How To Mail A Large Package From China To A Foreign Country

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Earlier this year, I mailed myself a large package from China to a foreign country. I have mailed items from China to foreign countries before this time, but never large items. It was a bit of an adventure, but I wanted to share with all of you how to do it, so you can avoid many of the mistakes I made in the process. This post will describe in detail how to mail a package from China to a foreign country.
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Great Ways To Get Started Learning Mandarin Chinese

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The question to how to get started learning Mandarin Chinese is a question that I have been asked in different variations over the last few years. I suppose the answer to the question would be similar to the answer to how to get started learning any language. Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to learning Chinese. We are not yet at a point where you can just put a computer chip into your brain and instantly learn Chinese. Chinese is unique in that you have to learn the characters as well as learn how to listen and speak, so you need to give yourself enough time to learn it. That being said, I believe that the following methods are great ways to get started learning Chinese.
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Mandarinportal.com Is Now A Host For the CC-CEDICT project

I am proud to say that Mandarinportal.com is now one of the hosts for the CC-CEDICT project. CC-CEDICT is one of the best open source Chinese to English dictionaries in the world, and very useful to use. You can download it in many different and convenient formats here. CC-CEDICT is somewhat hard to search initially, but, I will put more information here about how to quickly and efficiently search it soon.

Website Upgrade and Transfer Now Complete

I having finally finished transferring my server from  a shared host  in Ireland to a VPS in Singapore. This upgrade took many many hours, and at times made me want to pull my hair out, but was a great learning experience. Lots of technical things behind the scenes had to work perfectly for the transition to complete. This upgrade has forced me through sheer necessity to get much better at Linux administration very quickly. Using a shared host allows you to have the host hold your hand so to speak, but really limits what you can do. Having a VPS is like having ultimate freedom with regards to the server, but with no one to hold your hand. I might host this site in Ireland again eventually, but for now, I am sticking with my Singapore server. But in any case, I love both Singapore and Ireland, so I am OK with having the server in either country. This upgrade will allow me to do many more interesting things with the site, and allow it to be significantly faster.

Recap since last month

Since, last month, much progress has made on this site. I created signs.mandarinportal.com where interesting Chinese pictures are placed, and chinglish.mandarinportal.com where funny Chinglish pictures will be placed. In addition, mandarinportal.com/gctravelguide has been created, and in the coming weeks, much information about cities and places about Greater China will be placed there. travelblog.mandarinportal.com to be updated soon including lots of travelling that I have done recently, and since last year. Within 2 weeks or so, I will upgrade the server for this website to make it even faster and better.

Feel free to check out all of the recent signs.mandarinportal.com posts below:
//signs.mandarinportal.com/funny-sign-about-no-defecating-peeing-or-smoking-in-an-area-in-hong-kong/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/the-fast-and-the-furious-7-sign-in-chinese/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/hp-ink-in-chinese/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/womens-day-sign-in-china/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/exercise-scam-product-in-china/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/chinese-tom-and-jerry-wound-plasters/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/back-to-school-sign-in-china/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/valentines-day-sign-in-china/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/sign-about-cherishing-your-life/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/chinese-new-year-coca-cola-signs/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/a-chinese-towelie/
//signs.mandarinportal.com/chinese-signs-about-combating-illegal-fund-raising-avoiding-fraud-and-forbidding-gambling/

Feel free to check out all of the recent chinglish.mandarinportal.com posts below:
//chinglish.mandarinportal.com/a-hilarious-chinglish-photo-in-a-restroom-in-hong-kong/
//chinglish.mandarinportal.com/well-never-wound-this-earth/
//chinglish.mandarinportal.com/bread-flavour-bread/

Come back often for updates to this site.

Your comments are welcome on any part of this website.

Another Section of Mandarinportal.com Created

I have created a new section of mandarinportal.com at chinglish.mandarinportal.com. This will be a place where funny and epic Chinglish pictures will be placed. I have a large collection of Chinglish pictures from my time in Greater China, and I encounter Chinglish nearly every day here. I think Chinglish things are very funny, and I hope you all enjoy them. Come back frequently to chinglish.mandarinportal.com to see more chinglish pictures.

New Section Of mandarinportal.com Created

I have created a new section of mandarinportal.com at signs.mandarinportal.comsigns.mandarinportal.com will be a place where pictures of Chinese signs will be placed. I have a passion for taking pictures of signs. There are several reasons that I find signs so interesting. Signs in China will help you learn more and more about the unique Chinese Culture. Also, translating signs in Chinese can really help improve your Chinese level. I often find Chinese signs to be very bizarre, but at least interesting. I probably have hundreds of pictures I have taken of signs in Mainland China, and hope for this part of mandarinportal.com to be very interesting and useful for you all.

Main Blog Up!!!

I have finally started blogging again on the main mandarinportal.com blog at blog.mandarinportal.com. You can visit it here. You can all look forward to quality blogging about Greater China and Chinese culture on blog.mandarinportal.com. Guest bloggers will appear in the future. So, enjoy and come back often for high quality posts about Greater China and Chinese culture.

January to February 2014 Trip Blog Posts Finally Finished!!!

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After more than 2 months, I have finally finished blogging about my trip from the end of January 2014 to the end of February 2014 on my website where I travelled much of Greater China. I travelled to Qingdao, Shenzhen, Macau, Zhuhai, Hong Kong, and Wuhan. I have posted the URLs of my posts for each day below. It was one of the most memorable trips of my life, and I hope you enjoy reading about some of it. I am a bit curious which of these days are your favourites.

28 february 2014 the last day of my month long trip/
27 february-2014 the yellow crane tower and more part 2 2
27 february 2014 the yellow crane tower and more part 1
26 february 2014 wuhan university and more part 2
26 february 2014 wuhan university and-more part 1
25 february 2014 my first day in wuhan
24 february 2014 the day that i left hong kong to go back to mainland china and going to wuchang
23 february 2014 my last full day in hong kong and buying a grey market phone
22 february 2014 just another fun day in hong kong
21 february 2014 hanging out with my friend from chile and going to sham shui po
20 february 2014 another fun day in hong kong
19 february 2014 sun yat sen museum
18 february 2014 more roaming around hong kong island
17-february-2014-roaming-around-hong-kong-island
16 february 2014 going to a-hostel-and-learning-about-the-hong-kong-monetary-authority
15 february 2014 day trip in shenzhen window of the world milk smugglers in shenzhen and coming back to hong kong
14 february 2014 wandering around hong-kong
13 february 2014 friend leaves for china and dragonball z coke zero in hong kong
12 february 2014 wednesday museums horse racing in happy valley and more in hong kong
11 february 2014 the peak avenue of stars and chung king mansions in hong kong
10 february 2014 floating restaurant and night market in hong kong
09-february 2014 hong kong
08 february 2014 hong kong
07 february 2014 shenzhen and coming to hong kong
06 february 2014 shenzhen shenzhen science museum and more
macau trip part iv 05 february 2014 and zhuhai and shenzhen
macau trip part iii 04 february 2014
macau trip part ii 03 february 2014
shenzhen travelling 31 january 2014 to 02 february 2014 and first day of travelling in macau
travelling in qingdao january 2014