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Published: August 4th 2009
Staci: It's been a whirlwind of a few days. After all the sad goodbyes, security lines (one issue happened right away- we started to go through security and then realized that I -Staci- had somehow left my new raincoat behind. Thinking that I must have left it at our seats, I got out of the line, talked to a TSA employee and was allowed back out to look- but it was gone, resulting in a minor freak-out. We just got internet here today and received an email from Martin's mom letting us know they have it- I'd given it to Jen to hold and in the goodbyes we both forgot!) and waiting around, we boarded our United flight first to San Francisco, and then to Beijing. We somehow ended up in Economy Plus on the flight to San Fran (an extra 5 inches of legroom, ooooh yeah!) and then had no seats in front of us (just the bathroom wall) on the flight to Beijing, so our flights were as comfortable as coach can be. 😊 We sat next to another couple, Elyse and Pete, whom we had talked with quite a few times on Facebook prior to meeting in San Fran. In between sleeping, watching some movies, eating, drinking wine and chatting, the 11.5 hour flight passed fairly quickly.
Martin: While awaiting our first departure in Seattle to San Francisco, I suddenly became nostalgic for the glory days of Seattle Basketball. Just a few feet away was the Reign Man himself (Shawn Kemp) For those who don't know, he played Power Forward for the Seattle SuperSonics and was considered one of the best throughout the 90's. He was traded to Cleveland where he gained a lot of weight but still produced. After a few years, he gained some more weight, did some drugs, and his career quickly took a turn for the worse. Anyway, there he was, just a few feet away. He appeared to be in great shape, having lost all the weight he had gained. I figured he was just going to San Francisco, but I was wrong and there he was at the gate to Beijing! Joining him was another great NBA player, A.C. Green, with a group of people wearing 3BA (three-on-three basketball) shirts and gear.
They of course flew first class, and got seats that appeared to fold into beds.
As Staci mentioned, we lucked out and had nobody in front of us, just a wall with some nice leg room in between. Our mini tv's folded up from underneath our seats. I only used it to watch about 20 minutes of a movie called Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which was horrible. The rest of the flight was spent sleeping, eating, and walking in on someone in the plane bathroom as she was preparing to answer nature's calls. I assume from the high pitch squeal of terror she let out, she was not awaiting to join the mile high club, and merely forgot to lock the door.
Staci again: Finally, arrival at Beijing Airport. We successfully navigated our way through the maze of temperature taking they have set up,-- apparently H1N1 originates in America and kills people, according to a cartoon they had playing in the airport-- got our luggage, piece of cake through customs and out into a large waiting area where we proceeded to stand around for 2.5 hours waiting for another flight with CTLC members on it to arrive. We were all ridiculously sweaty, thirsty and exhausted, and luckily water bottles appeared for us from somewhere. Martin managed to buy a phone card so that we were able to call both sets of parents, waking them up around 1am to phone calls from random numbers just to hear that we made it safely. 😊 After the 2.5 hours of waiting, the 90+ people loaded onto two Peking University buses and were on our way! We're staying in the Haidian district of Beijing (once i learn to link on here our blog entries will be more interesting, but for now, search for it on wikipedia if you'd like!), in a hotel with no elevators and four flights of stairs to climb. It was a bit chaotic checking in- find a roomie, give front desk your two passports, receive two keys. Martin and I are in a room on the top floor just off the main entryway, making for a bit more noise, but that's okay. We'll post pictures of the room soon- it has AC, a western toilet, a tv with one English channel and two twin-size incredibly hard beds. What more could you ask for? We got an ethernet cord from the front desk today- internet is only 10 yuan a day, a little more than a dollar.
Last night we met up with other random hungry CTLCer's outside the hotel and found a small restaurant around the corner to eat at. It was quite the ridiculous experience- some people ordered at random off the Chinese menu, some could actually read it, we opted for the easy option of pointing to a big picture of curry fried rice. It ended up having meat in it, but I was able to pick around it pretty easy. Martin and I shared a plate that cost about a dollar and we both went home full. We then slept from about 8:30pm-7am, only waking up once or twice.
Today was spent eating a breakfast buffet with everyone in our hotel, taking a tour of Peking University's campus (beautiful!) and in orientation, learning all about what we'll be learning these next two weeks in Beijing. We'll have to bring our camera another day to class to get pictures of the campus. We ate lunch in the school's cafeteria, again spending only a little over a dollar each for food. Tomorrow we start teaching actual students- Martin will spend an hour alone each day teaching college-level students and I will spend an hour each day co-teaching junior high students. These are not our placements for Shenzhen- just what we got put in for practice here in Beijing. The students are here as part of an English summer camp- I feel a little sorry for them that they're our guinea pigs!
After arriving back to our hotel around 4:30pm, Martin and I set up the internet, spent a few hours laying around, ventured out to get food at a restaurant that had an English menu and probably was considered pricey (oh well) and then came back here just in time to catch my brother Neal online and videochat for a bit. It was nice to know we can talk with people in that way for at least the next few weeks!
Two notes about China: 1) We are constant sweating machines here. It's a little disgusting. 2) You cannot flush toilet paper down the toilet. Meaning that, yes, in our hotel- we have to put the paper in our trashcan. We were not prepared for that.
Alright, time to lesson plan for our hour long lessons we give tomorrow! We'll write again soon, with less rambling. Love you all!
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Nicole
non-member comment
no paper down the drain!
i bet right next to those little trash cans is the hygiene hose? Im sure you'll come across those...blasting areas with cold water that shouldnt be blasted is quite the experience. im so excited you made it there safely. enjoy all of the moments especially the crazy/rough ones for those make the best stories. miss and love you both.