Denmark

After our China travelling trip, it was back to Xiamen and exams (these went fine, I passed all of my modules for the year). After exams was saying goodbye to Xiamen and the various friends I'd met there. This included various meals, nights out and goodbyes, with the hope of seeing at least some of the people again. After this was what turned out to be a very long journey home, 24 hours more than planned! I am still waiting for the compensation I'm entitled to through my travel insurance for it.

Anyway, I got back to Romiley, Stockport on Wednesday 25th June and left for Denmark On Thursday 3rd July, just over a week later. This may seem very early to go away again but it was my only chance to see Alex over the summer. He's spending the majority of it in Dubai with his parents (where I went for Christmas last year) which is an expensive plane ticket from the UK! However, he and his family were going to Denmark to visit friends and family (they're Danish) so it was much more feasible to purchase an easyJet ticket to go there for a week instead. Alex and his family are from Roskilde, a town just outside of Copenhagen, so I flew from Manchester to Copenhagen Airport.

On arrival, I was met by Alex and we went by train to Copenhagen as his parents were there for the day. This gave me a chance to do some sightseeing of the capital including the outside of Tivoli, City Hall, Amalienborg (Royal Palace) and Nyhavn (Harbour). I really enjoyed walking around the Danish capital, taking in all of the sights, as I had never been there before - I hadn't even been to Scandinavia before!

City Hall

Pedestrian Shopping Street

Nyhavn

Alex and I at Amalienborg

The next day was spent in Roskilde. We went to an art gallery of a contemporary artist Alex's parents like. He mostly does abstract paintings and metal sculptures and goes by the name "The Zinker" and his trademark is to use z's instead of s's in words. It was very interesting to have a look around his gallery, I particularly liked his sculptures. Here's a link to his website: http://www.thezinker.com/

After the gallery, Alex took me to see Roskilde Domkirke (Cathedral), the burial site of the Danish Royals since the 15th century, and where Alex had his confirmation. It is a very impressive church and I would definitely recommend a visit. It's both beautiful and full of history. It costs 60 kroner for a standard adult visit, or 40 for students. Alex then took me on a little walk around the town, showing me various spots such as his old school, the park and the main shopping street.

Roskilde Domkirke

Inside the Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

Dead Royals

Saturday was also spent in Roskilde town with Alex as my tour guide. It seemed like I was visiting at a good time as the town was decorated for the Roskilde Music Festival happening that weekend. The colour of the festival is orange so there was orange bunting, orange Danish flags, orange inflatable sofas and many other orange bits and pieces dotted around which was nice to see. I wore an orange dress specially to join in the festival spirit!

Me with our HUGE ice cream!

Roskilde town

Orange fountain for the festival

As we were there at the time of the festival, I decided to treat Alex to Sunday day tickets. I had witnessed Alex telling people where he was from (particularly Scandinavians) and them talking about the festival and how great it was. However, Alex had never actually been (he left Roskilde when he was 10) so I thought that next time this happened he should be able to tell people that he had. We chose Sunday as it was the day we knew the most artists playing and because Thursday was sold out - Rolling Stones, Outkast, Bastille... Sunday was supposed to be Kasabian, Stevie Wonder and Drake but, unfortunately Drake had to pull out due to illness and was replaced by Jack White (from the White Stripes). This was a shame as Alex had been really looking forward to seeing Drake but it was still great to get the chance to see Stevie Wonder! I had grown up listening to him and knew quite a lot of his songs. We had a really nice day at the festival and were thankfully very lucky with the weather!

