Apologies and a night in the bar district.

I would like to first apologize if my previous post was a horrible example of the English language. I was working between scheduled events quickly, and I was incredibly jetlagged. But, I hope it was entertaining none-the-less.
Last night, begin with a tasty meal in a local restaurant. Muh, Jamie, Ashley, and I wondered into the neon-clad restaurant to find three of the other students from the program leaving the restaurant, all three of whom do not speak any Chinese except for John (from wake) though I wouldn't say that he's fluent....Apparently, they tried to point at items on the menu, which they believed to be chicken. When it arrived, the came to the conclusion that they had either just ordered an eggplant dish or a testicle dish. So, with this tidbit of information, we entered the restaurant and scanned the menu trying to avoid anything resembling chicken or testicles. Muh ordered for us, asking for a lamb dish and four plates of noodles with vegetables. Both of these dishes were very tasty and testicle free.
We returned to the dorm and we decided that it would be a good idea to go to the bar district. So, Muh, Jeremy, Noah, john, and I found a pair of taxis outside of the gates of campus and started our journey--a journey that would last 30 minutes. Thank God for the exchange rate. Our taxi only ended up costing $5 USD. Muh, Noah, and I arrived at the bar district and quickly decided that we would never find john and Jeremy who had taken a seperate taxi and began cautiously moving down the strip of bars. This is where I saw a struggling job market in action. Every single bar had three men outside who would approach us and begin yelling "discount!" and "lady bar!" and "deal!" and vigorously point at their establishments. Needless to say, this became very annoying very quickly. When we finally decided on a bar, more out of the use of its bathroom than anything, Muh ordered us three local beers (Tiger), which ended up costing the same as our entire five plate meal at the restaurant which also included 5 huge bottles of beer. So, we quickly decided that the bar district was a one-time journey. After stopping at one more bar, jetlag began to take over and we all decided to head back. This time, Noah and I took a taxi by ourselves back to the hotel. We were given a card with directions in Chinese by CET to get us back to the dorm. I proudly presented the card to our taxi driver, who nodded and handed my card back. On the ride back, Noah, who speaks no Chinese, fell asleep and rolled around the backseat as the taxi swerved across lanes. The taxi driver finally pulled over, except when he did, it was not the dorm. In fact, I had no idea where we were. Panic set in, and i began yelling "bu dui!!" in rapid succession, which means "not correct!" To which he responded, "DUI!!!" meaning this is correct. Somehow with this argument I convinced him to drive a bit further. I then began recognizing the streets and was able to point my way back to the dorm. Man I really need to learn how to speak Chinese. So, for any of you planning a trip to Beijing, I don't recommend the bar district unless you love to burn through your money and be harassed by bar pushers.

