I'm a day behind on posting

Ok, so I guess I'm a day behind. Yesterday I don't really remember well, actually, yes I do. So the key parts of yesterday were that we were supposed to meet at around 11...I think to go to a group lunch. We walked pretty far and it was next to a Friendship Hotel thing, which are all over China, I think.

The place we went to served us soo much food, luckily it wasn't all spicy. But surprisingly, this family style restaurant with soo much food seemed to be not as good as the place that we went to the night before, before the thunderstorms had started.

I wanted to take more pictures this time, because I didn't take many before, so I brought it and took some pictures of the food, a nicely presented celery-ish dish, and then a group picture. The group picture of the table, which included our program director, was taken by a woman (fu wu yuan) that I asked, and SHE DIDN'T EVEN INCLUDE ME IN MY OWN PICTURE. Man! When she was taking it, I was like, ummm don't you want to move back, she was such a noob! Whatever, we got a good group picture, minus the people on the end (about 4 people, including me and the program director), oh, well...I took more pictures later that day.

It seems to me that the people that we eat lunch with, or happen to eat a meal with, are the people that we inevitably hang out with that day. So we met these two girls who we hung out with later that day, we also went with my roommate Allen.

It was so daaamn annoying. We were going to get back from the restaurant and then immediately go to the bank, get the money from our traveler's checks and pay for our dorm. NOT. We go there, I got in line and I was the next up, pretty nice considering the others had to wait forever to get to their line. However, as soon as I was up in line the damn woman said that her line was closed, she was the only person servicing my number! RIP OFF! That really pissed me off. I was waiting for a while and then even asked her, but no prevail.

Anyway, I felt pretty nervous about carrying that much cash with me, wouldn't you? SO, we decided to go to China Construction Bank down the street, which is the bank affiliated with BoA in the US. But when I got there, then got in line, the man told me that they don't do traveler's checks and to go to Bank of China, WHERE WE JUST WERE! AhHHH. Luckily, I had some cash, so I took it out and then exchanged it. We almost had a problem where the guy said my $20 was a fake $20, but I told him to try a couple more times and it passed through his fraud detector machine. Thank god, I had money to go shopping. That WAS our destination after all, Dongwuyuan.

So after we got cash, we walked back to the apartment, I locked up my remaining unexchanged traveler's checks and passport and we got my roommate and then we headed to the bus stop.

This is where it got a little confusing. We couldn't find the right bus, so we ended up asking people what we should do. Oh man, I felt sooo useful here. I asked the people and they told me, but Tammy didn't trust him because he looked a little confused and then so she asked, we got two different things. The second guy we asked told us to take a bus that just came and then later we had to ask a woman on the crammed bus where to go. She gave us better directions and it turned out that we took 2 buses to get to the place, where we only really needed 1 bus. Whatever, it was a long, sweaty, smelly adventure. I really enjoyed it.

We finally got to our destination after the two buses, which we later figured out we could have gotten on the right bus (104) if we had taken the first guy's directions. Dongwuyuan is a Zoo and Tammy thought we were going to the wrong one, it turns out that we were at the right one, the Zoo is just next to the shopping area. When we went in it was gigantic, but I had been there before, or some place like it. The place was large, crowded, dark, but had some nice A/C in some places. We walked around forever and only got one thing, which was for Tammy to hang her clothes. I felt so useful, for the SECOND TIME, when I bargained for her thing. It was 25 kuai each, but I got it for 30 for two. Man, the tricks and skills my sister taught me really helped. I am soo good, haha not really.

So then we left, after spending a LONG time over there. My feet were sore, and so were everyone else's. We went to this place to eat, kinda like a fast food place with noodles, which were spicy, again. Then we got some soup, that was tasteless, nice little fish cakes, and I had some of Tammy's chinese donut..mmmmm. It was pretty good.

After "dinner" we walked to this area across the street which people were using to practice roller skating, in-line, speed skating and some weird one foot maneuver cone thing. It was fun to watch, but we walked on and saw a 3-story McDonalds. After that, we walked more to find a bus and realized we went the wrong way and had to walk back, over a bridge, back down and to a bus, the 104, the one we were supposed to take the opposite direction in the first place. It was cool though.

We finally got back, got some supplies from a store nearby school, soap mostly. Then we went back, sat down, feet sore and backs sore. I turned on the TV and watched a movie that reminded me of the movie we watched in Chinese class, "Yi ge dou bu neng shao". I watched it to the end, it was nice.

