I realised that I haven’t written anything about the real reason I’m here so here’s a little something on my actual studies. The midterm exam is on Nov 20th so that’s gonna be a nice birthday gift. Amazingly our class has managed to stay on schedule and we have gone through everything in the first book; all 15 chapters and about 300 characters. I recognise about 80% of them but can only write around 50% so that leaves quite a bit of room for improvement. Now that we’ve moved on to the second book the complexity of the language has gone up a notch. Also, there’s way more new characters to be learned in each chapter; 30 instead of 15 like in the beginning.

I have learned to speak way better than I expected and I can have simple conversations with the locals. That I’m very proud of.

Here’s a snapshot of the book as well as one of my notebook:

Today there’s a 50 word essay about “How did I spend my weekend” for homework so I’ll start working on that now.

I got totally fed up with the school dormitory and the inability of the staff to do anything about the bug infestation so I moved to a new home. Now I reside at the Ramada Plaza Hangzhou Haihua. It’s not far from campus, just 15-30 minutes by bus and it’s just opposite of the G+ nightclub. It’s a bit more expensive than living at campus, but I think it’s worth it. I don’t want to live like a drone in a Zerg hive.

The room is nice, to say the least.

Such very nice.

For comparison:

Nihao,

It’s Paula here! Tuomas asked me to write some thoughts about my trip since this is my last evening here at Hangzhou. It’s been quite a trip but to be honest I’m glad to get back home.

China has been a positive surprise for me. Less people than I thought and barely anyone speaks any English so it would’ve been a huge benefit to know at least some words in Chinese. Otherwise one might end up speaking Finnish to a Chinese housekeeper or using sign language to borrow an umbrella like I did.

The atmosphere feels very safe. Even though I’ve been wondering around alone I haven’t felt insecure. The scariest moment was in Shanghai when we visited World Financial Center, 494 meters tall building and I noticed up in the observatory desk that there were glass windows in the floor. First I thought I was going to faint and then I thought I was about to start crying. Yes, if some of you didn’t know I’m afraid of heights. I couldn’t walk alone so Tuomas had to walk me through the observatory desk.

I did know that there are more people living in Hangzhou than whole of Finland but still the amount of buildings and construction sites has been eye opening. Being here makes me appreciate Finland and its fresh air even more because the air quality here is quite dramatic.

After saying that I still think that one should visit China if it’s possible. This is an unbelievable country which everyone has to see for themselves!