One month left

I have passed my oral exam! I am very happy about that :-)! After 4 weeks I will have the written exam and when I have finished this, I finally can go on travel. I am really looking forward to it, because doing a language course for 20 weeks is quite intensive, especially when I am the only student in my class again. It is worth the tuition fee; paying for a group class and getting a private class for 6 hours a day. However, it is also boring being the only student, but I just have 4 weeks left, so the time will probably pass by fast.

I visited to the soccer match China versus The Netherlands, last week Tuesday. This soccer match took place in Beijing’s soccer stadium. Although, there was not a lot of supporters the atmosphere was good. Supporters were wearing T-shirts with names on them like ‘Van Persie’ and ‘Robben’ and what also was remarkable: a lot of Chinese supporters were wearing Dutch orange soccer T-shirts. The Dutch team won the match even though they didn’t play well, probably to “save the face” of the Chinese team. The soccer match was not really exciting, but the after-party was! The after-party lasted till sunrise......         

The Dragon Boat Festival took place 2 weeks ago. This festival is celebrated with Dragon boat races and eating glutinous rice wrapped up in bamboo leaves. There are 2 kind of flavours: sweet or salty; the sweet one is typical from north China packed with different kind of beans. I prefer the salty ones, which are mostly served in southern China, with pork and dried salty egg yolk in it.

Three weeks ago, I visited Hong Kong and I really liked it! When I arrived there everything felt so familiar, I could find my way easily and people were speaking Cantonese, so I could understand them straightaway. I was only 4 days in Hong Kong and most of the time I visited family and friends, it was nice to see them again. I told them about my stay in Beijing and confirmed that Hong Kong is indeed not mainland China in a lot of ways. If I have to stay for a long period of time in China, then I would rather stay in Hong Kong than in Beijing. 

So, there is only about one month left before I start my travel in China, but first I have to finish my course and take the exam. I will try to enjoy as much as possible before I leave Beijing!