Chinese adventure: April 2014

Hello everybody. It's been a while since my last blog and everything has changed so much since I wrote here last time. Finally I decided to write in English due to requests of some people. I believe that it will not cause any inconvenience to my Lithuanian visitors as they know English very well. :)

Short summary of my time before coming to Chengdu.

As I mentioned in my previous blogs, I had my internship in little town Anji (450k population), Angel Garden Boutique Hotel as a guest relations officer. Nothing special happened since my last blog, just some more English speaking staff came to the hotel, and a French guy came as an intern and was my roommate for 3 weeks until he left. (didn't stay too long). I had some trips around Anji, in beautiful bamboo forest mountains.

More photos from this place can be found in Facebook or in this web

The last week in my hotel was emotional, I had a really good relationship with staff over there, and I had made good friends, even though just few people could speak English there, but it wasn't an obstacle.

The last day at Angel Garden Boutique Hotel. Kind of sad to leave this place.

But everything has an ending. It was time to move forward. So the next day with my lovely friend Jiang (姜) we took a bus to Suzhou city, just to travel for a few days. Of course it was public holiday, so everybody else was travelling as well and therefore Suzhou was very crowded. In many places we could hardly move. Generally Suzhou is a very beautiful city with ancient canals which crossing whole oldtown of the city. It is like a Chinese Venice. You can find photos from it in my Facebook or in this web.

Colorful spring in Suzhou

Finally we had a symbolic cupcakes, mentioned my 21st birthday and the next day it was time to separate. For Jiang back to Hangzhou, where she lives, for me - to next Chinese adventure place - Chengdu. It was really sad to say goodbye to Jiang, but we promised to each other that someday we gonna travel around the world together and I honestly hope we will. :)

The new beginning in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

It was april 7th, my birthday, which I spend the weirdest way ever. I had a train trip from Suzhou to Chengdu which lasted 30 hours and we made about 2500km. Fortunately I had sleeping seat-bed, so it wasn't so bad, but still my bed was on the 3rd floor, as you can see in the picture, 3rd floor beds are the smallest and the space between the bed and the ceiling is very little, so my neck really hurt after 30 hours. I had met one funny Chinese family which was my "roommates" in the train. I must admit that I was a little afraid of what is waiting for me in totally unknown city. Finally I arrived and one nice guy Selvin from the agency which found that new internship in Chengdu, met me at the train station and brought to the hostel for 1 night. Finally I got some normal sleep in normal bed.

Chengdu (Chéngdū) is a major city in Western China and the urban area of it houses 14 million inhabitants. So it is the biggest city i had ever lived in. Subtropical climate makes this place very hot and wet. Even though that I was already used to warm weather in Anji (this year I have skipped winter and I am so glad about it.) Even now temperature is around +30 during daytime, and sun is damn hot. And it's just April. Locals said that in summer temperature is usually +35-40, so hot days waiting for me... :) Firstly I was shocked by many factors, like Chinese people in the streets are not surprised at all to see foreigner (since there is 50 000 foreigners community in Chengdu), Chinese people English is way more advanced than in Anji (where they could hardly speak English at all), city is modern and new. It is expanding amazingly fast. I live here just 6 days, but I already saw so many buildings under construction that it is hard to realize the scale of it. And they don't build small buildings, almost all of them are minimum 30-40 floors giants. And it is happening not only in Chengdu but also in other Chinese cities as I saw from the train. China is a giant construction site. I have no idea how this country will look after 10 years if they keep on this speed... Well it is called one of the fastest growing countries in the world not without a reason. I am more than sure now that it is completely true.

My new internship placement is in Howard Johnson Hi-Tech Plaza 5* Hotel.

Why Hi-Tech you ask? Because it is located in the new center of city, which is also called Financial center, many offices and new generation technologic companies have their offices here. I was very shocked again by English skills of staff in this hotel. It is so good! Compared how it was in my last hotel. My position will be the same as before - guest relations officer. But I already know that I will have plenty of new tasks and my job will be more interesting due to level of this hotel and work organisation system. Cannot tell a lot now, because i didn't even start to work now. But more information will come up in next blog. Conditions of this internships are not bad at all. 3000 rmb per month, 3 meals in staff canteen, 1 meal per day in hotel western restaurant (so after 3 months of Chinese food, I can get some western as well, and still I prefer Chinese food, which is way better than western. WAY better.). Internship should last 6 months, so unfortunately I will not comeback to Lithuania this summer and at late september go back directly to Denmark. So my homeland will be skipped the whole year. That's the life :)
I got a room (and a roommate from Switzerland) in 5th floor of the hotel which is pretty cool I could say!

Big bath (and stereo sound system in bathroom, which can play sound from the TV, and I can watch wide screen TV directly from the bath through huge window and hear everything perfectly... paradise.... Also modern shower, WESTERN toilet ! (I had no western toilet since i came to China), room service... And the view from my window is pretty awesome.

The view from my window.

Very comfortable armchair on the left...

Hotel from the inside. There are 18 floors in total.

I got through medical tests which lasted about 2 hours, fortunately I am healthy as new, and applied for new visa in Exit and Entry bureau. In 8 days I should get my new visa! :) I didn't see much of the city yet, just a huge flower market, some nightlife and celebrated my and another guy's birthdays last night in BBQ and western pub where i saw so many foreigners that it didn't feel like China no more. Fortunately subway is just near my hotel, so accessibility with other districts of the city is very convenient. I am starting to work officially tomorrow (14th april) and I am very excited about it.! some photos to sum up this blog and see you next time. Thank you for your attention. :)