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Here is my first blog entry to my travels in China! Here's a brief update on my travels and what is about to be my first full day in China!
The flight was quite long but I didn't mind it too much. We boarded a Boeing 777 in O'Hare at about 12:00 noon Central Time. I had been up since 6am or so to get all ready to depart from MBS, and my next flight to Beijing flew for 13 hours straight west. It was quite a long flight and a shortened birthday! However, I met a 28 year old Manchurian named Shang Ren and he was in his Ph.D. studies at a school in Chicago for Chemistry, and we talked for about 4 or 5 hours about Chinese culture and such. He was quite helpful to fill me in on aspects of Chinese culture that my book "Encountering the Chinese" couldn't quite encompass. I watched a few movies, tried to get some shut eye (to no avail), and read a lot!
We touched down in Beijing at about 3 o'clock their time, and we spent about an hour in the airport trying to get everyone rounded up and get some currency converted. I thought for a second that my large black bag had been lost because it took about a half hour to get thrown onto the baggage claim track. This was my first moment of using Chinese, as the airport employee pointed at bags to ask what it looked like. I would respond, "我有黑色的行李,很大" Then I would tell him if it was larger or smaller than other bags, until finally we found it after he scanned my recipt to see if it had arrived!
As we went outside, the first thing one notices is the smog. You can only see about a half mile before the smog blurs everything, and we were all taken back--however, the air wasn't difficult for me to breathe personally. A man greeted us at the walkway in a bright neon Michigan State shirt! This was Song 老师,one of our professors at Nankai University! He was very nice and was with his brother and a tour guide named 孝新. They had a large bus waiting for all of us, and on our way to the Rainbow Hotel we went in downtown Beijing!
I knew Beijing was crowded, but I've never seen so many people on the streets in my life. I've been to California, Chicago, London, Paris, New York, and other large cities but had never seen anything like this. People were EVERYWHERE. My first taste had been getting on the train to baggage claim--they packed the shuttle SO much! On the highways people bike in the far right lane, and there are trolleys, refrigerated bicycles, carriages, and rickshaw-like carts all over the place, and people were so packed together. Chinese rush hour is also like nothing I have ever seen. Our guide told us that China actually has begun to limit the cars on the road because of how bad rush hour gets: my friends in China told me that going five miles can take over 2 and a half hours at times. It took us about an hour to move 5 miles, and I saw banks "银行" signs on nearly every large skyrise. The architecture was beautiful and we even passed Olympic Stadium at the way!
We arrived at the hotel at about 5pm and had dinner at 6:10pm. I am in room 714 on the end, and we have a view of the Chinese alleys, or "胡同". They look like ordinary slums essentially but are surrounded by large skyrises. The weather in Beijing is extremely hot but isn't too humid. Our first dinner at the Rainbow Hotel was fantastic. I had my first chance to eat how the Chinese do with putting one dish at a time on a circular rotating plate on the table. They served us 10 or 12 courses--ham, chicken, meatballs, rice, salad, cucumber and eggs, and watermelon for dessert. After that I went to bed at 8:30pm and woke up today (May 11 here) at 6:30am! Here I am starting my first day in China, going to the Olympic Stadium and the Forbidden City and Summer Palace! See you all later!
- comments
Aunt Lynne Glad you got there safely, Adam. Everything sounds fascinating so far. No wonder the Chinese are skinny- watermelon for dessert???