At Roskilde Festival with my Tuborg and Festival Guide

Stevie Wonder playing the Orange Stage at Roskilde Festival

As the main reason Alex and his family were there was to visit people, it meant that I got to meet three family friends and Alex's grandparents. They had varying levels of English from fluent to none and, as a linguist, I felt embarrassed that I couldn't speak a lot of Danish to them! I hope that my smiles and little comments like "thank you for the meal" were enough to give a good impression. His grandparents couldn't speak any English so I hope that they still liked me. I've been trying to learn Danish but have found it quite difficult. I've never learnt a language like it before. It seems like it might be a bit like German (which I have never learnt) but has some of the same/similar words with French and English. The writing system has letters in it I've never used before and the written doesn't always represent the spoken. I'm hoping to persevere and be able to speak a bit more next time I go!

On the Tuesday Alex and I had another day trip into Copenhagen to see more of the sites. This time we got the train to "Den Lille Havfrue" (the Little Mermaid) statue and made our way from there past a lot of the sites we had already seen. It was a nice sunny day, in comparison to the grey day when I arrived, so it was nice to revisit the same spots.

Us with the Little Mermaid

Novel way to see the city

A pretty church (don't know what it's called)

Amalienborg

We headed to Tivoli, the second oldest amusement park in the world (thanks Wikipedia!). It's a really nice place, definitely worth a visit, with a mixture of old and newer rides, shops and cafés. There is also a stage at the centre where concerts were held. While we were there, we witnessed a rehearsal and some of the concert of an orchestra and two vocalists which was fun. I used to play clarinet in orchestras and sing so I particularly enjoyed it. As the park is such an attraction, it is quite expensive to go on the rides so we decided to only go on one. The ride we chose was Rutschebanen, the third oldest rollercoaster in the world, celebrating 100 years this year. It was fun bit not particularly scary! Of course, it probably was back in 1914...

Rollercoaster

Pretty Tivoli

Feeling like an excited child with my banana lollipop

Third oldest rollercoaster in the world

Concert

One of the entrances to Tivoli with Rutschebanen (the mountain) behind

The last touristy thing I did was to have a quick look at Roskilde harbour where there is a Viking Ship Museum. Unfortunately, we didn’t go to the museum as it was quite expensive and we didn’t have much time, but we still had a look around the harbour which I liked. My dad used to sail a lot ) and has recently purchased his own boat) so I have lots of memories of walking around similar places while he looks at boats!

I had a really lovely week away but it seemed to end too soon. I must say a big thank you to Alex’s family and friends for looking after me and making sure I felt welcome while I was there. I’ll be back!

Tusind tak!

Ducks. We also saw jellyfish and crabs

Roskilde Havn

Viking Ship

Viking Ship

On my way to China!

So this is it. I'm sitting around in the departure lounge waiting for the first of my three flights. Despite struggling with heavy luggage, things have gone smoothly so far. My dad drove me to the airport and stayed with me through check-in until I had to go to security and he wasn't allowed through. My suitcase ended up weighing 24.5kg but they allowed it through even though my allowance was 23kg. I'm taking full advantage of my hand baggage allowance as well by bringing a bag and accessory (laptop bag) also up to the maximum allowance of 12kg. I've also got a coat with the pockets stuffed with clothes (they don't weigh coats). It's not easy packing to move away for 9 months!
It was a bit difficult getting my laptop out at security and ended up dropping my passport and boarding cards more than once but the girl behind me in the queue helped as she'd been on an Erasmus year herself and knew what it was like.
Hopefully the journey continues to go well but there's still a very long way to go! 

Last night at home/Fraser's early birthday/My early Christmas!

Tonight is my last night at home, sleeping in my own bed, until at least the end of June next year. My family seem to have mixed feelings about me going - wanting to support me but not wanting me to be gone so long at the same time! For these reasons my mum organised a nice family meal as it is the last time we'll be together for a while. My 18-year-old brother, Fraser, is off to Mallorca for three months on Tuesday to begin his gap year so there will soon only be three people living in our house. 

One of the toughest things about me being away is that I will be missing a family Christmas this year for the first time in my life. My mum suggested doing Christmas dinner for my last night but ended up doing a normal traditional English roast instead (with rice as well to make it a bit more oriental! I've never been much of a fan of potatoes). I haven't owned a camera for about 9 years so we've been discussing how I'd need one and it was decided that my parents would make it an early Christmas present. However. my mum also surprised me with a few smaller presents to be unwrapped on Christmas day!

