Welcome to China

6/18-6/19

Of course I was running late to the airport, typical Shelby, but said goodbye to my mama and I made

Beijing From the Sky

my flight no problem. On the flight from Newark to Beijing I got an isle seat, which is my favorite, but then the girl who was next to me asked if I would switch with her husband. Initially I didn't want to, but then I found out he was three rows up and since I was in the second to last row and I didn't want to be a jerk I agreed. He had a window seat, which is not too bad, but the two people next to me were a couple and they were all over each other. All. Over. Each. Other. It was repulsive. They were nice enough, but I got really sick of them smooching and touching and cuddling realllllll fast. Luckily it was only a twelve hour flight though, so it could have been a lot worse. It was a pretty uneventful flight, a bit of turbulence here an there but all in all it went smoothly. I got the noodle dish for breakfast and decided to test out my chopstick skills. Apparently I did pretty well because the couple next to me was watching, smiling, and nodding at me eating, so I think that was a good sign. Plus I actually got the food in my mouth, so that's always a plus.

Arriving in Beijing it was not nearly as hard to get in as I trout it would be. I breezed through customs in five minutes, not that I thought I would get stopped but there were barely any lines which was

surprising. Once through I saw the dreaded hoard of people waiting to taxi, pick up, or greet people. Literally a wall of people. Fortunately, though, my pick up, Kevin, was standing directly in front of the door with a sign that read "UMaine Shelby," so that was a huge plus!! I waved and then met him at the exit and we proceeded into Beijing. I really came on this trip completely unprepared; I had no idea what to expect because of course I didn't do my homework or do any research whatsoever before I came here. Classic. Anyways, I had heard that Beijing was so smoggy you could barely see a half mile, and that it is so crowded that you would have trouble crossing the street, and it might be like that in some places, but from what I have seen so far it is nothing of the sort.

My initial reaction to the city was absolute awe; everything here is massive. The buildings are so tall,

Janet, Kevin, and Me

but unlike many other cities I have been to there are no short buildings at all, they are all just super, super tall. As far as the smog goes it isn't really all that noticeable. It looks like a cloudy day, but its not actually clouds, it's the smog. It's super weird too because it looks like the sun is going to break through the "clouds" at any minute, but it wont because it's the smog. I thought it would smell bad too because of all the pollution but it basically just smells like any other city I've been to. As for the hoards of people I expected to see, there aren't any. I think it might be because we are quite a ways away from the center of Beijing, but regardless I thought it was going to be way more crowded.

When I first arrived and Kevin picked me up we headed straight to the office that I will be mainly working in for the next three weeks. It took almost an hour to get there because the airport isn't that

First Real Meal

close and also because of the traffic. The traffic isn't as bad as I thought it would be either. I expected it to be more like India; horns blaring, people being run off the road, etc etc. It is much more like driving in the US though. Yes, there is the occasional honk, as expected in a city setting, and people don't follow the lines on the road as much as Americans do, but other than that it is pretty similar. They even drive on the same side of the road as we do.

So we headed to the StudyGroup office and I was introduced to Janet, who I had been in contact with before via email mostly. I'm glad to have a travel buddy who is also foreign, it makes me less hesitant to ask dumb questions, not that I would have been hesitant anyways, but still. So we met up at the office and were going to hang around there for a bit but decided to go check in at the hotel and get ready for dinner. The hotel was really nice, better than most I've stayed in, some would even say it was ritzy. Anyways, I checked

Creepy Camel Dragon in my Hotel

in, turns out I even got my own room, and headed upstairs to change. Having been traveling for almost twenty four hours I was pretty grody, to say the least. I hopped right into the shower, which was amazing. It turned the shower head to the rain setting and just stood ere and let it wash my day of travel away. Of course after that I had about a half an hour before dinner so I laid down on the bed which was a mistake. It was kind of hard but the pillows were like heaven. It was so comfy and I was so tired that I actually considered calling Janet and Kevin and telling them I wouldn't be able to make dinner, but I decided to be a trooper and go out, which was a good decision. Sleep is for the weak anyways. We headed right down the street from our hotel and ordered a plethora of food. We ordered things from fatty, delicious steamed pork with sweet dates, to duck liver and greens, to fried eel, to an egg stir fry, and way more. We of course got some of the local beer too, which was not too shabby. It was all too delicious (except the duck liver, I was not a fan), but I was so tired that I could only try a bit of each. After we had our fill we headed back to the hotel where I went and crashed into bed. I was dead asleep by 7pm. I did

Delicious Seaweed Soup

wake up after what I thought was almost a full night of sleep, but apparently I can't shake American time because I actually woke up at 10pm, I think my body thought I was just taking a nap. It tossed and turned for most of the night but did end up getting a bit more sleep. I was wide awake by 6am, though, and decided that it was pointless to try to go back to sleep. I ended up going out into the lounge and figuring out the WiFi situation and to attempt to be in contact with people back at home. My iPhone was pretty good at connecting, and the iPad as well, but I could not, and still cannot, figure out how to really use my Chinese android. Oh well.

