Settling in

We have been living in Tianjin (天津 Tiānjīn) for almost one month now, and already it is beginning to feel like home. It was a strange experience saying goodbye to family at the airport, knowing that we weren't just leaving home, but moving to the other side of the world for a year. We flew to Heathrow airport before we boarded another plane to Beijing (北京 Běijīng) a journey which lasted about 20 hours in total. We arrived in Beijing excited about the prospect of living in China for a year but quite exhausted after the journey.

The first couple of weeks have been spent exploring the city and meeting new people. As well as making many new Chinese friends to practise our language skills, we have also met people at our university from places as far away as Madagascar and Ukraine.

Settling in was thankfully less difficult than I expected, as I thought it would take me a while to adjust to living in a huge city when I have spent all my life in rural Scotland. Conveniently, we have a subway station just around the corner from the accommodation, so we have very quickly found our way around, discovering new restaurants with cuisines from all over the globe and six-storey shopping malls where you can buy everything you could possibly imagine!

Last weekend, Chinese people celebrated the mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节 zhōngqiū jié), one of the most important celebrations in the Chinese calendar. It is an ancient festival which marks the end of the harvest and corresponds with the eighth full moon of the year. Traditionally, the festival is celebrated by gathering as a family, praying, thanksgiving and worshipping the moon. We have also eaten lots of mooncakes (月饼 yuébǐng) this week - traditional round pastries which are normally filled with sweet red bean paste or lotus root paste. These sweet treats are synonymous with the festival, and are eaten as part of celebrations of the event. They are absolutely delicious!

Monday 4th October is National Day, which celebrates the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and we have one week's holiday as a result. We are all leaving Tianjin to travel elsewhere in China during the week, and several of us will travel to Xi'an (西安) to see the Terracotta Warriors and the Wild Goose Pagoda; I'm sure there will be plenty of photos!

Italian Style Street:

The view from our window:

A group photo of the scholars: