Keeping up my French

The problem with the BA Modern Languages degree is trying to keep all three languages at a good standard. The University of Southampton only allows students to spend their year abroad in one country to better understand the culture, improve the language and to complete the YARP (Year Abroad Research Project).

I chose to spend my year abroad in China rather than a French or Spanish-speaking country as I saw it as a great opportunity. My level of French and Spanish was already quite high but as I'd started Chinese ab initio (from scratch) in first year, I wanted to improve it as much as possible. 

In order to graduate from the BA Modern Languages degree you need to have completed Stage 6 in at least two of the three languages. For those unfamiliar with Southampton's language stage system, there are 7 stages. and each stage normally takes one year to complete. Stage 1 is where I started with Chinese. This is when you have little to no previous knowledge of the language but, on completion, is similar to GCSE standard. Stage 2 is roughly equivalent to AS and Stage 3 is roughly equivalent to A2. I therefore began French and Spanish at Stage 4 having completed A-Levels in each. I was fortunate enough to take part in a 6-week summer programme at Nanjing University in the summer after my first year which counted as my Stage 2 as it was an intensive course combined with the immersion of being in China. This meant that in second year at the University of Southampton, I completed Stage 3 - the required standard set by the university for spending your year abroad in China. It was agreed that it was possible for the year abroad in China to count as two stages - Stages 4 and 5 - on the condition that those wishing to do this write 2000 Chinese characters rather than 1000 for their YARP. I did this so am now hoping to complete Stage 6 in all three of my languages in my final year at university. 

However, choosing to spend my year abroad in China meant somewhat neglecting my other two languages. It was not possible to continue studying French and Spanish at Xiamen University as Spanish was not taught and French was taught on the main campus - a 45 minute to hour and a half bus journey away. This would mean that I had to use my time either side of the year abroad wisely to ensure that I maintained a good standard in both my French and Spanish. 

I spent two months in Madrid last summer working as an au pair and found that my Spanish did improve a lot and I am still quite confident with it. I occasionally spoke Spanish with some of the Spanish-speaking students in Xiamen as well. Although I learnt a lot from the experience, I was not keen to repeat it as things did not go very well with the au pair family. I decided that I would need to find a more formal job in France the following summer.

I started job searching after the month-long holiday for Chinese New Year, week in Nepal for my cousin's wedding and week of my family visiting me in Xiamen. After all of that, this ended up being February which I thought was still quite early for finding a summer position. I was interested in finding jobs that allowed me to speak French but applied for English-speaking jobs as well just to have the opportunity to be in France. I applied to various jobs such as receptionist, hotel assistant, childcare, camp site work, TEFL teacher etc. but struggled to find anything. The issue with a lot of the jobs in the hotel and tourism industry, were that they either wanted people to work the entire summer season - from beginning of May until the end of September - or they wanted to interview in the UK. I obviously could not conform to either of these requirements as I was in China until 24th June. 

Eventually I received two job offers. The first was working as a hotel assistant for a UK-based company in the Alps. They had not yet filled all of their summer vacancies so wanted me to start straight away (after a week and a half in the UK) and stay until mid-September. I found out that all the staff and customers were British so I would therefore not be speaking French whilst working, that I would be working 6 days a week for a low wage doing menial jobs such as cleaning, and that I would not be allowed an extra day off to go to my cousin's wedding in August. After much consideration, I decided not to take the job as it seemed unlikely I would speak French and I would miss out on spending time with my family and friends, visiting Alex in Denmark and attending my cousin's wedding.

Instead, I decided to take the other job I had been offered. This is a three-week TEFL placement for newly qualified TEFL teachers in Châtellerault, Western France. I completed my TEFL qualification with TEFL England in February this year consisting of 20 hours in a classroom and 100 hours online and found this job advertisement on their site. This seemed the perfect opportunity to get some teaching experience and use my new qualification. I will be working as one of three teachers at a children's holiday camp. There will be classes in the morning and activities in the afternoon. Although I will be required to speak to the children in English, I do get weekends free and will be in a more French environment than the holiday resort. The position is unpaid but accommodation and food is provided and I think it should be a great experience and am really looking forward to it. I leave on 10th August. 

