When I was going through my Manga phase, gobbling up all the Manga I could get my hands on, I stumbled across Hanazakari no Kimitachi E (For You in Full Blossom) or better known as Hana Kimi by Hisaya Nakajo. And I have to say that this Manga is definitely still one of my favourites because I can’t resist these romantic comedy storylines full of fluff and the beautiful artwork. I suppose it’s because this is such a typical Japanese story, so much like a fairytale and full of things we deem not possible.

I didn’t like Sano at first, the main male character, because of his lack of emotions and expression. But in reality, that’s exactly how some people are… all emo and that, and it just makes it even sweeter to see Mizuki bring his personality out. Nakatsu is another character I grew to like, he’s a complete opposite to Sano. Where Sano is calm, cool and collected, Nakatsu is full of energy and emotion and comical expressions.

So when I stumbled across the Taiwan drama version of Hana Kimi when I was shopping in Dalian, I just couldn’t resist – I had to buy it.

The good thing about the Taiwan drama is that they follow the manga pretty accurately, I really hate it when movies based on novels or what not are completely killed because they’ve made so many changes to the storyline. I’m a strong believer that the novel is better than the movie because a novel gives readers so much detail which you can’t find in a 1-2hour movie.

Obviously the original Hana Kimi story was changed – they cut the 23 volume Manga down to around about the first 9-10 volumes. I found the drama to be a a little too condense….If they didn’t change and cut the storyline with the photographer, I think it would have clarified it a lot more. Without the extra information, viewers would think that the photographer was just thrown in for the hell of extending the series…

Although Hana Kimi it’s a fairy good fluffy drama, I personally found it a bit TOO unrealistic to be a Live Action Drama. It’s one thing to have a fairytale on paper but another thing to have it played out on screen. BUT I still found it as great entertainment, I liked the cast (mainly Ella - Mizuki, Chun - Sano and Jiro - Nakatsu) and it’s good for me to practise my Chinese =P

Watching drama series or movies in Mandarin is classified as Studying!

I’ve been thoroughly distracted from blogging for a while, one of the excuses is the Food Fair held at Fremantle for the Burma Cyclone victims. It was on the Sunday (yesterday) and thankfully the weather was perfect! I was a bit worried because a few days earlier the weather was terrible with the wind blowing around fences, uprooting trees, causing power cuts and throwing debris all over the roads.

As per usual, mum took up the roll of manning the ice kachang machine. Since it’s a charity event, I think it’s the first time I’ve paid for an ice kachang! It’s funny because I still have moments where I convert to RMB and just about faint at how much I’m paying for food here… $8 for a dosai seems decent but 52RMB is totally killing me! I could eat for a whole week with that money in China!! Anyhow, it’s all good because it’s for a good cause =)

We didn’t get there until two in the afternoon, and we found that a lot of the stalls had sold out of their popular dishes =( The lines at the satay and dosai stalls were massively long so I was pretty lucky that I got my hands on some of their food without waiting too long (knowing people in the line always helps =P).

The event seems to be successful considering a lot of the stalls sold out on food, the turn out was really good since the weather was so nice, and it had a pretty good atmosphere too… Well, that was before the sun started to set and the wind started feeling a little too chilly… Overall, it was a great food fair =) I wish Perth would have more throughout the year!

Today is my nephew (cousin’s son), Christopher’s full moon! And to celebrate, we ate lots of food (including the traditional red dyed eggs) and played games =) I can’t wait until Chris gets big enough to play with, all he seems to do at the moment is sleep, cry and secrete bodily fluids….

To continue one from Harbin Ice Festival Part 1, we finally arrived in Harbin and arrived at the hotel around 5am. The hotel was thankfully close by to the train station and there was no trouble getting a taxi at that time in the morning.

However, I still had a bit of trouble with booking our hotel because:

1. I couldn’t tell them when we were arriving (we didn’t have train tickets at that time)
2. I couldn’t tell them how long we were staying (I wasn’t sure what day we could get train tickets back to Beijing)
3. There’s actually TWO JinJiang Hotels in Harbin
4. I simply just couldn’t understand them…. oh the shame!

So arriving at 5am, we had to wake up the receptionist and she told us that we can’t check in until 7am when some of their patrons checked out. Being as tired as we were, we slept in the lobby which was freezing cold even though the doors were closed.

