Haven’t updated my life here for almost 20 days, but it was all post-exam parties and happiness. Here are a few highlights.

1. A trip to York
Went down to York with Jenn, Ruby and Yuk about a week ago. Jenn posted some photos already and I’ve got some in my Flickr (sadly, it seems to be blocked in China). The Bettys Tea Room was classic, I like the atmosphere a lot, but not quite a affordable place for students like me.

2. Working in Studioduplo
It was nice to spend a week at studioduplo helping with some websites and hang around with James, Tom and Mike. It’s good to do whatever you want to do, especially when you are young enough. – that’s what I felt most when working there. Hopefully one I will start a business that fit my interest and enjoying going to work everyday like them.

3. Moving house
Yes, again! The accommodation in Shoichi Hall finishes on 22nd and I will move to Giles Gate. I will spend my summer in Durham, try to find a job while working in the restaurant and do something that I like to do.

There are a lot more to write about, but once you passed that I-want-to-write-it-down moment the motivation will be gone. But do check out my twitter and mlog though, I become lazier these days so just update from mobile. But it’s closer to life.

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I haven’t mentioned about Studioduplo before, it’s a design company ran by three cool young entrepreneurs (James, Mike and Tom) in Durham.

I just had a chat with James this afternoon. Actually I met him at the beginning of the year and very interested on what they are doing. Just give a brief descriptions on their current achievements: they have earned their trip to Japan for two weeks from their designing business, and recently found a new office in the center of Durham which will be moved into soon!!! A typical teenagers start-up business, but quite a successful one based on what they have achieved. I enjoyed chatting with James, because we’ve got the same mind-set. But he are luckier because they are doing what they want to do.

They are going to Tokyo tomorrow and going to experience a totally different culture for two weeks. They have created a blog to write about their travel and venture in Tokyo and hopefully will receive some advices and as it goes on. So it’s worth to give it a advert here, remember to check it out a few days later.

Good luck and hope them make the most of their journey!

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I’m writing this post in word and will publish it when I get back to Shantou this afternoon. It’s 5:10am (13th Dec) now, although I’m tired but can’t sleep anymore, jetlag. So instead of rolling around on the bed, I want to write something.

Fly with Virgin

Long before I came to England, my friends who study abroad told me Virgin is a good airline and they always fly with them. For some reasons I didn’t have a chance to fly with them in the last four years, more often with BA. But after this journey with Virgin, I think I will go with them next time.

The service is better then BA. Not sure I was lucky or not, but the one took me home was Airbus A340. All the facilities were very nice and well designed. But what I like most was a plastic bag they provided with all the little items like toothbrush and a pen. A pen was important for people who need to write a landing card, but this is the first time I got one from the airline, before I always need to borrow from somebody or claim myself up to the shelf to get a pen. Such a little thing shows a lot caring, and that’s what a good service should be!

I didn’t get much sleep in the fly. There were several babies around me, one cried after another. Also, the seat was too small for a guy like me. They have a new class call “premium economy” which cost a little bit more but the seats are bigger and more comfortable, I may consider that next time. I did watch quite a few movies. I might write some movie reviews after this post, haha.

In Hong Kong

My friend Martin came to pick me up from the airport, and took a coach back to Shatin. Martin’s parents are closed friends of my parents, they always take good care of me every time I am in Hong Kong. It’s like a family now and I always refer them as my relatives.

Last night was the same as before, uncle (Martin’s dad) cooked me a very very nice family dinner. He is a good cook. Then a few cups of tea after dinner and I showed them some photos and caught up with each others about life. It’s life my other family and I do feel like home every time I stay in their house.

Going to Shantou

My direct coach back to Shantou is 7:45am today. It takes 56 hours. It’s going to be a long journey again. But my parents are very happy and looking forward to see me back, I can tell from their voice in the phone last night. So am I :)

To Jenn

A little message to Jenn.

We can still communicate with text. She said she feels very lonely now because all her good friends are left and I am not with her neither. I know how it feels, because I spent my last Christmas in Durham by myself, all the friends were left and family is miles away. Imagine Christmas Eve, being alone with a computer screen, it was sad and lonely. But life sometimes needs a moment and time like that, they makes me appreciate more when I have friends and family around.

I hope she can handle it well and I will call her once I got back home in Shantou.

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I’ve been working for the last four days, earning for Christmas gifts. I’m very tired now, but still have to pack and prepare for the flight tomorrow. After not being home for almost a year and a half, I’m really looking forward to see my families. The webcam in my house was broken so I haven’t seen their face for like 6 months, although we still talk through Skype. I’m quite excited now.