Then, Tammy and I looked at my Lonely Planet book to find a place to go over the weekend, we couldn't really find anything. Any suggestions? We were thinking like Qingdao, or somewhere in Hebei. It was quite fun, but I was tired. BUT I STAYED AWAKE a little longer.

I took a shower, which was nice, brushed my teeth and then pretty much knocked out. I woke up at 830 this morning naturally. Oh BoY! I went with Tammy for a nice walk down the street to get breakfast, which we ordered this Black Pepper Beef, just like at Yummy in Oakland Chinatown. It was good. And again, I got a Sprite/Coke, I always get one because the water sucks. Dammit. Anyway, after that we walked more and looked at nice stores, walked into a cellphone place, a couple bakeries, which we ended up buying some snacks from, then some clothing stores. It was a nice walk, considering that the weather was nice and there wasn't really anything annoying, besides the normal smells and the crazy drivers, one of which who almost ran over us and scared the crap out of us.

Anyway, when we got back I wanted to call home to see if the phone was working or whatever. I called my mom and we talked about the phone, it works it they call my regular number, as if I was still in the US. Weird! I hope that it doesn't cost us anything, but they say that there were no charges and they saw calls. They said whatever I'm using here works, but then when people call my SIM card, it doesn't work. I talked to my mom for a bit and then I talked to my brother, who talked forever, like he always does. HAHA, ohh Greg. He sounds like he's having a lot of fun. We're waiting in this cafe, using the internet, waiting to go to the orientation and after dinner, we are going to go to Wangfujing. YES! I loved it the first time I went, so many good snacks, like scorpions. Mmm. As long as it's cooked, I'm cool with it.

Anyway, I think I'm fully updated now.

Oh yeah, my mom is going to sell my Acura tomorrow. Bye bye car :(.

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Landed in Beijing...after spending a day on a plane

underHello to everyone again,

I think it's been more than a day since I last updated, mostly because I spent about 20 hours in transit to get to my apartment, whereupon I was both really tired, hungry and just wanted to get settled in.

Anyway, we got in Beijing at 11:30 am Beijing time and paid waaay too much for a taxi ride because we had too much luggage. It's fine, we made it to the apartment safely, despite all the attempts of the taxi driver to kill people in his way. We almost ran over these two students who refused to get out of his way nearby the school. As soon as we got to the apartment we settled down, bringing our stuff up and getting through the registration. I met my roommate who is a graduate from UCLA, actually a 5th year that is expecting to go to UCLA again for graduate school. Very nice guy.

Anyway, as soon as I got to Beijing I was really reluctant to put anything anywhere, I was always afraid that my stuff would get stolen. Anyway, there is a safe in the apartment and we were able to get it to work and put our spare cash in it. Tammy had to wait until the next day because her safe didn't have a battery. Anyway, it was really nice that we had that sense of security.

Much to my dismay, we had the bathroom in the apartment where the floor of the shower is the same floor you stand on when you are taking a piss and when you are washing your face. At least it was clean, I hope. We met a bunch of cool people that were mostly from places like UCI, UCSD, UCSB, not really very many from Berkeley.

After getting settled in and then just taking a rest and also buying a SIM card and international card, we just waited to go to dinner.

Let me first explain how frustrated I am with the entire SIM card deal. I ask the incompetent people in the US to tell me what I can do to unlock my phone or use it in China. Some guy finally tells me to download the latest software from the website to unlock it. So I do it and it seems pretty legitimate. I does a hard reset to my phone and everything is looking good. The entire process did take about 1.5 hours so I assumed that it would be working. I get to Beijing, put my card in and...what does it say? INVALID SIM CARD. What the hell?

That pissed me off. So I wanted to test it out if it still worked. I called Tammy's new SIM card and it registered on her phone as my house phone from the US. I was confused. Verizon told me to buy a global SIM card in order to use my phone overseas, but that would be the $2/minute deal right? Anyway, I would be able to use it if I didn't get the global SIM card, which I didn't but then all of the sudden I get a flood of e-mail, facebook notifications, etc. onto my phone, which means that I still have a data plan? There is no way that the SIM card was the one that transferred all that data. I really don't want to buy a new phone here, I would rather just use mine. However, for fear that I was using a killing on services in China, I turned off my phone and wrote my mom and e-mail to see if I was actually using these extreme services.