Finally in Beijing

So much has happened since my last post, but I will try to sum up the most important and interesting pats of what have happened so far. The first leg of my journey began with my flight to NYC, which was a delightful flight. Jetblue had directTV screens on the head rests of every seat, so I watched live TV for the entire flight. The two woman sitting next to me, who apparently were martini slurping socialites, knew my aunt, which was rather odd. When I finally did arrived at JFK, I was disappointed at the condition of the airport. For my entire life, I had been led to believe that JFK was a world-class airport. Frankly, I would take the NOLA airport over the Jetblue terminal in JFK any day. After passing through my crumbling surroundings into the bowels of JFK, I arrived the Jetblue luggage carousel, and to my great delight found my first bag on the conveyer belt. To my great horror, my second bag never appeared. Myself and a flock of angry New Orleanians headed to the Jetblue Luggage Assistance area. The five employees seemed scared, to say the least, at the site of the angry mob approaching. After half of us had filled out missing luggage forms, we were told that our luggage was in fact now coming to carousel 4. Apparently the luggage guys were just too lazy to finish unloading all of our bags? I arrived at my hotel in Jamaica, NY one hour and 30 minutes later than I expected and found that I had missed the entire orientation. However, I was informed that I didn't miss much. After a dinner of pizza at 6:30 with all of my new traveling companions, a trip was taken to purchase some adult beverages. I really thought I was going to be shot multiple times on my walk with Muh to the local convenient store. I give Jamaica, NY two thumbs down. So with beverages in hand, the night ended watching a disappointing football game.
The next morning started with breakfast in the lobby and a bus ride to the airport. Despite my comments about the Jetblue terminal of JFK, the international terminal of JFK was incredibly nice, and our plane actually left on time. Seeing as the flight was 13 hours, this was definitely a good thing. My time was spent watching movies, reading an entire novel, 2 magazines, listening to music, eating 2 meals (asian chicken noodle thing and penne pasta with red sauce), eating multiple snacks, and being scared quite thoroughly. As I stared at the interactive map of our flight, the pilot announced that we had a medical emergency on the plane, and that a doctor was needed at the front of the plane. "Great, now we get to land in Alaska to get this dieing person off our plane," I thought. Thankfully, whoever was in need either passed away or recovered, because we made no such stop. We then arrived in Tokyo, where the Wake Forest kids all stretched their legs and I got my first meal in Asia, a bowl of noodles with tempura shrimp. Once again, our flight to Beijing left on time. Once in the air 100% of the CET students had fallen asleep including myself. I awoke to a puddle of drool on my t-shirt (don't worry, it was mine) just in time to enjoy my third plane meal of the day, which was noodles, some sort of beef and some really weird Japanese stuff.
Upon arrival in Beijing, we all trudged through customs and retrieved our bags without incident. We were then led out of the international terminal into the waiting area for arriving passengers, where we were confronted with easily 2000 Chinese people waiting to pick up someone. Ben, the American who is in charge of organizing the CET CNU program waved us over and split up our group. One group was going on to a city 14 hours to the north by train. The rest of us were handed information packets, which contained room keys and lots of other useful information. We then waited for about 40 minutes until our two buses arrived, one for our luggage and one for the people. The people bus was a large white beast, which jumped over bumps in the highway like a frog on speed and nearly ran over half of the smaller motorists in its path. Needless to say, we arrived at Capital Normal University safely. The next step was getting up the elevator to our rooms, which were all either on the 4th or 5th floor. My room, on the 4th floor has a nice view of the basketball courts, tennis courts, soccer fields, track, and numorous high-rises outside of the international campus. After settling in for a few minutes, Muh and I headed upstairs to meet the fifth Wake Forest student in Beijing, John, who had come a few weeks earlier to stay in Shanghai with his friend's family. After about an hour of chatting about our different journeys, it was time for some sleep. After finally falling asleep, I awoke at 6:30 in the morning to take a shower and head down to have some breakfast with the rest of the group. The breakfast was odd to say the least. It consisted of the following: boiled peanuts, a processed meat, boiled eggs, a bread filled with pork (very tastey), and rice pouridge. At the end of the meal, one last piece of processed meat remained on the lazy suzanne device. So, I took advantage of the situation and grabbed the last piece with my chopsticks. At this point everyone was quietly wondering what to do next, and so everyone was watching me pick up my spam treat. So, of course I managed to drop it into my lap before it ever reached my mouth. That's always a good way to impress people. We then headed upstairs to a classroom where we were oriented further and given yet another form of identification by the university. Then came the fun part of the day, the tour of the surrounding city. The weather was amazingly sunny and clear. It did get pretty warm on our walk, but the end of the journey ended at the Bank of China, which made it all worth while. I finally had money! We returned to campus just in time to enjoy a free lunch at the cafeteria, which was a shared meal, like our breakfast, on a lazy suzanne. The food was amazing, we had chicken, pork, vegetable and tofu dishes. All were incredible. I then had just enough time to purchase my internet service for the dorm and set it up. Then came the horrible part of the day, the placement test. I got demolished. Oh well. Then it was time for some Wu Mart action. What is Wu Mart you may ask. It's basically a mini walmart that has anything that you could need.That's been my adventure so far. We are on our own for dinner tonight, so hopefully I'll be having even more tastey food this evening and some chinese beer. I'll try to upload some pictures, but the internet is really slow here, so it may take a while....sorry.

