May 29, 2006

12:40am



The second night here is coming to a close. We have done so much that it already seems like I have been here longer than 3 days (I left 5/25/06). The 14 hour flight from LA to Hong Kong was ridiculous, but the plane, service, and everything else were really nice. We finally arrived in Beijing and everyone was so excited. We had to go to a few checkpoints in the airport, more like just getting papers stamped, and each checkpoint spoke progressively less and less English until they spoke none at all. While waiting around at the airport a few of us decided to go get food from a Chinese KFC, which didn't really have much chicken.

After a short bus ride to Renmin University, we arrived. The campus is really nice, really green, and people are always out doing activities and having fun. People here love badminton, and there are so many couples.

I took two or three walks last night with some friends that I have met here so far. Everyone in the group is bonding really well and really fast. We hung out really late and totally didn't get sleep that we really needed, but its ok. We mostly just settled in last night, got things situated and stuff and had a dinner of Beijing roast duck.

Today we all woke up, went to a little Chinese...I guess you could call it a deli, had breakfast and then went to a little market. I got an Ethernet internet cord that I needed--two meter cord for 3 Yuan (Chinese currency)...about 40 cents. I also got an electronic bug zapper thing, it's essentially an electrified tennis racket, and yes it works, really well. We all then went to this weird restaurant, I still don't even know what kind of food it was, pretty much just a random collection of Chinese stuff, but it was fast food.

Then we went to Qian Men ( Ç°éT), which is a big shopping district right next to Tiananmen Square, but we didn't go the re today. After doing a little shopping and buying some Tibetan prayer flags, a bunch of us hopped on these taxi scooter things and went to Wangfujing Road ( Íõ¸®¾®) and just browsed some of the higher end stores, went to the bookstore and got a few things. The n a few of us grabbed a taxi and went back to a restaurant next to Renda University called jiaozi dawang(ïœ×Ó´óÍõ ) 'dumping king' and had dumplings and a bunch of other stuff. Then we came back to the dorms and just hung out. I am about to go to bed soon. Tomorrow is the first day of classes.

I think the most shocking thing about being here so far is how not-shocked I am. I feel really comfortable here, and so do a lot of the people I talk to. It's really cool and exciting to be able to really use the Chinese I know; when I can go out for an entire day on my own and at least get by, that is really impressive I think. I can't wait to see how much my Chinese improves while being here. It's really safe here, and pretty clean in most areas, although there are areas that are pretty gross. And the smells here are...interesting; Sometimes really good, but usually pretty bad. But honestly, I love it here. It still hasn't really hit me yet that we are really here. Ok, well I'm getting tired, so here are some pictures.