On top of this, I have also enrolled myself onto an Advanced Revision course at the Alliance Française de Manchester. It is a four-week course with two 2.5 hour lessons a week (20 hours total) costing £130 or £120 for students. The course focuses on conversation but there is also some useful grammar revision. I have been to two classes so far and am enjoying it. The teacher is very good and gives us little bits of homework to do. I also get free one-year membership to borrow various French books, DVDs and magazines from their extensive collection so am hoping to make use of that soon! They also run a course specifically aimed at final year university students in September so I may do that as well if I still feel that my French is a bit rusty. 

I may not have chosen the easiest option for my year abroad but I feel like it was the right one. It is nice having something productive to do during my summer holidays and spending a year abroad in China as part of my degree was not an opportunity I wanted to turn down. 

Chengdu, Xi'an and Beijing

With not long left in China and with my YARP out of the way, Alex and I took the opportunity to go travelling. Alex hadn't been anywhere in China other than Xiamen and our disastrous trip to Chaozhou so we knew we had to go to see some of the main sights. We booked flights out to Chengdu with the aim to see how far our money would get us.

We chose Chengdu as it's a city that I hadn't been to and meant that we could see lots of pandas! Chengdu is the panda city, home to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base where they have about 50 pandas as well as red pandas and swans. From Chengdu we also took a day trip out to see the Leshan Giant Buddha, a 71-metre tall Buddha carved out of the side of a cliff. Truly amazing. 

From Chengdu we decided to get a 16-hour train up to Xi'an as it seemed a very "Chinese" place to go for Alex who had never been there. I went in 2009 with my mum and brother, Fraser, but was keen to go back with my new knowledge of Chinese. We saw the Terracotta Warriors, visited the Muslim Quarter several times, saw the Drum and Bell Towers, walked on the city walls and visited the Giant Goose Pagoda. We also planned to take a day trip out to Huashan, a mountain not far from the city, which proved to be one of my highlights of the trip. 

The must-see place is China has to be Beijing and as we weren't sure when Alex would next get the chance to go, we decided to make that the last stop on our trip. We took a 12 and a half hour night train from Xi'an in a soft sleeper compartment (definitely worth the extra money). As I had been to Beijing before in the 2009 trip, we made an effort to do things a bit differently. Obviously we couldn't miss out sights such as the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square, but I was keen to visit a different part of the Great Wall. When I had gone with my family in 2009, none of us spoke any Chinese which made things quite difficult. In order to see the Great Wall, we ended up booking a tour combined with the Ming Tombs. However, the day was very rushed with the tour fitting in a visit to a jade factory (which none of us wanted to go to) so the time spent at the other places was small. We visited the Badaling section of the wall which is the busiest and most touristy. This time, I took a friend's recommendation and we went to the Mutianyu section instead. I absolutely loved this section and made me really glad I'd decided to visit the wall once again!

I will hopefully write about each of these places in more detail when I have time, but for now here are a few photos from our trip. Enjoy!

Pandas in Chengdu

Leshan Giant Buddha

Terracotta Warriors

Plank Walk on Huashan

Forbidden City

Mutianyu Great Wall

Chaozhou, Guangdong

Apologies for not posting very much these days but I've been very busy with exams and my YARP (Year Abroad Research Project). This is something I have to do for University of Southampton and counts for a seventh of my degree. I have to write 6,000 words in English and 2,000 Chinese characters as well as do my own research so it has been quite time consuming!

A couple of weekends ago we had a long weekend for Tomb Sweeping Holiday. This seemed the perfect opportunity to get out of Xiamen and visit somewhere new. We left it quite late to book tickets and were running low on money so decided to go to Chaozhou in Guangdong province, just three and a half hours away by bus. The bus cost 86元 from the Xiamen University booking office and we got the bus from HuBin Nan station in the middle of the island.