Fraser's birthday is in October so we decided to celebrate that tonight too whilst we were all still together, birthday cake and everything! He was also treated to a camera, but as a birthday present rather than a Christmas one, so that he can document his time in Mallorca and other destinations on his gap year. You can follow his blog at fraserontour.blogspot.com

My flight to Amsterdam leaves at 9:15am so I'll be off to Manchester Airport in a few hours. After that first flight I'll fly to Guangzhou and, finally, Xiamen. I might do a short post from the airport but otherwise the next one will, hopefully, be from China! 

Fraser with his birthday cake (a month and 9 days early)

Three siblings (Ethan, Fraser and I)

My Christmas presents on top of my suitcase

China preparations: Travel vaccinations and airport pickup

After getting nowhere with getting my health check done in the UK, I decided that, after being made to re-register at the GP I was at for 10 years before Southampton, I may as well look into getting some travel vaccines done. Although I've travelled to China before, I've never bothered with any vaccinations. The Confucius Institute suggested we got them done before the trip at Easter but as everything was so last-minute, there simply wasn't time. 

I filled in a travel form stating where it was I was going and how long for and handed it to the receptionist. She told me that the nurse would look at the form, work out which jabs I needed and that they would phone me to organise and appointment for the travel clinic which takes place every Friday. I waited and waited but never received a phonecall, I realised this on the Friday before we were going to France and knew that I'd need to ring up and enquire to see if I could get an appointment for the Friday when we were back as it was the only Friday I was available due to leaving on Friday the 13th! I spoke to a receptionist on the phone and agreed on an appointment time for Friday 6th. She told me that I would need Hepatitis A (free on the NHS), Hepatitis B (£37.50) and Malaria tablets (she didn't know how much they would cost).

I went off to France and didn't think much more about it until my return. I drove to Marple Bridge for my appointment (I've got car insurance on one of my parents' cars for a week which means I've turned into my brothers' taxi service!) and went straight through to the nurse's room. She asked me if I'd had any travel vaccinations before to which I responded that I didn't think so and I certainly hadn't had any in the last few years. She then turned to her computer and was surprised to see that there were absolutely no records about me on the system! She thought it was particularly strange seeing how long I'd been there before but she simply didn't have any information. The nurse told me that she simply couldn't administer any vaccinations without my records and asked for details of my previous GP, the University Health Service in Southampton, so that she would be able to phone them and get the information she required. Seems like my records have got lost somewhere between the two! 

We then chatted for a bit about what vaccinations I would actually need. Recommended for all travellers to China is Hepatitis A. Other vaccines are offered to higher risk people (I come under that heading as I'm going to be there for a long period of time) include Hepatitis B, Typhoid and Malaria tablets. We decided that if I were to have any of those it would be Hepatitis B as the risk of Typhoid and Malaria is considerably lower as well as there being a shortage of the Typhoid vaccine. However, Hepatitis B is a course of three injections, £37.50 per injection, and it wouldn't be possible for me to get it done with the limited time I have before I leave. The conclusion of our discussion was that if she could get hold of Southampton and find out about my details, she would give me the Hepatitis A vaccine later that day.

I went off to pick my brother up from school and phoned the GP when I got home to see if the nurse had left a message for me as she said she was going to do. The receptionist I spoke to this time told me that she'd managed to speak to University Health Service and that the vaccine was going ahead. I brought Ethan with me in the car as there wouldn't be time to return home before taking him to his swimming lesson, and went back to the GP. Ethan wandered around Marple Bridge and sat around in the waiting area while I had it done. The nurse asked me if I was ok with needles and wasn't going to faint on her (yes, don't worry) and the injection went smoothly. She then gave me an information sheet about the vaccine and asked that I waited 10-15 minutes before leaving the surgery. The sheet gave information about the virus, the vaccine and the side effects that are "relatively uncommon" and "last no more than a day or two". It seems that I am unlucky as on Friday my arm was hurting and I felt a bit queasy. Now the queasiness had gone but the pain's still there! Hopefully it'll go soon. If I get a booster in 12 months time it'll last for 20 years so it's probably worth having. My mum got out my baby book with my baby vaccinations in later that evening and we found out that I'd had Hepatitis B as a baby in Hong Kong so maybe I'll still have some protection from it anyway?