I also called my mom later that night, about midnight their time (sorry mom), and I got through and told them I was checking in and also if they could check with Verizon about my problems. It was fine and I got everything through that I wanted to, but then now, which is 8 pm their time and about 11 our time, I haven't gotten any news. Maybe they're busy, but I hope I get notice soon about what to do about it. I really want to call Felix and Ross's parents to see if I can get some nice dinners and tickets to the Olympics.

Anyway, besides those logistical problems I had a good night. We went to this place called Wu Mart, which is like the Wal Mart here and I bought some snacks, ramen, drinks and stored them in my room. After that 40 minutes or so of walking from the apartment to there and back, we were going to go to dinner which was down the street maybe 10 minutes, which didn't seem that far on the way there, which you will know what I mean soon.

We went there to eat and everything was spicy. DAMN! it was spicy, and I LIKE spicy food. Too bad for Tammy, it's ok I think she thought it was good too. Anyway, the group that I had dinner with, since the 24 of us had to split up, was a really cool group of people that I gope to hang out with in the future. We had lots of spicy food. A beef stew that people thought had cubes of lard floating in it, which turned out to be rice noodle cubes. We had an "anorexic" looking chicken, or so the table described the meatless chicken. We also had spicy noodles with shrimp, soo good. A liver dish, that people mistakenly took for beef, and a couple other things. However, the best dish by far was the mushrooms. OOHH babbby! There were different types of mushrooms and the sauce was soo good. The woman that served us was kinda mean or seemed like she was pissed off at us "wai guo ren", but in the end she was really quite kind and offered to take a picture for us. I hope she didn't spit in the food, hahaha whatever if she did. We drank Sprite, Coke, and someone had a beer at the table because we are afraid of the water. After that, and a flaming mouth, we were going to go back to the apartment, but WHAT THE HELL...there was a thunderstorm. It was raining and the air was cool, but you could still feel the stickiness in the air. We ran back, which was fun, but we almost got hit by a countless number of cars who probably couldn't see us in the dark.

The most fun I had on the run back to the apartment was on this path to that apartment which was completely unpaved and essentially a dirt road, which was no longer a DIRT road...which is why you know now that it wasn't a nice 10 minute walk back, as it was to the restaurant. I was happy though, and full, and my mouth was keeping me warm.

We made it back and people split up. Some people went to sleep, others went to take a shower, though we had already essentially taken one, and then some were going to go to a bar. I heard those people later in the hallway, drunk as hell and screaming.

I stayed with Tammy in her apartment, across the hall, for a while. I was slowly passing out, Tammy was talking to me, but I didn't really remember all of what she was saying. :( Sorry. But I'm sure it was very nice. Haha. After that, her roommate came back from the bar and I left to go to my room across the hall. I'm glad I took a shower and brushed my teeth earlier because I was not going to deal with it now. That's how tired I was. Basically I was deathly tired/half asleep.

Anyway, it was a pretty eventful day for the first full day I was in Beijing.

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Hello World!

If there was one thing that my ENG110 class taught me last year, it was that I should start out a webpage or blog with the title Hello World. So that's the title of my first post. I am already packed to go to China today. My trip will last from June 26 (tonight), though the flight is in the morning of June 27, and then I will return to the US on Dec 22, that's the longest from home I will ever be, that's really exciting actually. So I have all my stuff, but I always feel uncertain or thinking that maybe I forgot something, but I've gone over my list countless times and I should have all the things that I NEED. Anyway, the last things to pack away are my computer, etc. and I will be leaving at 10 pm tonight.

I finished talking to my sister on the phone in Indonesia and everything is good with her. I think it's going to be a calm rest of the day before I leave, not going too far or whatever. I'm just really excited to go to China and learn some Chinese. I'm just really worried that I won't do well enough on the test to qualify for a class with Tammy. That fucking blows. I'm going to study on the plane, but also watch movies (I'm looking forward to watching Jumper).

I said my goodbyes to everyone, but I'll still be in contact with all of them through e-mail, internet, whatever webcam? I am also bringing my phone, which is now unlocked and can take SIM cards, oh boy that saves a lot of time. I've taken all that I could get from the US before my departure. I have all my supplies and did my last downloading for my iPod on the plane. I don't think my access will change very much in China, I just get better food and horrible showers. Niiice.

Anyway, I hope this first post is the beginning of many. In the past, I didn't really keep my blogs updated well enough. I had one for class last year and then one on Xanga a couple years back, neither of which I've ever really turned back to look at. Whatever.

See you all when I get back...or online?
George

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