Thoughts before leaving home
Trip Start
Unknown
1
5
Trip End
Ongoing
What I did
Getting ready to go
Biebergemuend-Kassel, Hesse, Germany
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Hey everyone! Welcome to my blog. This is my first post and my great journey is about to start. In a mere 13 hours I’ll be leaving the amazing Western World where I’ve spent all of the 21 years and 4 months of my life so far. So now let’s check out what the people out in the very East are like.
For the coming 3 months, I’ll be living in the city of Hangzhou for my internship abroad. Hangzhou, being a city of 3 Million itself and being that capital of the Zheijang province is less than an hour away form Shanghai.
It’s so incredible that, in 24 hours from now I’ll be standing in the People’s Republic of China, going through immigration at it’s capital airport in Beijing from where I will continue my adventure with a domestic flight to Hangzhou.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to think of all of this. I’m very excited and looking forward
-to getting to know a whole new culture and a different way of life
- to explore a place with a language I have no clue about
- to live in a country that’s not inhabited mainly by people of European ancestry (by that I want to say I’ll look different from everyone else)
But there’s also still so much anxiety… I have no clue how I’ll get the people to understand me (hopefully some speak some Englisch). I have no clue which stores, which brands, which customs I have to look out for.
When I just think about my first steps in China, the moment when I leave the airplane to head to the Immigration, I still wonder what I’ll feel like. So far, I’ve only gone through US and EU immigration. I always knew that everytime I would come up to one of the officers, even though I’d have a lot of respect, I’d be happy to see him/her be happy to finally look at the home that lay behind him that I’d enter a few seconds later and that a friendly sime, a Hi, a How are you and a Bye would never be wrong.
How will I look at the Immigration officer? What will I say? What will I feel towards the land that lies after I pass him/her?
one remarks In China, a number of websites that are normal to us in the WEST are not available. I don’t know which ones I can access in the end. That’s why I still have 2 blogs right now. I’ll check which one works in China and I’ll continue to use that one
