In the beginning a girl named Megan went to China.

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I am excited to write my first blog. And it is very cool because I am 12ish hours ahead of you. I am 12 ahead in eastern time and then I give up on the math. Good luck. But for all you at school it is crazy to think about because you may have JUST started your first 8am class of spring quarter, but I have mostly finished Monday here in China. But I guess I should back up a little and tell you about my journey so far.

Well it all began with me getting up at 2:30am on Thursday morning to catch a flight from DC to San Francisco. Dad, I am still mightily grateful for that sacrifice of sleep. The flight was a good 6 hour flight and from there the Cooks and I shuttled over to our hotel where we met Rachel and Jordan and had a little adventure in San Fran. We had high expectations of going to this interactive science musuem place but got sidetracked by the Golden Gate Bridge. We had a fun picture op there and then just went sightseeing in the car. For those of you who have not gone, the houses really do look like the ones from Full House. Cool. You don't really want to hear about CA, boring. So our group got together there and then got to the airport for our 11am flight. That flight was a little delayed as well. It was a good 12 hour flight though. The most thrilling part was flying over Alaska! I never thought I would see that place! It was all just mountainous, icy terrain. I fell asleep for a time and then looked outside again and thought it was Alaska but no! It was Siberia. So I saw Siberia and Alaska. We had fairly good food on the flight, and it seemed to get more Chinese the closer we got!

Then we landed in CHINA at about 5 pm their time. We got through customs, got our luggage, and then met our guide who brought up to the bus that brought us to our dorm/hotel. Although I was exhausted from almost no sleep on the plane, it was so fun to look outside at China. The landscape, since we are in Beijing, was developed but it looks different. A little messier and dirtier with a lot of bright signs and skyscrapers. The traffic here is unvbelievable. They have laws, but they like to break them. While driving it seems that one hand is glued to the horn. And the way they switch between lanes with bicycles allll over the place is quite incredible. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way either. You really have to be careful. Kenny got lightly bumped by a car the other day. But to segue back to our first arrival, we arrived at the Xian Guesthouse, got off the bus, and these two cars had an accident right in front of us. Both parties get out of their cars. One guy pulls out a bat and starts yelling. Then the other guy pulls a gun out and points it at the others head while yelling. This is happeninig five feet away from us. Then the guy points the gun into the sky and fires it. That is how we find out it is a flare gun. That was our first intro to China. Then we were assigned our rooms, which are quite nice. Two people to a room with their own bed, bathroom, even a tv. But they are all freezing. The AC and heat is governed by the city and we are here during the two week period that it is warming up, so the heat has been turned off. We are dealing though. The beds are short and rock hard, but thankfully I have realized that I like very firm beds. These might be pushing it though since I woke up last night with half my body numb. But that's what the other side is for right?

That first night we had our first authentic Chinese food meal. It was sooo good! They took us to this restaurant where we were ushered into these back rooms. There were three large tables and they all have lazy susans in the middle. Then people just began bringing in all sorts of dishes and would put them on the susan and you would just wheel it around. Lots of chicken, beef, and veggies in all sorts of sauces and interesting ways to cook them. THis is where we met our student host types. They are going to be around a lot to answer questions, help us out, and be our friends. They are fluent in english and the nicest people ever. We have already had some great conversations! Although we were all having fun we almost fell asleep in the our plates. Oh one more thing! We were all given chopsticks and it was most of our first time with them. We all LOVE them. Yes, they are challenging but pretty easy to get the hang of. I might not return to silverware. I saw this chopstick store the other day and maybe I will pick up some nice porcelain ones to carry around with me - forever .