Thank goodness the Harbin JinJiang Hotel at Sophia Plaza had a really good manager on staff, she was extremely helpful and could understand our broken Mandarin. The best thing about Harbin is that their spoken Mandarin is the easiest to understand, even the locals agree =)

The manager helped us organise our room, she helped with the breakfast tickets and she even helped us buy our return train tickets when another staff member told us to go call them ourselves! (Plus it only took her 5mins to do)

So we went into our rooms, passed out and woke up sometime near noon… we didn’t exactly have much sleep on the painfully long and uncomfortable journey to Harbin. The good thing is that we did our research and we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to see and where the tourist spots all were.

With a spring back into our steps, we headed off in the direction of the St Sofia Orthodox Church. The St Sophia Church itself seemed to be a little smaller than I had imagined it, probably because of all the giant buildings surrounding it. I was most surprised by the birds still hanging around the church, I thought they would have flown to warmer climates or froze to death by now…

Once we had our share of photos, we found our way to Zhongyang Dajie (Central Ave) which is well known for the beautiful Russian architecture. There were ice sculptures spaced out all down the cobble stone road, and the whole street made me feel like I was in a dream when the lights turned on. Absolutely breath-taking.

Below is a short clip I took just as the sun was setting and the buildings started to light up

As it got darker, we found ourselves extremely thankful for the many shopping complexes available to shelter us from the cold. In fact, if we weren’t running around outside in the freezing cold, we would be sweating it off in the well heated shopping complexes and stores.

After a final round of hot coffee and Russian imported chocolate (which by the was is more expensive at the Ice Bar), we started off back to the hotel. On our way back, we even stumbled across some slides made of ice and a Christmas tree they forgot to take down =)

Below is a short clip I took of St. Sophia Church that night as we walked back to the hotel.

Harbin Ice Festival Trip:

• Harbin Ice Festival Part 1
• Harbin Ice Festival Part 3

I’ve finally gotten around to finish typing up a large portion of my trip to the Harbin Ice Festival in January of 2008!!! YaY! But I just discovered that I totally killed Part 2 of the Harbin Trip by saving Part 3 over it!! >=( I’m so distraught right now… it was such a long post too. This will just mean that Part 2 will be delayed, I’ll attempt to get it up by the end of this week though =) Note to self: Always type posts up in Word for backup!!

After our last exam at BLCU (Jan 15th), most of us international students went off on our mini holidays to other parts of China or back home to see family and friends. After months of preparation and continuous discussions about where to go and what to see, we decided on going to the Harbin Ice Festival!

We had actually prepared an itinerary to travel all the way to Guilin and Chengdu to see the pretty landscape and cute pandas (did you hear about the Pandas who escaped because of the earthquake??), even going through Xi’an and Pingyao to see the terracotta warriors and ancient city, but we realised it was a bit too hopeful since it was a right before Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and we were most likely going to have trouble with train tickets!

We weren’t wrong! Talking about our plans to Harbin was one thing, to actually get it done was another! Firstly, just to buy the train tickets to Harbin were a huge hassle because you have to fight half of China just to get to the ticket counter. The whole ticketing system was so that you can only buy your tickets 4-5days before the departure date, and you can’t book any tickets ahead of time. Although, I’m sure you could if you knew someone at the ticketing office!

We had to line up several times in the super-long Chinese style queues, where it’s just one big free-for-all wrestling match to get the ticket officers’ attention only to be turned down and told “明天回来 come back tomorrow“. We ended up delaying our trip by a few days because of this, which meant our hotel bookings had to be changed and our hopes of getting our hands on 3 hard sleepers were dashed. Instead, out of pure desperation, we got ourselves hard seaters.The train ride to Harbin was extremely memorable.

First of all, China rail sells standing tickets for those who, as the ticket suggests, remain standing throughout the whole journey. During peak season, these passengers are shoulder to shoulder blocking your way from the door to your seat. If you arrive late to your seat, expect some locals to be sitting in your seat. That is, if you even make it to your seat in the first place!

The train had already started moving and we were stuck in the mass of people trying to make our way to our allocated seats. Several locals happily help by pushing you on your way (some more aggressively than others). I’m quite sure I ended up stepping on people and random luggage in the aisle, as well as practically sitting in some strangers lap.

