I was given one week off to travel around China, so I had to think about where I wanted to go. Zhuhai is a beautiful city but as my internship is based here I wanted to go somewhere different. I also wanted to be able to go back home and tell my family and friends about different parts of China. I had already been to Shanghai, but I still had not visited Beijing which is on my “must-see-list” for my time here. Thanks to modern technology my flight was booked and I met up with my boyfriend in Beijing. That night we stayed in a hotel close to the airport (Tianyuan Hotel) and the very next day we had a smooth start as we started our onward journey into the capital of China. A lot of the Zhuhai interns had already been to Beijing, so I had heard about a few famous places to visit. I really wanted to see the Wangfujing food street, so we did that on our first day! My boyfriend went for the sugar-coated fruits on sticks rather than the insects. I was there just looking around and enjoying the atmosphere. We made our four days in Beijing a typical tourist style trip and visited as many of the famous places we could! On Monday we started with the Summer Palace. During the whole week we were very lucky with the weather, thus perfect to get some sun and relax.

I mostly enjoyed our walks through the merchants’ district on the Quianmen Dajie, Dazhalan and Liulichang streets and our trip to the Great Wall by ourselves. We met some nice people on our trip who gave us a lot of information and helped us find the correct bus to Badaling. We explored a new way of travelling. There were a lot of strange guys wearing the same uniform trying get us into cabs and also telling us that there were no more buses to the Great Wall for the day. So when you are travelling in China you need to be careful. But finally we found the bus to the place and actually spent less money than going there with a travel agency.

All in all we spent 5 nights in Beijing which was more than enough. We still had a couple of days left and instead of going straight back to Zhuhai we decided to go to Hangzhou. From Beijing South Railway Station it only took us 5 hours with the high speed train to arrive there. Hangzhou is close to Shanghai and is bigger than Zhuhai. Hangzhou is a very beautiful city, where we spent most of our time around and on the West Lake. We also did a short boat trip over the lake, hiked up some mountains close by and took  some amazing pictures of Hangzhou from the mountain top.

I was so lucky to visit these places and with so many new unforgettable memories of China to take in, we finally flew back to Zhuhai last Sunday (23th March, 2014). When we arrived back both of us noticed that we were are back in a city with a more upbeat rhythm but still with a calm atmosphere. I would love to go Hangzhou again, but only once more and only for a holiday.

Apply now for an internship and experience China by yourself as I did last week! Learn more about other cities and return to the city were you have been placed with the sense of coming home.