Sunday - our first full day in China! Our first mission was to exchange money. Then we had a nice lunch at the same place and we began to learn Chinese from our hosts. They loved to teach us and laugh at our pronunciation! This is the craziest language. Noises I never thought I would hear are coming from my mouth and supposedly they mean something! After lunch we set out to Tiananmen Square. It was so fun! We saw huge pictures of Mao, got haggled by people selling things, took pictures. OH! Pictures. The Chinese just go crazy over Americans. I can kinda see why. THere are not many at all. I may have seen 5 in the whole city so far. You will see them posing with us in the background, trying to get a sly shot of us. Or they will come up to us and ask to take pictures and then people just flock around, snapping pictures like crazy! You feel famous and its quite fun. Then we went to what I refer to as the Times Square of Beijing. There are a lot of big name stores (Nike is all the rage here). That also took up to the night market, which is a food vendor place. This is where CHina's reputation of crazy food is confirmed. Some of the group enjoyed tasting delicacies like scorpions, maggots, and snake. I got close to scorpion but didnt feel like wasting my money on it. The scorpion I hear is pretty good. Maggots not so much. Surprising? hmmm.. 😊 Then we were on our own for dinner. We found a good supermarket but decided to just try a restuarant. We saw one with pictures and in we went. We had a little language barrier but they found an American menu. Oh the food was sooo good. I got tomatoes and egg with rice for 8 yuan. That is like $1.10 and it was a lot of food. Then we had church at the dorm. We have all been so exhausted with the time change and touring that our group have all been in bed around 9 every night. Ohhh this day started out with an authentic Chinses breakfast. We were so confused at the beginning when our food came. It is not my favorite. It was watery rice, a hard boiled egg, this pickled cabbage salty grossness, and this ddoughball of "bread". Breakfast is optional. I went to the store and bought Honey Nut Cheerios. Now for all of those who will rag on me for not experiencing the culture, most of our group goes to Starbucks and McDonalds once a day. AHh another food thing. So being a vegetarian it gets a little tough with the food that seems like it could be on the fence of being meat. Well this dish came out near the end of lunch with this apply looking sauce and sprinkles. Now, you ALL know i love desserts A LOT. And they do not here. I have not had chocolate in days. So the sprinkles made me excited and I ate two pieces of it. Then they told me it was chicken. Ohh everyone enjoyed that and they al now induce me to eat meat all the time. Good times.

Monday (today!) - Today we started our mandarin classes. Oh i wish I had a voice recording. It was three hours of us chanting after our teacher. These tones are sooo difficult. I feel like I am singing sometimes and my vocal chords are all over the place, but man was it fun!! We had fun then practicing it out on each other and alittle with the Chinese we came into contact with. We had some free time when we went exploring and some began their first bartering. It is intense fighting that price down. I have not done it yet but tomorrow we are going to the shopping place where hard core bargaining begins. You're supposed to off them like 40% of what they say the price is. We also had a tour of the University. They have the venues for gymnastics and badmitton on campus. They are not letting forgeigners in but they may get special admittance for us. And by the way, bad mitton is THE sport here. They are so excited over it. For dinner we went to this awesome Chinese fondue place. They gave us this menu, all in Chinese characters and we were supposed to choose. We had not idea. One guy spoke a little English but it was kinda like just guessing and checking boxes and seeing what came. We had a medley of mushrooms, sea weed, water chestnuts, potatoes, cabbage, and some meat. It was fun. You would cook it in either a super spicy sauce or a normal one and then dip it in peanut sauce. The rest. was so cool because it was on the second floor overlooking the city a little and was very pretty!

So that is pretty mush it....haha I say in jest as I warned everyone, I write superlong blogs. I appreciate it if you have gotten this far! Oh and an update on the toilets. In touristy spots and in our hotel there are normal toilets, although you cant flush the toilet paper. In most other places its the lovely hole on the ground. wooo! Leg muscle! There is also no toilet paper in any public bathroom. Bring your own! But that is what makes China unique and awesome. It is just fun to take it all in. Our group is gelling really well and is just sooo much fun. I have realized that I will learn three things on this trip: 1) A lot about China 2) A lot about sports and 3) how to debate really well. Our group likes to either talk about sports or enter into debates about anything (but a lot of the time about sports!) Oh the joy of traveling with 14 boys! oh and anyone who wants to get skype, the connection is great!! alright. a little study time and then bed!

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