Pre-Departure Update

As you can see from the picture to the left, I actually did recieve my passport and visa: It's actually happening. I depart for New York at 10:55am tomorrow morning to meet up with my orientation group. By early afternoon on Tuesday, I will be in the sky towards Tokyo. I can't help but be surprised at just how calm I am right now. I realize that I am leaving very shortly to a place across the globe that will be completely different than anything I've ever experienced. The only problem is this information hasn't set in at all. I'm still a little nervous about what to expect, but I don't think I'm really going to grasp exactly what is going on until I'm sitting on the plane to Tokyo. If you're interested in tracking the progress of my flight, I've provided a detailed schedule below: E = eastern time zone, C = china time, J = Japan time.

Leave New York:
E-1:30pm Tuesday
C-1:30am Wednesday
Arrive Tokyo:
E-3:20am Wednesday
J-4:20pm Wednesday
C-3:20pm Wednesday
Leave Tokyo:
E-5:10am Wednesday
C-5:10pm Wednesday
Arrive Beijing:
E-8:55am Wednesday
C-8:55pm Wednesday

Here's my packing list, just in case any one wants to know what I'm bringing to keep myself clothed and occupied in China:
Computer and accessories, books and magazines, ipod and accessories, electric razor and charger, digital camera and charger, webcam, painkillers, prescription medication, cold medication, journals, towel, rain jacket, tennis shoes, sandals, shower sandals, dress shoes, sunglasses, a large supply of soap, shampoo, toilet paper, toothpaste, and proactiv, tshirts, 2 undershirts, 2 long sleeve tshirts, 2 pairs of cargo shorts, 1 pair of blue jeans, khaki pants, navy pants, warm jacket, week of underwear, week of socks, 2 pairs of winter socks, one warm hat, one pair of gloves, 2 polo shirts, 1 button down shirt, sweatshirt, sweatpants, hiking pants, athletic shorts, bathing suit, long underwear bottoms, belt, tie, and of course, the trusty WFU hat.

I'll be online as soon as possible after landing in Beijing and recovering from jet lag. I'll be sending out postcards asap. Wish me luck, I know I'll need it.

Eeeeeek...

13 days.....and I will physically be in China. Yet, I still don't have my VISA. Yes, we were told that our visas may not arrive until 7 days before our trip, but this whole trip kinda rides on me having a visa. What's the alternative, you may ask. Well, I guess I could work my way up the corporate ladder at Honeybaked Ham for a semester, earning a degree in glazing (very intensive program). Thankfully, I still have faith in CET despite the fact that the head organizer of our trip recently jumped ship to pursue a masters degree, leaving behind his "colleague" to lead us on our academic journey. None-the-less, the countdown has begun in earnest. All that stands in my way is a little more work and a shopping spree. Unfortunately, this spree is for toiletry items, which will last for my entire semester. Apparently some essential toiletries are difficult to find in China, especially deodorant (I hope this is not a strong indicator of my future roommate's hygiene). Speaking of my roommate, if anyone has any good ideas for gifts to bring to my roommate, please let me know. I don't want to seem rude within the first hour of our meeting.

I can't help but feel nervous as the trip approaches. Everyday I begin to feel a little more overwhelmed by the prospect of my trip. I don't exactly know what to expect. I am going to be the MINORITY. I will be a blonde haired, 6'0" freak (ok 5'11") among a darker, tinier nation. Furthermore, I CAN NOT speak Chinese (despite two years of education). Yes, I know basic phrases, sentence structure, ect., but if I were dropped in China I would barely be able to find a meal much less a restroom. On top of that, I would really like to have a career involving the Chinese language. This is a huge opportunity that I really can't afford to botch at this point. So, wish me luck. I'll post once more the night before my flight to NYC. Then I promise the posts won't be so boring.

Thanks for reading and/or ignoring my rants, both are appreciated.