After fiddling with the electronics for a couple hours I still had about three left until we had to head out to the airport. Janet texted me and we headed downstairs to get a bite to eat at the buffet. They had coffee there, thank god, so I had my favorite steamed greens (bok choy I think it was, yummmmmmm), some potato slices, and a few interesting things that I didn't like as well. After sitting and talking about our campuses for a bit we headed back upstairs to repack and kill some more time. We finally headed out to the airport and after stopping at a noodle restaurant (where I had the most delicious seaweed noodle dish of my life), we are on our way to Ningbo, where we will spend until Monday afternoon. The rest of today is free time, so I think I am going to try to get my nails done somewhere because they look like crap right now, and then we are just going to explore the city a bit. Our flight is delayed at the moment with no estimated departure time. Gotta love Air China. Anyways, it's a bit toasty in here so I hope we take off soon. Hopefully this weekend goes smoothly, it's my first time running through my UMaine presentation, I feel like maybe I should practice before I get out there, but you know that isn't going to happen. Good thing I'm wicked good at winging it! We will see how it goes!

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Well! That was an eventful afternoon! At least it felt like it. So our flight finally took off and it was an

Bub Tea!!!!

uneventful trip, which isn't a bad thing. We landed in Ningbo at about 4pm and made it to our hotel a bit before 5. Still being full from the noodles, and also being fed again in the plane, we weren't hungry quite yet so we took twenty to freshen up in our rooms. We are staying in a Marriott and let me tell you, this place is faaaaaaaaaancy. I thought the other hotel was nice, but it's got nothin on this one. I don't even know how much it costs to stay here and I don't really want to. It has everything, even a spa, a gift shop, a full bar in the lobby, a special members lounge, a pool, and way more. When we walked in there was a girl sitting in the lobby area (which was massive by the way), playing an instrument that produces the classic Chinese sound. Beats the heck out of me what it's called, I'll have to google it when I am less tired. Anyways, she was playing beautifully, I got some on video, but I couldn't stay long to listen because I had to get all the way up to the 31st floor, which is only about half way up the building.

After freshening up and applying liberal amounts of deodorant (it's really hot here by the way, the humidity is terrible and the smog thrown in there is just the cherry on top) and headed down to meet back up with Janet and Kevin. We headed pretty aimlessly down the street and came across a huge shopping plaza, which turned out to be the beginning of blocks and blocks of shopping plazas. I didn't buy anything (I know, super uncharacteristic of me, right?), but I got a good idea of what is way too expensive for a bunch of things. Shoes and clothes are definitely on the top of my list of things to buy. Tea cups are a close second. So we walked around a bit and then actually started to get pretty hungry around 7 so we headed into this big mall type thing, but the restaurant there on the top floor had too big of a line so we headed down the street and settled down

View of the City from my Room

into a nice restaurant. We ordered so many dishes, ranging from fried pork (which tasted exactly like Panda Express's orange chicken) to jellyfish (which was so repulsive I had to spit it out). I tried everything and only didn't really like the jellyfish and the dessert (which was this poppyseed filled pastry type thing, it was gross). After divulging in way too much food we headed back out to the streets when I saw one of my favorite things in the whole world: bubble tea. Oh man oh man it is LEGIT here!! They put so many more tapioca balls in it to I was so content. I'm hoping it doesn't kick back tonight, I'm sure it won't, and I am going to have a hard time resisting getting one every day. Well I'm only here for 20 days, so I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I did do that...

After that we just walked around and took some pictures, classic tourist moves right there. So as I was walking around and taking photos of everything that caught my eye I realized that I looked exactly like the Chinese tourists to when they come to America. I had a good chuckle to myself about that. I'm really happy that I have a travel buddy (Janet) and she's pretty cool, she majored in international studies and also Hispanic studies, so clearly it was meant to be; we are totally kindred spirits. Also she loves to take weird and funny photos and I do too so it works out nicely. Neither of us can wait until the Great Wall this week!!!

But yes, once I got back to the hotel I headed upstairs and thought about just crashing, but I was

Janet and Me at a Fountain

beyond disgusting. Then two amazing things happened. So as I was about to shower I remembered that pandora doesn't work outside of the US, which is a total bummer because I live off of that and have to listen to some sort of Beyonce or Rihanna playlist when I shower. Then a thought crossed my mind, what if spotify worked? And guess what? I did!!!! So I hopped into the shower jamming to some B and figured out how to turn it on and got the water all nice and hot and then looked at the handle and realized that there was a button that seemed like it didn't go to anything. Well, I pressed it and it turned the shower into a rain shower. Yes, a rain shower. And. It. Was. Amazing. So after taking one of the best showers of my life I sit here typing and chatting with my peeps back at home via WeChat, my eyes drifting closed. Suppose I should get some sleep I have my first day of actual work tomorrow!!!

Today, my life is just Shelby.