Travel
Trains and flights within China can be booked via internet on these platforms. They also have apps for mobile devices:
http://www.ctrip.com
http://www.qunar.com
Places from where our drivers can pick you up are following. The prices are for one car going, it might be shared with others.
– Qingdao airport pick up is US$100.00
– Rizhao airport pickup US$40.00
– Weifang train station pick up is US$70.00
– Wulian train or bus station pick up is US$10.00.
Visa
Usually the procedure is always the same: You need our invitation letter plus the hotel reservation, with this you go to the China Visa Center, and a few days later you can pick up the visa. Common maximum is 3 month study-visa, this may be extended for 1 more month when you are in China.
But sometimes also longer periods may be issued. The longest is 1 year, when you have a job in China.
Next year with the opening of the school in Wulian we will have several job opportunities. For details get in touch with me via: mail (at) practicalmethod (dot) de.
Shopping
Hey Guys, actually you can buy nearly everything in China. We first came here with three packages of diaper and then found out, that you can buy them in every supermarket to nearly the same price like in our country (Germany) 🙂
Hard to get is coffee and cheese. But if you really need something for your “survival”, you can get really everything online on www.taobao.com. This is pretty much like amazon in the west. Somethings are more expensive then in our home countries, because they have to be imported (chocolate, bio-baby food etc.).
A hint for using the search field of taobao: try to translate to Chinese first, then enter the Chinese characters. Taobao also can deal with lot’s of English terms, but the price range is quite large and very likely you get much better deals when entering Chinese.
