The Arrival

I have safely arrived in Beijing!  It's been a bit of a whirlwind as I feel like I've been here for so long already when it's just barely been over a day.  I can honestly say that I am very sick of flying now.  The fact that my trip over here took three planes and transferring twice did not help that fact.  On a side note, the food on the plane was actually not that bad!  On my flight from Seattle to Korea, and Korea to Beijing I took Korean Air.  First off, their service is soooo much better than Delta and the food was much better as well.  From Seattle to Korea they had Bulgogi that tasted really good with some seaweed soup (pic below).  On top of that, they had good movie choices too! So props to Korean Air! :D

 

  When I landed in Beijing, it wasn't too late, about 8:30pm.  However, my mom being my mom freaked out about a girl being alone so late at night so she called up my aunt in China who arranged to have her friend come pick me up.  In hindsight, I'm really appreciative she did because I would have been so lost without their help.  So I got off the plane and got into a taxi pretty quickly and got to Tsinghua University by about 9:30pm.  Then I had to find the dorm check-in which turned out to be quite the hassle as many chinese students at the university don't actually speak English that well/ know where the international students office is.  I can tell that I'll have to improve my chinese while I'm here because English the students here aren't very fluent in English.  I really don't mind because I originally wanted to come to China to improve my chinese anyways so this will force me to use it.  After checking in to my room, which is pretty cheap (~$390 for my own bedroom and shared bathroom), I moved into my dorm.

I'm pretty happy with the size and ammenities like my own room especially since my roommate told me that Chinese students at the university usually share 6 people to a room!  That would be wayyyy too many hormones for my liking.  Anyways, my roommate is actually from Iowa!  But she's a graduate student that has been living in China for 6 years now.  Her Chinese is much better than mine... which is slightly embarassing.  However, hopefully that won't be as much of an issue as the semester progresses when I start taking my Chinese classes. Another minor gripe I have about my room is how FREAKING hard the bed is.  I have a pic of what the cushion on it looks like.  It's literally 3 one inch pads put on top of a wood bed.  The first night I had so much trouble sleeping.  Maybe it'll improve my posture or something by making me lay flat? I dunno, it's just unpleasant. 

The first morning of my day in Beijing my roommate took me around the campus to walk around.  Then we walked over to Wukaodo which is the area of Beijing where most of the international students hang out.  We had lunch at a noodle place where my dish was only $2! It's gonna take a while for me to stop being how shocked how cheap everything is.

Later that day, I met up with one of my American buddies and met with a lady who runs an English teaching school for Chinese kids.  She was interested in finding new people to work there and was willing to pay 200rmb/hr! That's >$30/hr you guys 0_0.  Even if I could only work a couple hours a week that would add up to so much money, especially since the cost of living is so low. The lady said she might need some help and will  get back to me probably next week. I actually wouldn't mind working there because I love kids and the pay would be amazingggg.

That night, I went with my American friend and we went to this bar called La Bomba where we met up with a whole bunch of other international students. We ate there and started drinking as more and more people came.  We got there around 5:30pm and stayed till like 10:30pm.  All I can say after last night is that those Europeans can drink.  Pretty sure one of the guys had like 10 big cups of beer and was completely fine.  The night before he had got completely wastedddd because the bars had a special where it was an open bar for 50rmb (~$8).  All the alcohol is suuuuuper cheap here you guys.  A big glass of beer is under $1 and a mixed drink is a little under $2.  Now if only I liked drinking a lot of alcohol....

Just a small snapshot of how much beer people had

After La Bomba we went to a Karaoke place but didn't end up singing because the place was all full.  I was actually pretty bummed.  I was ready to sing my heart out! :P  Then, we went to a couple more bars where they were giving out free drinks for girls.  ANY drinks we wanted.  This was a pretty common theme I realized from walking around.  I had heard from my roommate that the bars usually do this the first couple weeks of school because they realize international students will be lured in by this and hopefully we'll keep coming back.  I called it a night around 1am (since I had been going since like 5:30pm!) which is pretty early considering bar closes at like 6am here.  After last night, I breathed in so much cigarette smoke (blegh).  They allow smoking indoors in all the bars/ clubs and since it's such an enclosed area the smoke can get pretty intense.  Even walking out into the city air after being in the bars felt refreshing.  I feel my lungs battling lung cancer already :P.  All in all, the clubbing and bar scene is pretty similar to America over here.  Most of the students are trying to enjoy their last couple days of freedom before school starts.

Orientation with all the international students is today! Hopefully I'll be able to meet a lot more people.  I'll keep you all updated :)  To leave you guys, I'll show you a picture of the wonderful view I woke up with this morning.

I'm gonna miss those clear, blue Minnesota skies