Arrival

I am starting this blog about two weeks after my arrival, so I'll have to backtrack a little to include some info about my arrival in China.

My friend, Zoe, and I were on the same flight and we were both feeling rather nervous and uncertain about our choice to spend the next 9 months or so out of the country and away from our boyfriends for so long. I also get so anxious about flying that I can hardly sleep for the week before. In spite of this, the flight went relatively smoothly. Scott had packed me sandwiches, fruit and other snacks and I was so glad as I can't stand the food on board. I'm sure I would have gotten pretty hungry otherwise. It was about an 11 hour flight I think, or possibly a bit longer, so it was exhausting, even though all I did was sit there. Thankfully I was on a refurbished Air Canada flight, so I had a TV screen to myself. When I flew to Shanghai years ago all they had was a big screen at the front of each section of seats and they showed terrible movies, out of date Peter Mansbridge CBC news clips, and Just for Laughs Prank clips. Gah.

Upon arriving in the Beijing Airport we went through immigration/customs without any problems, picked up our luggage and then went to look for the people from the university who were supposed to be there to pick us up. Alas, they were nowhere to be seen, so instead we took a cab to the university. I was utterly exhausted. Luckily Zoe is amazing at speaking Mandarin (having already spent Feb. 2008 to Jun 2008 in Beijing) and she kept up the conversation with the friendly taxi driver. He dropped us off at the Number 1 Foreign Student Dorm and in we went to get our rooms.

Unfortunately, the rooms were rather disappointing. Mine reeked (headsplittingly strongly) of mothballs and it was rather dirty. Zoe's room smelled of garbage and the furniture layout was much worse than in my room. We were both utterly exhausted, but we were also starving. So we went out to find somewhere nearby to eat. We found a place selling cheap noodles. I just ordered the same thing as Zoe. But when it arrived it was rather awful looking and super spicy. Then Zoe found a long hair in her soup and we both lost our appetites. 

The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur...I believe we went to a local supermarket to pick up a few essentials (such as plastic flip-flops for use in the shower room - the bathroom area is shared with everyone on the same floor, i'll try to post more pictures of the dorm later), and then we went to bed. It was about 30 degrees and humid on the day we arrived, so we were boiling and so so tired.

I took a few pictures of my room that evening and of myself looking awfully tired and hot. At that point I didn't have a roommate.

The next morning Zoe and I went to the computer office on campus to pay for internet in our rooms. It costs 60 rmb per month. I was thrilled to have that working so I could get in contact with everyone.  Zoe also managed to get a single room for herself.

Then we realized that it was registration day, so we lined up with all the other foreign students, thinking that it wouldn't take very long. Well, we waited for about 6 hours to get to the front of the line. I wanted to switch my classes so I could study Chinese instead of film classes (which would have been in Chinese and too difficult), and that was a big hassle. I had to get a permission letter and come back the next day. One happy thing was that we got both our September stipend and some set-up money, so we were ready to go out shopping for things to make our dorm rooms more comfortable. 

Later on during my first full day there my roommate arrived. She is from Korea, her name is Ruyun and she is very sweet. Although of course I would ideally love to have my own room (which is what Zoe eventually managed to get, but there aren't any more now), I am glad to have had such good luck with roommates over the years.

I'll also post a picture of our dorm room once it was cleaned up. We got our own bedsheets, and bought a vinyl floor covering (which was a hell of a lot of work to install). Also two pictures of us utterly exhausted after doing all the work to get the vinyl flooring in place.