Update week #8

On Friday I visited Daniel in the hospital. A week or two ago he injured his knee so bad, that he had to be operated. For some reason the hospital doesn't provide any food on any time of the day. As the matter of fact, his bathroom doesn't even have toiletpaper. He stays in a brand new hospital and it costs over 100 euro's per day. An example of a whole different standard we western people are used to. A couple of classmates and I kept him company and brought some food and drinks. The surgery was on saterday and luckily it was succesful. Unfortunately Daniel has difficulties with the hospitalization, but hopefully he will return in 4 or 5 days.

Saterday in the afternoon I had to travel 3 quarters of an hour to the football game. We played against the worst team in the competition and beat them 0-3.

Later on, I was glad to hear that the party-hardies chose Club Babi tonight. I had enough of Dance/house music, so I prefer 'Babi Club' which plays Hiphop/R&B and a little bit of Chinese music. First I was planning to stay at home, because my legs were tired, but eventually I decided to go (I'm here now, gotta enjoy it). Only thing I needed was one good drink (I had more than one) and a good jam to unleash the mojo. Oh behave!


Jian, Monique and Tong-Zjang


Tong-Zjang and Steven


Aika doing her thing


Smooth-and-sober pose, not quite succesful


Me and Vivien


With Monique


Jimmy and his girlfriend


Impression of Club Babi


Jessica, Dillon and Vivien

week #8, 2 months, time is going too fast..

This week has been a little different than previous weeks. For example from 13th-15th April was de Thai Songkran festival. It has an interresting background, but to keep it simple; It's an national festival in Thailand. During this festival everybody is allowed to throw water at each other. Quite nice when you are in Thailand, because the sun is burning hot. Last Tuesday, the sun was just as hot in Chengdu and Luckily there are Thai people living in the dormitory who introduced Songkran to us. The highly anticipated water-fight was about to go down; Netherlands vs Thailand!

The 'war' started after lunch. Both teams prepared themselves and collected waterbottles, big watercans, water-filled trash cans, water filled laundry-baskets and waterballoons in all sizes. Eventually the chaos started and everybody got soaking wet. I think Thailand won, because they were more experienced and the Dutch people threw more water at each other than at the opponents. It was a perfect day for a waterfight and I haven't had one since I was little.

Furthermore I saw two movies; Marley and Me (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) and Death Race (the guy from Transporter). Both nice movies to see if you ask me. The week is still young but I thought it would be better to post this before I forget things. Stay tuned for updates and pictures.

Sunday April 12th

It seems to be that there is finally a certain structure in my daily life. Everyday after class I will have lunch with Cullen, a local Chengdu student. My university (SWUFE) asked him to be my buddy during my exchange program. In the beginning it was difficult to get along with him. The differences in our personalities combined with bad communication (my poor Mandarin skills and his remarkable English) made sure that many meetings were pretty unpleasant for both of us. Luckily we are now able to get along and understand each other more clearly. I'm very happy that i've met him, because I don't get to practice my mandarin a lot as most of my friends here speak Dutch or English.

After lunch and having conversation with Cullen, I usually go to the gym. If the weather is nice I'm outside enjoying the weather or playing basketball. Every Wednesday I have football training with my team and on Saterday's we have a game.

Saterdaynight is clubbin. I had some good passionate dancin' lately, and lots of fun with my friends. Sunday's is recovering and just chillin. Today I went to see the Chengdu Blades playing a match against a football team from Beijing. I didn't expect too much of the level, but it was even worse than I had expected. Still it was a nice experience to visit the stadium and see the Chinese professionals play.

So, this is how it went the last couple of weeks. Nothing special happend, that's the reason why I haven't updated my blog for a while. Besides that I haven't got any new pictures for you guys to see. And yea.. I've been a little lazy.

some (old) pictures:


Annette, Tim and me in the taxi (2nd or 3rd week in Chengdu)


Me in the city centre

Me and vivien, clubbing in 'Club nr.1'

Me and Daniel. 'Club nr.1'

Profile photo on FC Wanderers website.

Schooltrip to Du jiang yan and an ancient town

Friday (20th March) SWUFE arranged a schooltrip to two touristic attraction in Chengdu. We left early in the morning at 8 am. The weather was sunny and about 27 degrees and almost everybody in the dormitory joined the trip. Transportation costs, entry fees and lunch was covered by the school.