Unfortunately our journey and arrival didn't go too smoothly. After rushing down there from Xiang'an campus for our 2pm bus, we found out that it had been delayed and we would be leaving at 15:10 instead. We sat in the station playing minesweeper on my laptop to kill the time! Once we were on the bus, the journey itself went smoothly. As we neared our destination, I checked to see if my internet was still working on my phone by opening up my email as I'd never taken it to another province before. I then saw that we had an email from Ctrip saying that we needed to call them urgently about our booking which we'd made the night before. It turned out that the hotel we'd booked at couldn't accept foreigners or people from Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau so we needed somewhere else to stay. After Alex's long conversation with them on the phone, offering us Ctrip coupons to pay the difference of a new hotel they'd found, we decided to get some food while they sorted out the new booking for us. We went to a Chaozhou cuisine restaurant and asked the waitress what she recommended...

BIG MISTAKE. We ended up with Chaozhou fried rice which was ok, but also an oyster omelette. I had food poisoning from the next morning, throughout our entire stay, return to Xiamen and for another day once we were back. 5 days in total! We ended up spending the majority of our time in our hotel room which stank of smoke as it was a "Business Hotel" i.e. where businessmen go to smoke and have fun with prostitutes! Thankfully there was a Macau film channel on the TV with the films all in English with Chinese subtitles which gave us something to do.

Anyway, after the restaurant we decided to walk the 3km to our new hotel (because we disagreed to pay a higher price for a new hotel we got one that was a long way out). The walk wasn't all that interesting as it was just a long, straight road with shops, businesses and restaurants either side. When we finally reached the hotel, the receptionist was very glad we could speak some Chinese as she'd been worrying about trying to speak English with us!

Because of my food poisoning, we only made it out to do some sightseeing on the Sunday. We got a tuk-tuk from outside our hotel to Guangji Bridge which seemed to be Chaozhou's main sight according to our online research. Towards the very end of the journey, we came across a very narrow gap before a bit of road they were doing some work on. Our driver went through the gap and onto this bit of road before the tuk-tuk got stuck and the door fell off leading to us getting out and Alex helping the guy push it. 不好意思 for the driver!

Tuk-tuk

Chaotic section of road

We got to the bridge and decided to get our picture taken by a professional photographer. As we were standing together, she told me to put my hand on my hip to look 很漂亮 (very beautiful) and her colleague edited the photo to make us whiter, the bridge darker and the sky blue.

After this we went in search of food as we hadn't eaten yet that day. I only fancied plain boiled rice as didn't think my stomach could handle that much more but that proved difficult to find. Who would have thought that finding a bowl of rice in China would be difficult? We ended up in a fast-food place a bit like KFC.

Then it was time to go on the bridge itself. Guangji Bridge is one of China's four ancient bridges. It costs 50元 to cross the bridge, 25元 for students, but it is well worth the money. I've never seen a bridge like it! It had so many different sections, the most interesting of which was the middle which was made up of boats. These boats get taken away at the end of the day to allow traffic through and we were lucky enough to be on the bridge at the time this operation was happening when we were on our way back.

On the bridge

Bridge made of boats

Taking pictures with the funny white man

Hand on hip!

Guangji Bridge

On the other side of the bridge we went to a temple built on a steep hill with lots of steps leading up to it. Unfortunately by this point I was feeling really rotten and ended up throwing up so didn't enjoy it too much!

Lots of steps

Alex inside the temple

 Overall it wasn't the best of trips but I wouldn't disuade people from going there. If you do, just avoid the seafood...

Back in Xiamen after my Vietnam/Thailand trip

I am now back in my room in Xiang'an campus having got back to Xiamen yesterday afternoon. 

