience.  

Starting with the Chinese cuisine. I had really low expectations thanks to the Chinese restaurants in Finland and what I have heard from friends who visited China. The restaurants in Finland are not serving proper Chinese food and my friends apparently have bad taste or chose the wrong restaurants because Chinese food is so tasty! You can easily get a proper meal from 10-40 yuan (1,30-5,50€), depending on whether you order something by yourself or share with friends. 

The city and everything in it is humongous. The attractions are huge and require time at the attraction as well as getting there. If you thought travelling is about relaxing or not doing anything, if you are in Beijing you will definitely have to walk a lot.

What I thought was strange, but was also prepared for, was the fact that the locals or Chinese tourists taking pictures of western tourists all the time. I´m totally fine with taking pictures with people, I´ve done that during this trip, but that moment when you see someone taking a video of you or a photo of you without asking is just very uncomfortable and awkward I think. I really don't know how to behave I usually just act like I don´t notice even if it´s really bothering me. This might be something that you get used to.

The spitting is so gross, but I can understand why they do it. The spitting part itself is fine, but the sound they do before make me sick. The air in Beijing is terrible, which I came across the first two days here. The smog is covering the sky, makes it harder to breathe, and you might be coughing a lot. I´m happy because I didn´t experience any cough (might be since I was sick in Korea due to the yellow dust from China). From Wednesday until today the weather has been excellent. A little bit chilly but the air quality was great and I could even see the sun! The smog blocks the sun completely. The coughing and spitting has to do with the air quality, so hopefully you can forgive them.

Another strange, gross, but funny thing is the toddlers. I just think Asian kids are the cutest, so precious. But here in China, at least Beijing, they are not using diapers. What? How does it work then? Well, they are wearing open-crotch pants! If you are interested, you can Google this, but the sight is just hilarious.  

After a crazy mad week, I could definitely see myself coming back to Beijing. What I was missing on this trip was probably more interaction with local people, but this is a hard thing to achieve since I don´t speak Chinese, and almost nobody speaks English. It could be a great place for an exchange semester, or why not stay a year and study Chinese. Beijing and China, the time has come to an end and I will leave you all behind and say see you soon with a video.

 My camera has fooled me. The quality on my camera looks very good while looking at the pictures, but now looking at the video, the quality sucks. I think I might buy myself a new memory card for my camera so I can create videos with better quality. I apologise!