Student name: Ms. Astrid Löfgren
Nationality: Switzerland
Time in Global Exchange Center: 20 weeks from 6th. Jan. 2014
Every day is like an adventure! The day begins all too often with a chinese lesson and then
I am free to go to different places in Beijing. I might go looking up a restaurant with a good reputation, a cafe that someone tipped off about in his travel blog, or wander around in the
city houtongs. It's really wonderful to have this freedom and the time to discover a new
culture and city.
After the day's lessons, I and a classmate decide to find us a nice restaurant. We are planning
for a lunch treat. The choice must be a restaurant we never have visited before and we must
try at least one new dish. It should also be a restaurant serving food from any of the typical
Chinese cuisines, if possible. It will be a wonderful meal with lots of delicious vegetables
cooked in different ways and we feel happy. Now that we are full and satisfied, we decide to
visit the Dongyue Temple. Our teachers have been trying to scare us up, with his comments on
this temple. The temple has lot scary but beautiful sculptures and description of what happens
to one after death. All depending on what you have done in life. Are you in Beijing, I recommend
a visit to the Dongyue Temple.
This is how a day can be for me here in China. I have fixed classes during part of the day and
when they are finished I often head out on an adventure to discover Beijing. This is a wonderful
and fun ways of learning, a four-hour lesson and then the rest of the day you can visit the various attractions. During the adventures in the city I all the time practice the language but in a different way. Sometimes I seek only up a cozy cafe and sit there with my homework. It is a privilege to study the language this way, it cannot be better.