Last time I posted was when I had just left Xiamen and was at Hong Kong airport waiting for my flight to Hanoi. Since then I've travelled from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh by bus in Vietnam, flown from there to Chiang Mai, Thailand, via Bangkok, spent a week there apart from a day trip to the golden triangle meaning I went to Laos for half an hour and flew back to Xiamen via Bangkok. 

I had an amazing time and will be doing some more detailed blog posts about my adventures soon. Off to Kathmandu, Nepal, tomorrow for my cousin's wedding though. So excited!

First photo of the trip - Eating at a street food restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam

Last photo of me of the trip - Chloe and I at Chiang Mai beach club, Thailand, having just been tubing down the river

New Year 2014 in Hong Kong

After a lovely 9 days in Dubai for Christmas it was time to go to Hong Kong. Our flight was at 00:05 from Dubai and unfortunately neither Alex or I got much sleep despite trying. When we arrived in Hong Kong we decided to get the Airport Express rather than a taxi to save money and they offer a free shuttle bus service from train stations to the closest hotels. It cost 140HK$ to get the train from the airport to Kowloon for the two of us but unfortunately there was a bit of a wait for the shuttle bus from there.

We stayed at Pearl Guesthouse in Mirador Mansion on Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, a strange place with various shops and cheap accommodation. There are four different lifts depending on which floor you want to go to as each one went to a different set of floors. We were on floor 15 which meant that we always managed to get in the lift on the way down but sometimes had to queue on the way up. The room was very small and basic but fine for what we needed it for. Enough space for a double bed with storage space underneath and a bedside cabinet with fridge and safe. We also had a tiny bathroom with just about enough space to stand in for a shower. It was all very clean and there was a communal water dispenser and microwave available for us to use as well as free WiFi which just about worked if you stood by the door of the room.

When we arrived we crashed in the room for the afternoon from lack of sleep before venturing out in the evening for a walk down to the harbour where we saw the Symphony of Lights show, getting something quick to eat and then going to Ned Kelly's Last Stand, a jazz club where I'd been with my mum and brother, Fraser, 4 years previously. We only stayed for one drink as we were still tired from the journey but it was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I used to play the piano in my secondary school swing band so really enjoy listening to that type of music live. Alex caught onto this and bought me the house band's, China Coast Jazzmen, album as an early birthday present!

The next day was new year's eve and as we didn't really know what we were doing to celebrate in the evening, struggling to contact our friends who had come down from Xiamen, we didn't do too much. We took the Star Ferry over to Central and have a wander around before getting the ferry back, having dinner at an Irish pub and getting ready to go out. When we left the hotel to go and meet the others it was unbelievable how many people were already out on the streets at 9pm! The new year fireworks took place at Victoria harbour so thousands of people flocked to Tsim Sha Tsui (mainland side of the harbour) to see them. We were meeting our friends at IFC mall on the other side of the harbour and with the amount of people on the streets, police everywhere and MTR (Hong Kong's underground system) stations closed off we were worried we wouldn't be able to get there. Thankfully the Star Ferry was still running and we made it to the roof of the mall before 10pm. This seemed to be a popular place to go as many people had turned up, bringing their own drinks with them, to wait for the firework display. There was also a DJ, bar and ice sculpture which was slowly melting. We decided to claim our spot early as we wanted to be in a good location to see the fireworks. When it was finally time for the display it was very impressive. The fireworks were let off from barges in the harbour after a countdown to 2014 which we unfortunately couldn't see from where we were. We'd already seen them testing it earlier though so knew what it looked like! After the fireworks we went along to a club to continue celebrating.

The next day we attempted to go up the Peak but the queue for the tram was 3 hours so we wandered down to the Mid-Levels escalator instead before heading to Temple Street Night Market in the evening. The day after we finally made it up the Peak after queuing for an hour. The Peak is somewhere you must go to if you visit Hong Kong and we paid the little extra to go onto the Sky Terrace viewing platform. When we were in Dubai I had kept telling Alex that although Dubai's skyline is impressive, Hong Kong still beats it. He did have to agree with me in the end.