The first place we visited was the ancient town. Not too special in my opinion, there were no historical facts written anywere (at least, not that i've seen), so I didn't know what was so special about it. Yet, we all had a good time with each other. But the place itself didn't interested me at all. Pictures of the ancient town:







The second place we went was 'Dū jiāng yàn'. 'Dū jiāng yàn' is the oldest (2,300 years old) and only surviving no-dam irrigation system in the world; and a wonder in the development of Chinese science. It has been build to prevent floods of the Mingjian river. Now, it still plays a crucial role in draining off floodwater, irrigating farms and providing water resources for more than 50 cities in the Sichuan province.

I was quite suprised to see this irrigation system. I don't know much about irrigation infrastructures, but I do think that it must have took a lot of work to build something like this, especially 2,300 years ago. It's probably advanced now, but wether it is or not; the whole system looked incredible. The water was very clear and it was nice to see it flowing. Pictures:







I have been here in Chengdu now for one month, and I already got quite comfortable with everything; the people, the environment, food, weather and ofcourse the nightlife. The summervibe is already getting the best of me. I'm really happy to be here, see more of the world and enjoy myself to the fullest.

Saturday we went out to 'Babi3' and 'club 88'. Not as crazy as last time, but I enjoyed myself. It was a good oppurtunity to party the frustrations away I got from my poor performance during the football match that afternoon. I quite let it get the best of me, so luckily the music blew some joy in my system.



Today, Sunday, I went suntanning in the afternoon. Everybody was enjoying the weather and recovering from the night before. Nothing much special today, except for the fact that I made my homework for the first time. No i'm just joking ma and pa, or not? ;)

Friday the 13th: Steven's 20th birthday

To celebrate Steven's birthday(our classmate from the Netherlands), we suprised him in his room exactly at 00.00. We made a toast and congratulated him with his birthday. We sang birthday songs in several languages and we popped some champagne. The Thai girls in our dormitory also joint the party and sang a Thai birthday song. I believe he was quite suprised and happy to be suprised.



In the morning of his birthday we picked up the birthday pie to suprise him again in the
schoolcantine. Later on the evening Steven treated us on a dinner. We went to a korean restaurant not to far away from our dormitory. Almost at the end of the dinner we gave him his birthday present. We wanted to buy him his highly anticipated electronic translator. Unfortunately we didn't knew what features he needs/demands, so we collected money so he could buy it himself. Tong-Zjang made a lot of effort to arrange all the suprises, so she also handed over the
money which was packed inside a hongbao.

In the night we all went out to the club, ''Babi 3''. This club was very busy and there wasn't a real dancefloor. The floor was covered with a lot of tables and there wasn't a lot of room to dance. Luckily we had a and a table upstairs, which was very comfortable for us to just chill and bounce a little. The atmosphere was so-so. The Chinese people didn't dance on hiphop/r&b, which I (and I believe the other as well) enjoyed the most. So everytime urban music was on, I was stepping up and the rest of the club wasn't doing shit. Later on Daniel and I just went loco with our favourite M.J.B. and Akon tracks. After a while everybody just did their thing and enjoyed the night.

I think 'Babi 3' was a very nice club, because the music was quite enjoy-able. The live-performances entertained me and ofcourse I was with a lot of crazy party-hardies so a good time was already guaranteed. I got home at 3 am, because I was tired and I bounced the shit out of myself. I believe there was a time when a shorty was trying to talk to me in the club, and I just ignored her the whole time, cuz I was trippin on the music. sorry shawty..

Oh yeah, I accidently punched a female employee in the eye. I wanted to pull Monique nearby me so she could see the live-perfomance better and I didn't saw the girl walking right behind her. When I tried to embrace Mo's shoulder I just fucking hit her in the eye. I said sorry and asked her if she was ok, but she was working and probably on a rush or something and walked further. I felt really bad, so I did what a real man does. I turned around to look if she was still standing somewere so I could say how sorry i'm really am. I'm looking.... not seing her.. ok now lets dancee clap your hands! haha ;)

Yes, it really went like that, but I couldn't really enjoy myself this way. I started to look for her and after not much longer I found her. I didn't really knew how she looked like, but I saw this girl with a employee outfit on, looking at me and grabbing her eye(with a little smile though). So I knew it was her ofcourse. I told her I was really sorry and she said it was ok.