On Wednesday I emailed Xiamen University to request airport pickup, following my mum's advice. After three flights and waiting around inbetween, I probably will be very tired and not wishing to deal with a taxi driver who could potentially not understand me, take me to the wrong place, charge me extra or just refuse to take me to the new campus as it's not in the main town. When I went to Nanjing last summer we weren't offered a similar service so it was a good thing I'd got someone on the plane to write the address out in Chinese characters for me and had plenty of money for a taxi. The taxi driver chatted away in Chinese for most of the hour-long journey and at the time my level of Chinese was so basic that I didn't even know how to say "I don't understand!". He seemed to give me a bit of a tour of Nanjing before taking me to the university hotel as well, the taxi I got to the airport on the way back was quite significantly cheaper! I filled in a form stating my name and flight details and attached it to an email, immediately receiving an automated response that it would be replied to within 3 working days. Thankfully I got a response and the driver should be waiting for me when I arrive on Saturday.

It still hasn't quite sunk in that this is happening, this time next week I'll have been there for more than 24 hours!

Morgat, Bretagne

This is probably the longest I've gone without writing a post but whilst away in France it wasn't very easy to get internet access and since getting back home at about 2am on Wednesday morning having got the ferry from Roscoff to Plymouth arriving at 8pm and sat in the car for hours on our way back north, I just haven't got round to it! 

I had a nice, relaxing time in France with my family though. Nothing too exciting - lots of getting up late, going to the beach, going to the pool and playing games in the evenings - but it was nice to spend time with my parents and youngest brother. We tended to get up late and have a brunch-type meal before heading to the beach either in the car or cycling as we brought three bikes with us. The reason we didn't bother taking four was that the cycle rack on the back of the car only holds three meaning that one bike would have to be inside, and that someone has to drive with the dog as they haven't invented a bike a dog can ride (yet! Did anyone else see the video about them teaching dogs to drive cars a while ago?). On the beach Ethan told me off for being "lazy" when I would say I was just relaxing, lying down sunbathing, reading a French magazine or revising Chinese characters. He and dad went bodyboarding in the sea most days despite how cold the water was, I did go in twice though. My parents and brother also spent a lot of time entertaining Roxy, the dog, by throwing a frisbee, kicking a ball or throwing her in the sea (not sure she enjoyed that as much) but she also found plenty of dogs to play with on the beach. Ethan set up a games tournament which took place almost every evening after dinner meaning that at times the games, including Scrabble, Hedbanz, Banagrams (another word game) and Analyze me! (a game testing how much we know each other), got very competitive between us, I finished second behind Mum in the end. I think the only night we didn't play games was when we went out to our usual pizzeria (not very French I know) but we had a nice meal