I will travel down to London tomorrow around 2:00pm. My flight is around 9:00pm, so hopefully that much time will be enough for British train to delay if they want. I like take night flight, a meal with a bottle of wine and a movie can put me into a sweet dream for most of the journey. I should be arriving in Hong Kong at 5pm on the 12th (HK time). I will stay in my relative’s home for one night, if my jet lag allows me to sleep. Then I will take a coach the next morning (7:00am, 13th, HK time) back to my hometown, Shantou! The whole journey it’s about 25 hours, very tiring but I’m still looking forward to be back home.

My next post will be from China, I will try to update on MyShantou.net as well while I’m in Shantou.

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I just bought my return ticket back to China for Christmas holiday on Virgin Atlantic yesterday. The price is £492, which is not that cheap for a normal return ticket to China, but considering in holiday time, it’s quite a good deal.

Before when I bought flight ticket, STA travel was the place I always go to simply because they has a good reputation and do special deal for students. But one of my friend who just came back from China gave me some advices that buying from some Chinese travel agent in UK sometimes can get some really good deals. I saw a lot of flight ads when I went to China town or any Chinese supermarket, but never really look into it. However, I gave a it go this time.

Those he recommended me were Sagitta (益川), Omega (欧美嘉), Wanguk (王潮) and Xinlung (新龙). So I searched their sites and took a look last night. There are too many good deals listed on the site. I hate spending time searching and comparing from those eye-catching ads, so I called them and seek more personal advices. I called up Wanguk and Omega, their staffs are very polite that out of my expectation. I didn’t remember that I could get this level of kindness when I called up any services in China. But anyway, they answered all the questions I asked and being very helpful and polite, I was very impressed. However, the best they can offer still not as good as the one I found on Virgin, so I had to put them down this time although I really want to have a deal with them just because of their kind services.

A little piece of advices here: although I didn’t actually know whether their services are good through out the whole purchasing, but if you want to buy flight tickets to China, these Chinese agents might be good options. Here are their number and websites:

Omega: 08707706868 http://www.omegatravel.ltd.uk
Xinlung: 01612373377 http://www.xinlung.net
Wanguk: 01617497333 http://www.wanguk.com
Sagitta: 08700778888 http://www.sagitta-tvl.com

My flight is 11 December and return on 14 January. I will be flying to Hong Kong and then take a coach back to Shantou. Very looking forward to be back home.

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After seeing my friend Koji off yesterday, our 26 days journey was finally finished. It was an interesting trip, not only because of the number of places we have been to, but more because of the people we met and also the conversations with Koji. It’s a great pleasure to travel with him, I learned a lot and thought a lot.

There are a lot interesting cultural shocks for Koji, like shops closed at 5:30pm or staffs clean and putting chairs on the table while there are still customers having coffees. Those can never happen in Japan, he said. But the most shocking still the train services. When we left Windermere, and train was late for about 15 minutes as indicated, but as arriving time approaching, the delay time kept counting. “Expected arrive at 7:56, then 7:57, and then 7:58…”,Koji couldn’t believe what he saw. He said trains delays are worth to be reported on TV news, I joked that here might be opposite.

Anyway, it was a very interesting journey and I will post more little stories that we had in the journey. The following is our route and “photo of the journey – jumping boys”!

Route:
Oxford → London → Bath → Stonehenge → Cardiff → Caernarfon → Lake District (Windermere) → Edinburgh → Loch Ness → Durham → Oxford

Photo of the journey – jumping boys

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I’m in a hostel in Cardiff right now waiting to take a train to Bangor in two hours. Then we (my friend Koji and I) will move to Lake District, Scotland and then back to England. We don’t have an exact route; all the next destinations are decided three days in advance only.

We will return to Oxford on 25th September and my friend will flight back to Japan on 26th. Until then I might not be able to post any updates, but I will definitely write down the journey once I get back.

Looking forward to new destinations.

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Haven’t got time to update the blog since last post. I have been working quite hard lately mainly because my travel plan needs financial support, and also partly because of the visa application.

As I said before, I was planning to travel in Europe for 20 days. I applied to Belgian Embassy for a schengen Visa. However a few days ago I received the result and they refused to give me a visa because “my main destination is not Belgium”, in another words Belgium is not the country which I am going to stay longest in my journey. It’s complicated story and I am not going to write down every detail here because I tried to explain to my friends before and none of them could understand how much hassle of applying a visa. “Why do you need to buy a ticket before you apply?”, “why do you need to book all the hostels when you don’t even know whether you can get a visa or not?” etc. etc. I’m tired of explaining, after all, it’s unnecessary.

The Europe plan is over, but travel plan is still on. My Japanese friend koji (I should call him Inomata-san) is coming over and we are going to do a bit travel around England. I have been living in this country for about 3 years now and haven’t actually travelled around and explored it. So I’m going to take this chance and see a bit more about Britain.

About my work at BK, tomorrow is my last day. I took my camera with me today and got a few photos with other staffs there. Although it’s hard work, but most staffs there are very nice and friendly. I will upload some to my Flickr later on.