I woke up today quite early at 10 am. I went to do some shopping and I noticed that i'm running out of money. From the moment I arrived untill now have been quite expensive. Mostly because I had to buy things for my staying here, but also because I went to see some touristic things and I also had some fancy dinners and I have gone out a couple of times. It has come to the point were I had this crazy dilemma just 15 minutes ago. I was eating my breakfast on a disposable plate. After I finished eating I thought to myself; do I throw this plate away, or do I just wash it? It's a cheap ass disposable plate!

So, I think I had quite a lot of fun since I've got her. It's time that I will work harder on my Mandarin skills and my physical condition. Next week I will have more courses besides Mandarin, so I will be more busy. I owe you guys some pictures of last night, which I don't have right now. I will upload them asap.

picca's:

1st Schoolday

Today I had my first schoolday. The only course I have for this week is Mandarin: everyday from 8;40 till 12;00. So it is quite intensive.

The classroom is pretty small, but big enough for all my classmates: 8 people (Jessica is the only classmatesfrom the Netherlands). Furthermore there are 3 girls from Thailand, 2 girls from America and 1 girl from Kyrgyzstan. It was nice to see and meet new people from other parts of the world. The Thai girls for example always apologize (I think they apologize) when they make a mistake ( by putting there hands together and make a little bow). The afro-american girls reminded me of Suriname women by laughing real loud. I don't want to stereotype black women, but I just see what I see. And if you think this is 'oh-don't-say-that' then fu. I think it's funny.

What's even more funny is that every monday, wednesday and friday one of us have to perform something at the end of (Mandarin) class. 1 person per day has to sing a Chinese song or just perform something. And i'm the first one to sing a song upcoming Wednesday. Yes, it's time for some embarrasment, if I did not had enough for today. Yesterday evening we went to a Thai restaurant. Spicy as hell and I had to pay the price during class this morning. 'Qingwen, laoshi.. wo de (stomache) bu shu fu, can I go to the toilet and come back later?'



After that Steven and I went to Carrefour (big supermarket) to buy some things. I bought some snacks, towels, applejuice and a webcam. After that Tim, Raymond, Daniel and I went to the gym for some Daniel-style work-out. I thought I was working out for about two years in the Netherlands. But it is nothing compared with how I train now. With Daniel's energy and knowledge about fitness, I think I'll return home buffed baby. (playin':Eye of the tiger, rocky theme)




In the evening I did the laundry and watched a movie in Monique's and Jessica's room together with Tong-Zjang and Daniel. We saw a nice movie called 'Kite-Runner'. Dramatic, but it has a good story-line, so it was a good movie to see. It quite late now and I have to get up early tomorrow. Here are just some random pictures for you guy's to see. Zaijian!



The Dutch people



Shopping street in the centre (just an impression, the shopping centre is a lot bigger)




@ Wenshu Temple









Raymond, Chingiez, Daniel, Me, Michael, Kirsten, Monique and Tong-Zjang@

Babi2, one of the better clubs in Chengdu so far in my opinion.

Panda's

Today the whole group (except for Steven, he was sick) went to Wolong Nature Reserve to see panda bears. We got up early at 6.30 am and we left the campus around 7.15. There were baby pandabears, (young) adult panda's and also 'red panda's '. The red panda's looked really funny.. but unfortunately I didn't made any pictures of them, because my battery was dead. I made some pictues and movies with my mobile.. but I forgot to bring my cable to upload them on my laptop. SUX

So this is all I have for now.. made by Mo.

The panda's were eating bamboo, and after that they ate some more bamboo (They eat 50 Kilo's bamboo at least per day!). We got there early because they are 'active' only at certain times. Besides eating they like to sleep, so there was nothing spectacular to see (Didn't expect them to sing a song for me though).

After observing them, we went to a restaurant inside the reserve to eat something. Food was so-so and quite expensive. I also ate bamboo, but I didn't like the way it was prepared. It tasted a little bit sour. I heard that I can eat sweet-flavoured bamboo nearby my dormitory, so maybe that one will taste better.

The day is still young, but I don't think it will get much more interesting than this. So i'm done blogging for today.