Day 2 was a really long day. As I am writing I am on Day 8 and I am just going back to fill in the missing days of this blog. As I am looking over the notes that I took it has occurred to me just how much was accomplished. After a good night’s rest I woke up starving. Our group met our teaching assistants downstairs and they led us through the gates of Peking University to help us set up…well, I guess they helped us set up our lives. After a short walk we mentioned that no one had eaten breakfast and they kindly led us to the dining hall where they paid for our first Chinese breakfast. As images of eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast, waffles and all the other breakfast foods that I love jumped through my mind Yuan brought a plate of pork dumplings over to our table, followed by what could best be described as black beans floating in muddy water, and to wash it all down we had a warm bean drink that was green and served in a soft plastic cup with a straw…it sucked. After eating what I could, we went to a random building where we were given our welcome packets and our ID cards. They also completed one out of what has felt like 100 passport and visa checks (nothing gets by this government). This was followed by short introductory speeches by Yuan, Rui, Ying, Professor Akin, and some other random people who do not matter. After, we went and got a meal card where Yuan convinced us that we would eat 100-Yuan worth of campus food (yes, if you haven’t noticed his name is the same as the Chinese currency). We were then given a tour of the campus. The campus is a really crazy place. Half of it looks like a slum and the other half is a beautiful park, with a lake, amazing flowers, trees, and this huge (very Chinese looking) tower. Of course I didn’t take a single picture. Sorry. But, I plan on taking a few hours out of one day just to go around and photograph the whole campus. So, stay tuned for the pictures. After our tour Rui showed a small group of us where the China Construction Bank was and I withdrew a cool 1000-Yuan. It really makes you feel like a boss to withdraw the maximum amount that an ATM will allow, even if it is only about $150 US dorrahs (dollars). The next step was to dive into the world of Chinese language with a three-hour class. The woman who taught us seemed nice enough, but she always appeared perplexed when we spoke in Chinese. Occasionally, if someone did a good job she would simply say “standard” and move on…I received a few “standard” comments myself. It was nice to take the class, but the reality is that barely any of it has stuck with me and it really was just a funny bonding time with everyone that is on the program. After that we decided we would head to the subway station and go check out the town. When we were on the subway we decided to get off one stop earlier than planned (for the life of me I cannot remember why we had this idea…I think it was to avoid a transfer station) and just walk the rest of the distance to the area where we were told had some nice dinner locations…bad idea. As soon as we got off the subway we had no since of direction and ended up walking in circles around a really sketchy part of Beijing for about an hour. Finally, we were all starving, and decided to try a random restaurant that seemed sanitary enough. When we walked in we should have been scared off immediately. At the front of the restaurant we spotted a young Chinese boy throwing ash from an ashtray at a few of the waitresses…never a good sign, but we were starving. After a 10-minute wait they found a waitress who could speak Chinese and she took us upstairs to our own private room, which was surprisingly really nice. That is when we realized it was a hot pot restaurant, which made us all alot more excited. In the end our waitress was extremely kind and helpful and the food was great. The waitress helped us order, showed us how to cook our food (she even did some of the cooking for us), and brought us a round of refreshingly cold Tsingtaos (Chinese beer). We all shared a huge plate of mutton, a bowl of cabbage and spinach and I think the other dish was pork. The meal was relatively inexpensive and after we finished we really had no idea where to go. In the end we just posted up on some plastic furniture in front of a 7-11 gas station and drank cold Tsingtaos on the street until everyone was ready to take the subway back home. It was a really long day, but I learned a number of valuable lessons that will help me in Beijing and everyone got to know each other a lot better.
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