I probably could have practised my French a bit more. I only really spoke French four times - booking the vet appointment for my family's dog so that she would be allowed back into the UK, ordering food and drink at the restaurant posting postcards at the post office and being chatted up by a French guy on the beach! Dogs are required to have a vet appointment less than 5 days and more than 24 hours before returning to the UK to get a worming tablet (in Roxy's case an injection as she vomited the first tablet out and refused to have another one) and a stamp from the vet to say that the animal is in good health. Booking the appointment went smoothly, even slipped a couple of subjunctives in, but when I went along with my mum and Roxy for the actual appointment, the vet insisted on speaking English. In the restaurant I did speak more complicated French  than "Un pizza margherita s'il vous plait" asking if we could have a starter as a side dish and discussing our options with the waiter when they only had one tiramisu left for dessert. Posting poscards barely counts as speaking French as that conversation went "Bonjour, je voudrais envoyer ces trois cartes postales a l'Angleterre s'il vous plait" but the woman was barely listening to me, it was quite obvious what I wanted! The beach conversation was probably the most amusing. I'd seen this guy looking across at me as I was sitting on the beach and when I went to see how cold the sea was, he slyly followed a stood next to me - "Il fait froid, non?" "Ouii" - was how the conversation began talking about the water. It went on to include him asking if I spoke French, I said I spoke a bit but was rusty as I'd spent over two months talking Spanish, and me pointing out that my Dad was not very far away. The conversation fizzled out and I went for a bit of a swim before bodyboarding and he left the beach quite quickly! Despite my lack of conversation practice, I did make sure I read some French magazines and watched French TV. There was a game show I particularly enjoyed as I knew the answers to more than hald the questions!

We didn't take that many photos this time as we go there a lot but here are a selection of ones taken in the past

A maze that Ethan enjoys, makes a change from the beach!

Camaret-sur-Mer - a small town also on the Crozon peninsula

Beautiful scenery

The marina in Morgat

Goulien beach

Town beach - Morgat

Kayaking in 2007. We went kayaking again this holiday - Ethan and Dad in a double, me in a single - but unfortunately Mum couldn't find us to take photos!

Fraser and I before going on our first scuba dive in summer 2011

La plage!

... and a selection of the few we did take this time

Ethan and Roxy

Mum took lots of photos of rocks with the intention to base some artwork on them

Dad posing next to one of the bodyboards - we were some of the few people to go into the cold Atlantic without wetsuits!

Dad and Ethan at the Italian restaurant

Me with my pizza

Me trying to get my Spanish tan back

Path down to the beach

Never in Romiley for too long... Off to France!

Tomorrow I will be going to Morgat on the Crozon peninsula in Brittany, northwest France, with my parents, youngest brother, Ethan, and my family's dog, Roxy. My other brother, Fraser, is at Leeds festival at the moment and will get back home after we leave so is therefore not coming with us. We're travelling by car and ferry so will be leaving at about 3pm tomorrow in order to give us plenty of time to get to Plymouth for the night ferry to Roscoff. 

My parents have got a little holiday home there so it is where a lot of our holidays have been over the last few years. I've always found French easier than Spanish which may be due to these regular opportunities for me to practise the language, this was why I decided to spend the majority of my summer in Spain this year. I also went to Leeds festival last year which means that this is the first time I'll be going to Morgat in two years. It'll be nice for me to spend some time with my family before my year abroad as well as practising French and relaxing on beaches!

We have to pay to use WiFi there so I'm unsure whether I'll be updating this while I'm away but if not there will be a post after we come back on the 3rd September, just 10 days before leaving for China! I think I've got most things organised for it now though so shouldn't be in a mad panic trying to get things done when I get back.

À bientôt!

One of our favourite beaches - Lostmarch

Ethan and I in the garden of the house in 2010 with the swimming pool behind us

TEFL

Last Monday Fraser (my brother) and I signed up to do a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course with TEFL England. The way it works is that we have to do 100 hours online, made up of 50 hours TEFL, 30 hours of grammar and a 20-hour video course, and an intense 20-hour weekend course. The next course in Manchester is on 31st August and 1st of September when I'll be away in France with my parents and Ethan (youngest brother) which meant that I couldn't do it although Fraser could as he's not coming to France with us. I decided to do mine in Sheffield last weekend instead as it's not that far away.

The course ran from 9am until 8pm on Saturday and from 9am until 6pm on Sunday so was long and tiring! I booked myself into a hotel for the Saturday night as if I went home I would have had a late night on the Saturday and early morning on the Sunday. Fraser dropped me off at Stockport station on Saturday morning and I got to the venue without any problems, he then picked me up from Sheffield to take me home on Sunday.

