Journey to Hangzhou

To get from home in Finland to Hangzhou I went by car, flight and bus. The flight took 9 h from Helsinki to Shanghai. There was also an other guy from Aalto coming to Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, so we could travel a bit together. The flight was quite pleasant. I had the luck to have a whole seat row for myself, meaning that I could lay down to sleep during the flight. I was literally woken up for the mealtimes. Sometimes you happen to be lucky :)

We landed in Shanghai (上海) around 5:45 local time (00:45 Finnish time) and tried to figure out how to get to Hangzhou. According to the airport personnel, only Chinese speaking of course, the easiest way was to go by couch. So we did. After a few hours of waiting and with help of some locals, we got tickets and left with a bus with only locals to Hangzhou. I had interesting discussions with a kind man sitting next to me with a mix of Chinese and English. From the windows you could see bunches of blocks of flats.

Three and a half hours later we arrived in Hangzhou, where the rain was pouring. The locals on the bus advised us to take a taxi to the campus and they also helped us to get the cab. Extremely kind people!

Well arrived at the Yuquan Campus (玉泉校区), where we had to do our inscription and registration for the student dorm. It was a bit of a bureaucracy mess and lots of queuing to get everything sorted out but slowly and safely getting there. After getting the room and all stuff carried to the room in heavy rain, I felt so relieved. At leas I had now a roof over my head and a place to stay. Then it was time for some Baozi (包子), big steamed stuffed buns.

Wherever you go, don't forget your umbrella. Outside shops there are always small bath tubs where to leave your umbrella.

In the evening I also met my roommate, Elena. She is from Italy and we get along well. It was a long but exciting day.