你好!

It's been two weeks here in 天津 and I already feel as if I've been here for years! In the few days we've been here we've had cake in a cat café, had at least 16 near death experiences involving traffic and bonded with Koreans over a bottle opener.

We arrived in 中国 on September 1st full of excitement and wonder as to what lies ahead of us. After losing our luggage for an hour and struggling to find the correct exit we finally made it to Tianjin. Our first few days mainly consisted of us trying to set up a Chinese sim (and in my case buying a new phone) and exploring the surrounding area. Exploring at first seemed like mission impossible with the insane traffic but soon we figured out the system. In fact I now feel safer crossing Chinese roads than Scottish roads because the drivers in China pay much more attention to pedestrians and generally accept that people will just walk in front of them. We soon were able to find a mall, an indoor food market and a running stadium all within a stones throw of our new home.

One place we really enjoyed going was a cat café 猫咖啡馆 that's only five minutes away from our University. Inside the café had a homely feeling and was full of climbing areas and toys for the cats. The café was quite expensive but it was a great experience! We could play with the cats whilst having our milkshakes (mine was a called vanilla meow) and delicious chocolate cakes.

Making friends here has also been interesting. One of the first foreign friends I made was two Korean girls staying across the hall from us when they asked to borrow a bottle opener from me. Neither of them spoke much English so we were forced to talk in Chinese to each other. In the end I invited them to join us in my room where myself and some of the other scholars were having food. By the end of the night we were having a mini ceilidh in the hall with them and feeding them shortbread.

We recently had a freshers fair kind of event were we were able to join clubs such as cheerleading, Kpop dancing, martial arts, tennis,