I was one of 8 students on the course with a tutor who guided us through everything for the weekend. She made us to various activities which I didn't envisage doing including making us touch the floor with varying numbers of body parts, throwing a soft toy around and having a lesson completely in Thai. The idea was to put us in the role of the student and learn the different ways that you can teach rather than constantly working out of a textbook.  We were given the chance to teach a couple of lessons ourselves as well, one on each day, which meant that we could practise planning lessons and be given feedback on both lesson planning and delivery (body language, enthusiasm etc. ). This proved the most difficult for me as I'm not always the most confident of people but I'm glad I did it as it helped improve my confidence and watching other people teach gave me some good ideas. The easiest part for me was probably when we looked at grammar. Being a languages student I'm more aware of the names of the different tenses than other native English speakers as we simply do not learn our own grammar at school. When I was in Spain, the girls I looked after had lengua (Spanish language) classes at school in which they did learn how to form different tenses and other grammar rules in their native language.

I'm hoping that this qualification will mean that I'll be able to tutor Chinese students during my year abroad and gain a bit of money and experience before going to a French or Spanish speaking country to teach next summer, I'm not being an au pair again! Just need to get through all the online course now... Would be nice to get it done before China.

Yesterday I got the train across to Norwich to visit my grandparents meaning that I didn't have long at home after Sheffield! I haven't seen them since Christmas though so it's nice to catch up before I go away again. I normally see them every Christmas but I'm not planning on going back to the UK for it this year as it's still term time in China and flights are expensive. My gran took me out for lunch today before we looked through my photos from Spain and had a walk in the sunshine this afternoon with gramps.

China preparations: Flights

Yesterday I finally got round to booking my flights to 中国 (China). I probably should have done it earlier but I wanted to get my visa first to make sure I would be able to get into the country. The last couple of times I've been to China I've flown with China Southern/KLM and it turned out that they were still the cheapest. I rang a couple of travel agents to see if they could find me a cheaper deal but they didn't so I decided to go ahead and book it before it got any more expensive! 

I leave from Manchester on Friday 13th September, not the luckiest of days! My flight to Amsterdam with KLM is bright an early at 9:15am. I then have to wait about an hour and a half before my China Southern flight to Guangzhou, southern China. Unfortunately my wait in Guangzhou is a bit longer, 5 hours, before my final flight to Xiamen. The whole journey will take about 24 hours with getting to the aiport early before I fly and getting to the campus in Xiamen. I will be exhausted when I finally get there!I booked a return flight as well as I'm not sure whether I need it for my residence permit or not but it's probably better to have one booked. Surprisingly, it was actually cheaper to book a return than a one-way ticket anyway. 

It cost me £818 so at the moment I'm feeling quite poor... Looking forward to student loan next week! As I'm going abroad as part of my course I'm entitled to a bigger maintenance loan, the first instalment of which comes at the end of August to help with year abroad costs such as travel. 

I found out something about my 4th year in Southampton yesterday too: my brother's going to be there! He received his results and found out he's been accepted by Southampton to study BA Modern Languages, the same course as me. It was already going to be strange going back in 4th year. As most degrees are 3 years, a lot of my friends will have already left. I will still have some friends there with other linguists, engineers and medics having longer courses and of course, I'll have swim team, but it won't quite be the same, particularly as I'll be bumping into my brother at Avenue campus and at swim training and socials! That's right, not only is he doing the same degree but he'll be joining the swim team as well. Now all he needs to do to completely follow in my footsteps is live in Connaught halls for his first year and study Chinese as his third language! He hasn't yet decided what his third language after French and Spanish will be but is having a gap year so will have plenty of time to decide. I suppose this means that if I'm bored of life as a 4th year I can go and party with my fresher brother!

China preparations: Visa

Today I picked up my passport with my China visa which means the only thing stopping me from going to China now is that fact that I still haven't booked my flight, should probably do that soon! 