That evening we met up with one of my childhood friends, Marisa, for a meal at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was really nice to catch up but made me realise how long ago it was that I left Hong Kong. I mentioned my youngest brother, Ethan, in conversation and then realised that she'd never met him. He was born when we moved to the UK and he's almost 14! It was similar when we met up with another school friend, Hayley, the next day. I am thankful that after all these years we still remain friends despite the distance. 

Unfortunately it was then time to go back to Xiamen. Alex and I were booked on different flights back so I went off to the airport on my own, leaving him in Hong Kong. It worked out well though as my uncle who lives in the US was in Xiamen for business but was leaving the next morning to go back to the States. We had a few hours overlapping which meant I got to meet him at his hotel and have dinner before heading back to Xiang'an campus. It was a really good two weeks off from classes and is a bit strange that I'm already off again!

End of semester exams and winter holiday travelling

I still need to write a post on spending new year in Hong Kong but as soon as I got back to Xiamen on 3rd January I was busy catching up on lessons I'd missed and preparing for my end of semester exams. Exams started on Monday this week and finished on Wednesday. I also had to do a performance for my 唱歌学汉语（Learning Chinese through Song) module which I didn't find out about until that day! Exams went ok apart from a not so good 口语 (oral) exam and I passed all of my modules. The pass mark in China is 60% which is a bit of a difference from 40% in the UK! On Wednesday night we had a last night out together as a way of celebrating exams and end of semester. Some people are leaving as they were only here for one semester so there will be new people when we go back. 

The majority of those who are staying are spending the month-long holiday travelling either in China or southern Asia. We were advised by teachers and Chinese friends not to stay in China over the holiday as lots of Chinese people are travelling at that time to be at home with their families and many shops and restaurants close over the period. However, some people are planning to stay in China to travel to Harbin for the ice festival, Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai and Chengdu as these cities are a long way away from Xiamen so difficult to get to during term time. 

From the warnings it seemed to me that a better option was to get out of China for a bit and go to other countries in Asia. I had originally hoped to go to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand but realised that that was a bit too much considering the time we have. My current plan is to go to Vietnam for almost three weeks with Alex and meet Chloe, a friend studying at Nanjing University, in Hanoi which is our first stop there. We plan to travel our way down the coast, stopping at cities along the way, to Ho Chi Minh where I will be for my 21st birthday. From there Alex will fly back to Xiamen as he is going home to Dubai and Chloe and I will fly to Chiang Mai in Thailand where we will spend some time before leaving the country and going back to China from Bangkok. I will have a day and a half in Xiamen before flying off again as I'm going to my cousin's wedding in Kathmandu, Nepal, for a week in February where I will see my family for the first time since September. Finally, my family and I will go to Xiamen so that I can start next semester and they can spend another week with me. 

I'm writing this in Hong Kong airport as we have a 6-hour stopover which isn't enough time to leave and go into Hong Kong so my journey's already started! Hong Kong airport has free WiFi which is great for keeping us amused during the long wait. Our flight from Xiamen left at 8:30am so we've been up since 5am having got to sleep at about 1am. We got up late after going out on Wednesday night so couldn't sleep! It's already been and will continue to be a long day... but hopefully worth it!

Xiamen University Xiang'an Campus

This year I am studying at Xiamen University's Xiang'an campus, a brand new campus in the Xiang'an district of Xiamen to the northeast of the main Xiamen island. It is connected to the city by the 751 bus which runs regularly throughout the day, last buses leaving at 9:30pm from Xiang'an and 10:20pm from XiaDa (the main university campus). Buses in Xiamen cost 1元 on the island and 2元 between island/mainland.

Alex and I went up a hill just outside campus to get a good view. In the first picture, the big building is the library, to the left are the Chinese dormitories, the building next to the library on the left is the Overseas Education College where we have our lessons. The second picture is a more zoomed in look at the library and teaching buildings, again the one to the left of the library is ours. On the far left of the photo, with the flat roof, is the swimming pool building. 

