And So The Adventure Begins: My first month in Zhuhai

Hi there! My name is Annelies Porreij, hailing from a speck of dust on the world map called The Netherlands. My first month here at ODM was an amazing rollercoaster filled with learning new things and adventures in South China.

Zhuhai view

This is not my first trip to China. I studied in Beijing twice in 2012 and 2014 as a part of my Dutch university major: a Business major with Mandarin Chinese. My previous experiences in China made the transition back into China life and adapting to my surroundings a lot easier. Places like Shanghai and Xi'an have also been ticked off my list, but this is my first time in the south of China.

So far my experience has been great. Zhuhai is a relatively small and green coastal city (especially for me, being used to a huge city like Beijing) and it even has clean air! There's a tropical climate in this part of China, and it almost feels surreal to see palm trees everywhere every day.
It's August, so it's still summer so the weather is very hot and humid. It's raining a lot with an occasional typhoon threat here and there.

Zhuhai Palace

The work at ODM is fast paced and never boring. There are many facets to my daily tasks, from which I am learning so much. After one month, I'm finally getting more used to how things work. My colleagues are all incredibly friendly, passionate people and I felt very welcomed. I'm receiving intensive but interesting training about the ins and outs of this industry.

Zhuhai - Opera House

After my first week, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Yangshuo: famous for their landscape appearance on the ¥20 note. This was a trip that had been on my bucketlist for many years already. It was still a solid 7 hours by bus (+2h because of technical issues, don't even get me started) but the trip was well worth it. The landscapes are beautiful, there is so much to see and to do that 2 days wasn't really enough.


Exciting times lie ahead. I'm looking forward to learning even more and getting more experience in the next three and a half months that I have left. Let's do this!



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