There are two ways you can apply for a China visa: by post or by going to one of the centres in London or Manchester. Last year when applying for my visa for Nanjing, I didn't really have the time to go to either of the centres whilst busy in Southampton with coursework/exams so did it by post. I'm not entirely sure why but I hated the idea of my passport being sent off in the post. I was constantly checking Track & Trace to find out its whereabouts which meant that I knew that it should have arrived back for me in Southampton and Monte reception. It was a Wednesday so I went along in the afternoon to pick it up. However, when I asked if it had arrived I was surprised to here that there was nothing there for me even though according to Royal Mail it had arrived at about 10am that morning. Fortunately, I glanced down at the list of parcels and signed-for envelopes (which mine was) and saw my reference number which I knew so well from typing it in to track it on the website. Next to the number was the name "T Postpant". I almost didn't get my passport with my visa inside because someone had written my name down wrong! I know my handwriting's bad but it can't be that bad? The Xiamen visa application was done by courier which was much less worry. 

I decided that this time, seeing as I live on the outskirts of Manchester, the best option would be to go to the centre in person and I'm glad that I did! When I got back from Madrid last week, I went on the visaforchina.org website and booked myself an appointment for the Friday afternoon as that was the earliest they had available and I wanted to get it sorted. I then filled in the form online without too much difficultly having made two other visa applications fairly recently before printing it along with the declaration and signing them both. I had to sign then photocopy my admission notice and visa form from Xiamen to take with me as well. The only thing missing was a photo and after searching my room for a while, knowing I had some passport photos somewhere, I gave up, packed a glue stick in my handbag (but forgot scissors)  and planned to get some taken in Manchester before my appointment. Thankfully Manchester Piccadilly train station has a couple of photo booths (which I'd never really noticed before but then again, I'd never had to use them) so I paid £5 to get 5 photos done there - I swear it used to be cheaper? The hilarious results of this are displayed below, why do I look so orange? I usually look white as a ghost in these things! Safe to say that passport/ID photos are never attractive. 

So serious.

I then realised I'd forgotten to bring any scissors with me but had the bright idea to go into Boots and ask if I could borrow some scissors where they give out the prescriptions. I don't think anyone's gone into Boots to do that before! With one of my new passport photos cut out, I left the station to walk to 75 Mosley street where the centre's based. I had to press a button and speak to someone to let me in before going up to the first floor. A lady at a desk asked my name and gave me a queue number. I went and sat down to wait for my number to be called. I chatted to a couple of the other people waiting about where they were going etc. There was a girl there going to China for the first time who was asking me lots of questions: What do you fill in for local ID card number? (n/a - we don't have ID cards in the UK unlike the Spanish who seem to use theirs all the time!) Do you need to get any jabs done for going to China? (No, don't bother. She was only going for 3 weeks and I've never had any done. Thinking I may get some done before my YA though). There was a photo booth there all along so I needn't have worried about finding one. I only had to wait about 10 minutes to be called up to a desk. I handed over the various documents, the guy checked them and handed me back the originals for the admission notice and visa form, gave me a slip with the collection date on it (today) and that was that. Nice and easy!

I went back today and it was even easier. I arrived at about 2pm and had to wait about a minute before I was called over. I paid the £66 by card and the lady handed over my passport complete with my third Chinese visa, a receipt and a slip that the holder of the visa needed to obtain a residence permit for aliens within 30 days of arrival. I love being called an alien! They call foreigners aliens on the arrival and departure slips you have to fill in when you enter and leave China as well. The visa itself is an X visa (student visa) valid until 13th November for me to enter the country. For duration of each stay it says 000 days which is a bit odd, it's probably because I need to change it to a residence permit asap when I arrive. This is also the first of my three visas to say 曼彻斯特 (Manchester) for the place of issue rather than 伦敦(London) which is less exciting. Looking forward to being an alien for a year!