Xiang'an Campus

Pool, teaching buildings and library

Everything on campus is new and huge with parts still to be built in the future. Things to be completed/started include the library/main university building, whose outside is more or less complete but needs to be finished off inside, a golf course, a student union, a gym within the stadium, more basketball courts and another sports ground. So far there are several teaching buildings, student dormitories, two canteens, a health centre, two swimming pools (in one building), a sports stadium, basketball and tennis courts, football pitches, a supermarket and various shops. Due to the campus' size it is almost necessary to own a bike to get around. These can be bought on campus as there is a guy who sells them near the main canteen and maintains them either for free or for very cheap. Here's a picture of my bike:

My bike!

Overseas Education College

Building 2 is the Overseas Education College 海外教育学院 where most Chinese classes take place. The teaching buildings are pretty much the same consisting of sections A, B and C and 5 floors high. There is a lift from floor 1 (ground floor) and a car/bicycle park in the basement. The corridors are all open with courtyards in the middle of each section meaning that it's nice in summer but can be quite cold in the winter! 

Overseas Education College

View of one of the lakes, Chinese dorms in the distance, student union under construction and a teaching building on the left taken from the 4th floor of the OEC

The open corridors and a courtyard inside building 2

International Dormitories

All international students are entitled to a dorm on campus. The buildings are split up into staircases of six floors with a flat on each side per floor. Boys and girls live in separate buildings so therefore there are no mixed flats. People from different countries are put together in a flat though so, for example, in my flat there is a mix of American, Russian, Thai, German and English (me!). Each building has space to store bikes on the first floor and a laundry room containing 4 washing machines.

A flat contains four bedrooms (2 people max. per room), a bathroom consisting of two cubicles containing a toilet (not a squat one) and a shower each and a wash basin and a living area with a wooden coffee table and wooden sofa. Each room has two beds, two desks, two chairs, a wardrobe (roommates have half each), two safes and a balcony where there is a sink, a mirror and a rail where you can hang clothes to dry. As mentioned in a previous post, it is possible to get internet/WiFi in rooms but it's quite a complicated process! Cleaning needs to be organised as a flat so some people choose to pay cleaners for the bathroom and communal area while others, like my flat, have a cleaning rota to ensure that the cleaning is spread evenly amongst flatmates.

Scholarship students live in dorms for free with a 1,000元 deposit but non-scholarship students pay 2,000元/semester or 4,000元/year, also with the 1,000元 deposit, which is still really cheap. Some students do still choose to live off campus but due to the campus' location, it's more convenient to live on campus, at least during the week.

Our dorms

The building on the left of the photo is my building. The one on the right is for boys. There is a gate with a security guard at the entrance to dorms checking that people swipe their student card to get in.

Inside the gate

Courtyard inside dormitory buidlings

 Canteens

There are two student canteens on campus and I regularly go to both of them. One of them is near our dormitories so is useful for breakfast and if you don't fancy going too far away from your room for lunch/dinner. This canteen only has one floor that serves food and restricted opening hours. It is open all morning until 1pm serving breakfast until about 11 then lunch. It then opens again at 4:30pm until 8:30pm. At breakfast there is congee, vegetables, various dumplings, vegetables and some meat. You can have fried chicken for breakfast if you want to! Lunch is when there is the biggest selection as they serve boiled and fried rice which you get first before choosing whichever meat/vegetables you want with it. There are also dumplings, cups of fruit and occasionally cake. The other main option is to go for noodle soup. For this you choose the noodles you want and the meat and vegetables you want with it before they make it for you while you wait. At dinner time there is the option of boiled rice (not fried) with meat/veg of choice up until 7pm and the noodle soup from opening until close. There is also a small shop open when the canteen is open selling drinks and snacks. This canteen also has a room with ATMs at the back including one where you can pay money into your Bank of China account which is very useful.

The canteen near our dormitories

Inside the canteen. You get food from the left.

