Arrival in Beijing

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Greetings！

After almost 25 hours of traveling because of a five-hour delay in the Chicaog O'hare airport, I arrived safely in Beijing. The airplane ride from Chicago to Beijing was interesting as I got sit next to this very sweet Chinese woman from Beijing. Between her limited English and my three semesters worth of Chinese, we managed to have a really great time talking. She was visiting her son in the States who is now working in Chicago. Her son went to Tsinghua University-请华大学 for four years and then went to Stanford to get a degree in computer engineering/information systems. In addition to talking about her son, she told me that she learned Japanese for business so we started talking with the very few Japanese words I know from watching all those dramas. I also learned her husband was on a business trip to Vietnam. So many different connections! During the flight she also taught me how to knit a faster way---needless to say I was a bit of a slow learner because she did it so fast, but she was very patient. I even managed to say, ”看起来容易，做难了“-- it looks easy, but hard to do. By the end of it I picked up so some pretty useful knitting skills! Across the aisle from me was a gentlemen who was the tour guide leader of a group of 39 Chinese tourists. They had just finished a two-week trip to the States traveling to Hawaii, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York among other places. The tour group reminded me of my own experiences on a tour-group to Hanoi Vietnam---lots of Asian people attracting attention eveywhere. 😊

On this particular flight, there was six students who were also on the same study abroad program---though Syracuse University failed to tell us this bit of important/useful information. Luckily, we all had our bright orange luggage tags attached to our carry-on and it was easy to spot at the gate the people on my program. We all booked our flights seperately, but by chance ended up sitting all next to each other or at least just one row back on the long flight to Beijing. Funny how life works. Upon our arrivel to Beijing, we were greeted by two young women and a man with paper signs with our names printed on them. We boarded the van they took to pick us up and were on our way to Tsinghua University--usually an hour drive, but because it was about 11pm it only took 40 minutes. On the van, we met our tour guide named AJ who gave us a brief history lesson of China.

According to our tour guide the Beijing Airport is the largest airport in the world. It was built right before the 2008 Olympics to welcome visitors from all over the world. From an aerial view the airport is shaped like a dragon. The parking for cars is in the shape of a dome which resembles a ball from an aerial view.
We drove by the Bird’s Nest, where the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics were held. Since it was about 11pm all the lights were turned off to conserve electricity (typically the lights are on until about 10pm) so we didn’t get to see much except for the outline of the nest.

We arrived to campus at about 11:30pm and were taken around to all these buildings to fill out paperwork. By midnight, we finally were settled and I finally was able to sleep!

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Photos

Energy food.
Totally unathentic Chinese food.

Need help?
You are not going to find it here...seriously useless.

Interesting.
A cargo box in the Children's Musuem in the Chicago airport