I will be out most of the time in September with Koji, hopefully we can really get some good travel experiences. I am going back to Durham on the 30th. There are lots of things waiting to do once I get back, but I am really looking forward to it, and can’t wait to see all the friends back there.

That’s all for now. Lastly I’ve a question: Which is your favourite place in Britain?

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My plan to travel in Europe is now kind of hanging in the middle of no where because of the visa. I wrote about how difficult to apply for a visa before, but now I am dealing with it.

My original plan is a 20 days trip to Belgium, then Holland, Germany, Italy and finally back to Belgium for returning to England. So I thought Belgian Embassy is the one I should apply to.

According to their requirements, I need to buy a flight ticket, travel insurance, hotel bookings covering the whole trip. But it doesn’t mean they will give me a visa for sure, there is possibility that they don’t, which also mean all the money I spent is merely just for nothing. But anyway, as they require it, I can do nothing but submit all these tickets and documents.

I spent a few days searching hostels on the net and make a exact travel plan. This is the most difficult part, because I have to know where to go exactly , which city, how long I am going to stay, when to leave and how long does it take to go to next destination. If it’s for a few days trip it’s still easy, but for 20 days and to several countries, it’s must more difficult than it sounds like!

After getting all the things they require, I sent them my application. Since I sent my passport with the special delivery, and also one for them to return, it costs me almost £10. Two days later, they got back to me with a message “your longest stay is not in Belgium, please apply in the embassy of the country where is your main destination”. Just for that, 10 pounds!

Germany is the country where I am going to stay longest, so I guess they should be the one I need to deal with. But they don’t accept postal order and I have to apply in person (said on website), which also mean I have to call up that £1/min automatic appointment booking phone line to make an appointment before going there. So I called. The first minutes is full of rubbish like “welcome to *** embassy appointment booking system”, then after several minutes, it finally tell me the earliest appointment they can give me, which is 16th of September. My plan is 6th of September, there is no way I can go on 16th. I also tried Italian and Dutch Embassy, but none of them can give am an appointment before 6th. And just for the calls, I guess it costs me another £10 already.

It’s impossible to apply other embassies any more, so yesterday I changed my hostel bookings to make Belgium as my main destination, then spent another £10 to post my application. I also wrote them a letter explain my situation and almost begging them to give me a visa.

Up to now, include those tickets I bought plus postal fee and phone calls, I guess I have spent at least 90 pounds already. And this can mean for nothing if they don’t give me the visa.

I really don’t like to write all these down because it makes me feel how different I am as a Chinese citizen here. My other friends don’t need to go through all these troubles just to have a summer holiday. When I told me all I have been through, they were shocked. I can understand this is the way it is and I also optimistically think that this will change future. But right now, it really annoys me a lot!

I really Hope that Belgian Embassy will return my passport with an visa on it.

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The other day a guy came into our shop at a not very busy time. After ordering his meals, he saw my badge and asked “Are you Chinese?”, I answered “Yes!”. Since it wasn’t that busy at that time, we had a little chat.

He is working in a power supplier company and worked in Hong Kong and China many years ago. Every time when you start a chat with somebody who had been to your country, or you have been to theirs’, the conversation become more interesting and normally it starts with those places both of you know. So he told me where he had visited in China. Without any surprises, he had been to more places than me do, like my other friends who had visited China. But when I told me I haven’t been to Beijing and Shanghai, he was totally surprised and said “you are Chinese and you have never been to Beijing?” This is not the first time, well, actually I “surprised” people a lot of times by telling them this fact.

I just want to say that it’s completely NORMAL that not many Chinese have been to the capital, as well as the fast developing international city Shanghai. First of all, China is a big country. I can travel from London to Edinburgh in about 7 hours by train, but it might take days to travel from city like Guangzhou in south China to Beijing, not to mention to cities that further than Beijing. From my city (Shantou) to Guangzhou, it takes me 6 hours by coach. This is considered as very closed in China, whereas here in England, 6 hours by coach is a crossing-country distance. I am not very good at geography, but this is the example I often used when explaining why I have been to Beijing.

Secondly, this is a bit personal, but I left China when I was about 18. Most of my time was in school before 18. Of course I had school holidays, but I didn’t go travel a lot. Maybe it’s because my family weren’t very keen about travelling. I suppose if I went to university in China, I would have been travelling a lot in holidays, like most Chinese university students would do.

These are reasons that I haven’t been to Beijing. However, when I have time in future, Beijing is the city that I want to go most. It’s not like Shanghai where just another international city like Tokyo or New York, there is something special about this historical and fast developing city. It’s like a crash or combination of tradition and modernisation, this is what attracts me. Well, it doesn’t sound that persuaded talking and comparing places I haven’t been to, but I will in future, for sure!

At the end, just share a photo of Guizhou. My friend Katrina sent me, she just came back from there.

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