The other canteen is the main one. It is situated near the Chinese dormitories and is closer to the teaching buildings. We tend to go there for lunch as we can study on the second floor afterwards (you know you're in China when you study in the canteen!). This canteen is bigger with three floors serving food. The first floor is similar to the canteen near the dormitories, serving rice, meat, veg and noodle soup. This canteen also closes at 7pm in the evening. The second floor is divided into two sections. The largest section only serves at lunch as the rest of the time it is used for studying. The small section is the Halal restaurant which is always quite busy but also finishes early. The third floor tends to be where we go. This canteen is different from all the others as it consists of small private businesses with menus above each stall. The shop owners do their best to try to tempt you to buy from them as they are all in competition. The food on this floor is made while you wait so is fresh. You can get noodles (fried or in a soup and lots of different types), dumplings (包子，饺子，蒸饺,...), vegetables and meat dishes. There is also a place called HKC (a bit like KFC) and an Indian place.  

The main canteen with lots of bikes outside

First floor

Second floor

Halal restaurant

Third floor

Swimming pools

I was happy to find out that there were two 50m swimming pools free for students to use on campus. In order to be allowed to use the pool, students have to do a health check which means a visit to the health practice on campus or to the university hospital on the island so that they can check the soles of your feet and eyes. You are then given a card with your photo, name and faculty on it which allows you to go swimming. When you enter the pool building you hand over this pass in exchange for a locker key, after your swim your pass is returned to you once you've handed the locker key back. It is compulsory to wear swim hats when swimming in the pool and goggles are also advisable. Although there are two 50m pools, there is only one in use at the moment. It doesn't tend to get too busy though so you can get a good swim done. Unfortunately I've injured my knee so haven't been able to swim as much as I'd hoped. The pool is not heated even though it is inside meaning that in colder weather it can be very cold! The pool is open until 10pm every day. I've heard that there are also ping pong tables on the second floor although I've never been up there.

The swimming pool building

Other sports facilities

I can't tell you too much about the other facilities as I don't use them but here are some photos:

The stadium

Football pitches and exercise park

Basketball courts and tennis courts as seen from the coffee shop

Supermarket, other shops and services

There is a supermarket on campus near the main canteen selling the main essentials - drinks, snacks, fruit, bedding and towels (these are not included with dorms), toiletries, cleaning supplies, stationery etc.

Other shops near the canteen include a pharmacy, optician, printing/photocopying/photographs, barbers, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and a coffee shop (which is another one of our study spots!). 

Shops/services at main canteen

Supermarket (超市)

Outside terrace of the coffee shop

Main building/library

As already mentioned, the main building is still not complete inside but is impressive all the same. The library is 10 storeys tall, towering over the other buildings on campus. In front of the building is a statue of the university's founder, Tan Kah Kee. He was a overseas Chinese who made a lot of money in Singapore and used it to found lots of schools and universities, in Jimei (mainland Xiamen) in particular. I'm sure there will be a post about my visits there at some point!

The characters on the pillars in front of the building make up the university motto.

The e-card system

Xiamen University has a system where every student is issued a card connected to their Chinese bank account. You load money onto this card and use it to pay for most things on campus including food in the canteen, shopping in the supermarket, hot water for showers and getting in and out of dorms. This card makes life a bit simpler and can also be used on the other university campuses. 

More photos

A selection of some of the other more general photos I've taken of campus

View from the coffee shop

Teaching buildings

Teaching buildings

Roundabout (not sure why it's needed?)

Outside the West Gate

Outside the canteen, Chinese student dorms and truck taking away a stage. There are quite often events on outside the canteen with singing and dancing

The lake and teaching buildings

Sunny Xiang'an

Pathway from the OEC

I've tried to make this post detailed as it is long overdue, a couple of people have asked me to write it. However, if you feel like you would like to know more information on something or feel that I've missed something then please let me know in the comments section and I'll add it to the post.

I am now in  Dubai for Christmas followed by Hong Kong for new year so the next few posts won't be about Xiamen!