Ni Hao (okay, that's the complete extent of my Mandarin used up),

China will be the first time I have travelled outside of Europe, minus one family holiday to the Dominican Republic, which was mainly a beach holiday (although I did get to visit the place where they filmed some of Jurassic Park). So for that reason, plus I was too young to really do anything, I'm counting China as my first. Preparations for China are moving on nicely, and I am being enlightened to the whole host of arrangements you have to make before going to far away places. Firstly, there is the standard passport, which is easy enough - a long as it's up-to-date - but that is not all. The British Council have helped us apply for our visas, which are essential for entering into China. I have never applied for a visa before, but basically, it just tells the authorities details of your trip, such as how long you intend to stay, where you'll be, why you're going there. The visa asks many questions, including the most personal details such as if you may be carrying a venereal disease (look it up if you don't know what that is!).

As well as this, we've also had to sign two other forms; one which I cannot remember and another to confirm our enrollment for a whole 2 weeks at Beijing Normal University (BNU). Studying Chinese! Really looking forward to experiencing that as my first university experience will be in China and not the UK! It will be interesting to make comparisons when I hopefully get to Southampton in September. Looking at pictures of BNU online it just looks amazing. I know that word is overused but honestly the architecture and facilities look so modern and well designed. It should be awesome.

Besides documentation, there's also vaccinations to consider. If you don't like needles China is gonna be pretty mean to you as there are tonnes of things you could catch and need to be protected against. I only needed a couple - Hepatitis A and Typhoid - and I rejected the Rabies vaccination on grounds of cost, and medical advice...obviously. Hopefully I won't come back full of rage and foaming at the mouth. So, now those things are checked off the list, there's just that small matter of packing left to deal with. To be honest, I haven't thought about this at all, which probably means I should start soon, as there's lots of things I'll need to take. Oh well, I'll do that later.

Besides these things, we've also found out which flights we'll be taking, and where we'll be staying in Beijing and Shanghai. Our flights include a change over at Dubai. I have also begun learning Chinese Mandarin, and despite now knowing of the 4 tones of the language, as of yet I am still unable to say anything useful. But, this will change very soon, I'm sure.

It's 3 weeks on Tuesday!

Ollie :-)