China: Day 1

 

Well, I didn't want to update anything until I had something else to talk about besides plane rides and taxis and our super nice apartment. So technically I'm into Day 2 right now. Oh well. :)

 

The plane ride was really not too bad! United States time, we were flying through the night, but China time we were flying through the day, so we arrived in Beijing Monday evening even though we left Sunday night and the flight was 11 hours. I've decided not to think about it too hard. I stayed up practically the whole time as per my Quest to Defeat Jetlag Before It Defeats Me. Everyone else in the family got a few hours sleep, though, so after a night at our apartment they were all up at like 4 and made enough of a racket that I was up by 5:45. No one had fallen asleep on the taxi from the airport, though it wasn't a very long ride. That seems lucky. Probably the most exciting part of Monday evening for me was when we were going through the Passport Check. They had a little screen that gave you instructions in English, and after the woman handed me my passport back, I said "xie xie" (thank you) and she said "bu ke qi" (you're welcome). That totally got me excited-- WE WERE COMMUNICATING.

 

We spent most of the morning hanging around and exploring the apartment. It is SUPER nice. Thanks, Microsoft. They have a really great exercise room (though sadly no pool) a few floors down which I'll definitely be using every day for the next two weeks-- maybe even twice a day if we're not doing anything else. 

 

Out the window you can see a couple of tall buildings that are close by, but as they grow more distant they're completely obscured by smog. Besides being kinda gross, it makes it hard to figure out exactly how big Beijing is. But judging by the maps we have, pretty darn big.

 

After exercising and calling a few people on Skype, we decided to go out for lunch, as we really didn't have any food (besides some instant oatmeal). Up until that point, we hadn't stepped outside of the little safe bubble our apartment provided, and to venture into the unknown was super intimidating. We quickly discovered that the only rule Chinese pedestrians live by is Don't Get Hit. Although a little scary, I think I kind of like that little freedom of crossing the street wherever and whenever you want to. We had talked to one of the hotel people who spoke English, and he told us about a good market down the street where we could get food and phones and possibly bikes. We went down that way and found a fun little market, but figured we should probably eat lunch before we got a bunch of groceries.

 

Easier said than done, as it turns out. There were a couple of little noodle shops, but Mom wasn't mentally prepared to eat at one of those, so it took a little while to find a better sit-down restaurant. The food, once we managed to order it, was SUPER good. What the heck have we been eating back in the States? No one at the restaurant spoke a lick of English, but with our handy dandy Berlitz phrase book we were able to get everything paid for properly and boxed.

 

Then we hit the little market and Dad negotiated cell phones while Me, Mom, and Ellyn perused the food choices and got some stuff. It ended up that Dad didn't have enough cash to get the phones, so we got to wait around while he hunted down an ATM.

 

One of the things I feel like I've heard about traveling to asian-type countries is that people will stare at you-- especially if you're a white girl. I was pleased to find that no one looked twice at me, though that could be because they were all looking at Daniel in his stroller. I should explain for anyone who doesn't know our family. Daniel is my little brother, and he is the cutest three-year old with bright blue eyes and a winning smile. He also has Down Syndrome, which makes him pretty scrawny and a little asian-looking.  He was being SUPER good out on the street. He didn't insist on getting out and walking around and didn't give his Monster Yell. He should definitely get some sort of medal. Anyway, as we were waiting for Dad to come back with the cash a couple of the store workers were talking to us-- mostly to him. Didn't make a lot of difference as they only spoke Chinese and we only speak English. But Daniel's somehow gotten good at saying "Ni hao" (hello), so he said that a few dozen times and the ladies were charmed. Man, that kid is cute. I think it must be a cultural thing to appreciate little kids; he was getting a lot of smiles and pats on the head and stuff. Small Children are the Universal Ice-Breakers, and Daniel is one of the best.

 

So far the most frustrating thing hasn't been trying to communicate-- you can get your point across by pointing to things and holding up fingers and stuff. What's been especially hard is being illiterate. Sometimes I'll see a couple of characters that I know-- "Bei Jing", "Beautiful", "Small", etc. But those really don't give me any context and certainly don't help us find a restaurant. Man I wanna learn to read.

 

After lugging our groceries back home, everyone was pretty jetlagged, so we all took naps. Unfortunately, I slept for three hours. Despite my long nap, I fell asleep at 9:15. It's 4:15 am right now and I'm suddenly wide awake. Argh. Guess I'll have to try harder to limit myself to an hour nap or something and slowly work my way to the right hours.

 

I think this experience in China is gonna be a good one. It'll definitely improve once we all learn some Mandarin, but even without that it's super cool to be here.

 

Until later,

 

Sarah

 

P.S. I didn't have my camera with me for most of the day, but I know Ellyn and Mom took a bunch of pictures. I'll be posting that next. :)