We found entertainment in just observing and commenting on the appearance and behaviour of the local Chinese. One girl in particular looked every part Japanese with her hair and make up, even her giant teddy bear. We watched her almost get run over by the lunch cart (she bought a standing ticket), we watched her steal the seats of other patrons when they went to the toilet and we also watched her practically sleep in the aisle.

It was only until near the end of our journey that the crowd ‘thinned’ out so those standing had space to sit/sleep in the aisle. It was also towards the end of the 18hour train ride that the locals found great humour and entertainment with us foreigners. Chinese are easily entertained if you just simply speak broken Mandarin to them and teach them some English.

Click the below link for more information about travel by trains
• Travelling in China by Train

Harbin Ice Festival Trip
• Harbin Ice Festival Part 2
• Harbin Ice Festival Part 3

One of the things I wished I had when I went to BLCU was a better map of BLCU campus and the area surrounding BLCU. When arriving on campus, it would be nice to actually know where you need to go to get things done because the process of actually getting anything done takes AGES sometimes. This blog post is dedicated to a few basic things I think would have been useful for those new to BLCU and the Wudaokou area.

First of all I need to put in a quick disclaimer: Please keep in mind that this post is based on my experience of studying as a student at BLCU during September 2007 to January 2008, there is constant construction going around in Beijing and buildings may be constructed or disappear overnight!

The map that BLCU sends out to students is correct but it can also be very easy to misinterpret because some buildings are out of shape, out of proportion and you have no idea where to get your basic supplies!

Basic knowledge about BLCU:
• BLCU = 语言大学 Yuyan Daxue. Some very locals and students might call it “Beiyu” but it’s not as common.
• Beida = 北京大学 Beijing University. This is NOT Beijing Normal or another university with ‘Beijing’ in it.
• Ditie Daxue is opposite BLCU.
• Wudaokou is an area buzzing with shops, restaurants, cafes, apartments, and basically functions off the many many students in the area. Considered the University area because it’s near Beida, Tsinghua and BLCU.
• It takes about 10mins to walk from Dorm 4 in BLCU to Wudaokou

One of the most useful things you should know is the two road names which BLCU is located: “Chengfu Lu” and “Xueyuan Lu“. This comes in handy when you’re drunk off your face from another night out at Sunlitun (or Propaganda) and you were unlucky enough to find the one taxi driver who doesn’t know where “Yuyan Daxue” is.

Here’s the basic map of the BLCU campus I made using Google Maps.

KEY:
Green Lines: Outlines the BLCU campus
Red Dots: The main gates which you enter or leave the campus
Yellow Lines: The main roads which BLCU is located on
OrangeDots: Indicate where you can find an ATM or Bank
Blue Dots: The more important buildings you would want to know on your first day of arrival

I never actually explored the entire campus, I didn’t really think it was that interesting…. But I must admit that it is pretty important to know where you can go to find help, the bank and ATMs, the internet for your dorm room, food, shopping etc. It’s not too difficult though, I usually just stumbled across places or a classmate would let me know, and the worst case scenario would be to just ask for directions.

It isn’t too difficult to exchange currencies at the Bank of China on BLCU campus but when I went there, they wouldn’t take $AUD for some stupid reason!! (Click on the image on the left for labels of the OrangeDots). The Buildings highlighted with Blue dots are probably the most useful ones, and it’s just good to have an idea of where they all are.

The Friendship Store near the Basketball Courts is your BLCU on campus One-Stop -Shop! Cernet is the name of the BLCU internet shop where you can apply for internet connection for your dorm. BLCU has it’s own tiny Post Office near Cernet but there is also a huge one next to the Chaoshifa. (Click on the image below for labels of Blue dots)

The Chaoshifa is a the local supermarket (ie Coles, Woolworths) to stock up on supplies in your mini fridge. But keep in mind that you need to carry your shopping bags all the way to the South Gate and it takes a good 5 minutes to get there. The other buildings are just good landmarks and I pin-pointed Dorm 17 because it’s technically “off campus” and Dorm 4 because it’s the main dorm for international students.

Here is a quick video I took of BLCU after exams finished (that’s why there isn’t many people around)

I still have quite a few BLCU related posts to blog about (I have it in my head but it’s just not typed up yet), and I’m in the process of breaking up my post on my trip to the Harbin Ice Festival, so remember to check back soon =)