I’ve been home now for two weeks and the memories of Beijing are still resonating in my memory bank! I love it when people ask me how it was, any opportunity to share my time and urge others to go excites me!

The Great Wall

The weird and wonderful culture and its people will always have a place in my heart. Many people have asked if I’d do it again. I’d say that I wouldn’t do the CRCC internship again only because I had such an amazing time and met so many amazing people that I wouldn’t want to ruin the memory of that experience. Also, I graduate uni in a few months and there’s no real point – It’s real job hunting time!

The Great Wall of China is … Continue reading

Read Cafe

The weather has heated up substantially since my arrival in late January. The temperature today is apparently around 8 degrees Celsius and may reach up to 16 degrees. The highest it’s been! Monday, however, brought beautiful light snow and crisp cool wind, then heated up the following day. My work friend Jun Ou Yang and I ventured out for Chinese food at lunch time and I ran around chasing the snow like a little child… When I began to try catch flakes on my tongue at the top of a 2nd ring road bridge he yelled “no eat, no eat!”. I love the snow, its beautiful to look at! The locals don’t love it as much, most of them stayed in for lunch.

On Monday evening CRCC hosted … Continue reading

Floating lanterns

This time next week I’ll be back home in sunny Perth. My time in Beijing has really flown by. Thursday after work was ‘Aussie Ben’s’ birthday party – we threw him a surprise party… which didn’t exactly go to plan. I was actually so excited to hide and scream surprise. As a team though, we somehow managed to ruin it! He walked in as we’re all running around hiding ourselves. We all still screamed surprise, brought him his cake and sung him happy birthday – it turned out to be a really good night at Wu club. On Friday we visited the stationary market in the evening and at night we attended a networking event at a very nice hotel in Sanlitun. The networking event was presented by … Continue reading

Jun Ou Yang

The weather has finally heated up this week in Beijing - its going to be a high of around 6 degrees today! Although, on my way to work it was a nice eye-wakening -4 degrees. The city is full of people once again and the subway is scarier and more exhausting than some kind of theme park ride. The count down until my flight home has begun, my time here has absolutely flown by.

After an extremely cultural week during the Chinese New Year, the interns and I had a slower weekend to the weekends previous. The highlight of my weekend was definitely Sunday; I attempted to escort a group of us to the ‘hutong’ area near the Summer Palace. These hutongs are apparently a must-see in … Continue reading

My only friend and only other person in the office who can speak English, Alan, has left the office for reasons I am still not sure of. As lunchtime approached I got more and more excited to eat! The cold really works up an appetite. At quarter to twelve – fifteen minutes until lunch time – a food order arrived for all of the employees, but sadly, I was not asked if I wanted to place an order and therefore there was nothing for me.

That’s okay, I thought to myself, no one can even talk to me so its nothing personal. At twelve I decide to venture out into the street and find a restaurant to eat at. Being me, I find one with plenty of people that looks … Continue reading

So I’ve been in Beijing for over 2 weeks now, and I’m going to attempt to describe the ‘life of a Beijinger’ considering it is so different to the ‘life of a Perthite’.

The locals are back from visiting their homes and families and Beijing is full once again. The smog has returned and the view from our apartment window is dismal. The pollution level is over 200 today, the healthy level is around 20! Walking to the subway station this morning I was pushed onto the train, pushed off and my coffee nearly knocked out of my hand. Coffee is terrible apparently, here in Beijing - I haven’t tried any coffee apart from the odd Starbucks here and there. So, yes, I looked like a freak holding a coffee … Continue reading

After the hike up the Great Wall

Yesterday a group of around 15 of us took a trip up to the Great Wall of China, more specifically, the Mutianyu section. We travelled for around an hour, 70km Northeast of Beijing up into the Huairou country. This part of the wall, although a bit further than other parts, is apparently one of the most well preserved sections of the wall as well as one of the oldest. Mutianyu was first built in the mid sixth century and restored in 1569. There are chairlifts as well as cable cars to ascend and descend. Everyone in our group decided it was part of the experience to climb the wall rather than get a lift up; it was a challenge but definitely well worth … Continue reading

Happy New Year; 2013 year of the Snake! Amazingly I got to experience this transition into a new Chinese year here in China! Beijing was full of decorations, red lanterns and the constant noise of exploding fire works and fire crackers. It’s like something out of a movie! We get a week of for the new year celebrations, most Chinese people go home for this week to other parts of China.

Chinese New Year Costume

Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays – it’s similar to our Christmas! For New Year celebrations we had a party in one of the other interns apartments. Everyone had to dress in red or as a snake. Our usual girl group consisting of Kavita, Chloe, Megan, Jaymee and I … Continue reading

Many of you have asked me what it is I am specifically doing here in China and why I chose Bejing of all places! CRCC Asia is a company that offers internships in Beijing and Shanghai to students and graduates from all over the world. Most of the interns here are either here for one or 3 months. They also offer a language course which some of the interns are also doing.

As many of you know I’m in my ultimate year of a Bachelor of Arts (Communication Studies) at the University of Western Australia. I graduate at the end of this Semester with a double major in Communications and English. For this reason I have chosen to do a one month internship at a communications company called Astronaut China.… Continue reading

My CRCC Asia internship is amazing, and that is partially due to the awesome people I have met in the past 8 days! We have been out a lot in a short amount of time; the night life is really vibrant and there are a large variety of places to see. But don’t get me wrong, I love my internship, am learning heaps and working very hard!

On my second night in Beijing I, and many others, experienced the wrath of Baijiu – Chinese distilled alcohol generally 40% – 60% and a big part of Chinese culture. Despite tasting absolutely disgusting, Baijiu isn’t too bad, it warms you up for those cold nights out and gets the conversation going!

We were warned before the welcome banquet about Baijiu and it … Continue reading