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Published: August 13th 2012
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Harris and I at TBC!Ni hao!
My first full day in Beijing has been quite an adventure! I arrived at the university at about 9pm local time very tired after getting little sleep on my flight but excited to be half way across the world for the first time! I quickly dropped off my suitcases and immediately met some other students downstairs for our first authentic Chinese meal. We headed across the street from UIBE to a narrow road with several restaurants. By pointing and head shaking I somehow managed to order beef and rice as well as succesfully eat it with chop sticks! The portions were HUGE and my meal was about 15 RMB which translates to about $2 U.S. dollars. After walking around the area with for a little we all returned to our rooms to unpack and get settled in for the night. I slept on and off for about 5 hours before my roommate, Sophie, and I woke up and lazily watched a Chinese drama on the television. Our room is really spacious with two beds, two desks, a small seating area with two bookcases, its own bathroom and two closets. Our large windows overlook a quadlike space between buildings
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View from the door entering my room and I think it's quite pretty!
I was able to see more of my surroundings today because last night was so dark and honestly felt like I was in a kind of dusty New York City with a lot of Asian people haha! There are a lot of cars (the taxi cabs here are VW's!) and even more people on bikes. The bikers tend to ride on the sidewalks and kind of honk at you for moving too slowly for them! After a brief morning orientation we were able to find a market and get some essentials, like toilet paper...very uncommon here. We took a tour of the campus and much to my delight there is a track! BUT it is heavily covered in weeds and a large cement path cuts through the 150 meter mark. Despite this, I think I'll start out there before I start running off campus.
We spent the afternoon getting to know everyone. There are 63 international students at the Beijing Center this semester from four countries (mostly the U.S., but two are from the Philippines!) We had pizza and yes we already went out to have our first Chinese beer (not bad).
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View from the small seating area looking to the door Now I'm ready to sleep and will hopefully get on a regular sleeping pattern! More to come soon but for now zai jian (goodbye)!
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Dad
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Great blog!
Sam, This is great that you can do this blog! Sounds like you're off to a good start. The room is huge! Mom will love the pictures.