Wow, I still can't believe I'm in China, thousands of miles away from home. After the long flight, tours, exploring, and meeting many new faces, I finally have a chance to settle down and write my first blogpost from China. So much has transpired over my first few days here in China, and I find myself a little overwhelmed.
Friday:
The plane ride over to Beijing was an unusually turbulent one. Behind me sat a 2 year old Chinese boy who decided to exercise his legs for a good majority of the plane ride by pounding his feet on the back of my seat. I asked his mother to control her son, but this proved to be ineffective. Falling asleep was, undeniably, difficult, but I finally got some shut-eye after the little boy passed out from exhaustion. Once arriving at the Beijing airport, I was taken aback by the beauty of the international concourse. Wow.
Just after hopping off the shuttle at Beijing Normal University (北京师范大学）, the first thing I notice is that there's a McDonald's, and it's packed to capacity. While it is somewhat comforting to find a familiar reminder of home, I also find it truly amazing and somewhat bizarre how much Chinese people love this place.
After unpacking and settling down, I proceed to have dinner with a group of friends (both old and new). One especially disappointing thing I have discovered about China is that the service at restaurants is terrible if you don't know what your doing. Our kind pleas to the 服务员 (waitresses) did not garner their attention like the loud shouting from the other tables. Even when we stepped up our game and began speaking more assertively, the 服务员 still giggled at us 外国人 (foreigners), and the service did not improve. The 4 bowls of rice we requested upon ordering finally arrived an hour into the meal. After a frustrating dinner, jet-lag soon caught up with me, and I quickly hit the sack.
Here's a glimpse at my air-conditioned room and some Princetonians (Brown shirt lying on the bed in my roommate Charles). Because we are foreigners, our dorm was surprisingly nice (outfitted with air conditioning and a TV). A teacher was telling me that the native Chinese students live in dorms with no AC and no TV.
Saturday:
For just 2 yuan I bought breakfast from a cart just outside of the East Gate. The egg pancake with lettuce and some sort of sauce was surprising pretty good albeit a little greasy (but so is all Chinese food). After taking the written and oral placement exams, I had the rest of the day off. Lunch was a significant improvement from the previous night's dinner. Instead of going to a sit down restaurant, we went down this alleyway where there were several 小吃店 (small restaurants). The 10 小笼包 for 3.5 yuan and the big bowl of 牛肉面 for just 7 yuan was plenty for the three of us and very affordable. We also tried eating 凉面 (cold noodles), but that proved to be a questionable decision as we noticed that each of us felt a little weird after the first few bites. (Rule of thumb: don't eat anything cold in China, unless its a bottled beverage).
Afterwards, a large group of us PiBers went to the 秀水街 (silk market/road) to do a little bargain shopping. I bought a fan with a nice painting on it for 10 yuan (down from 35 yuan) after employing the very effective walk-away tactic. For the most part, I helped out my friends by looking disgusted and giving the solicitors dirty looks.
Sunday:
I signed away my ability to speak English today, a truly bittersweet moment. After the opening ceremonies, a few other third year students and I had lunch with one of the teachers at our first language table. Trying to describe vocabulary words using only the Chinese we knew was frustrating, but the meal was delicious.
The road ahead looks to be tough, but I suspect I'll make it through just fine. 再见！
Dumpling count: 7
