- My backpacking backpack was pulled from the xray to be searched. After the official pulled small bag after small bag out of my pack, I asked if I could help her look for something. To my surprise, she replied, "Umm, you brought a knife." Huh? Oops. I forgot I brought a small silverware set of basically a butter knife, a spoon and a fork... Fun figuring out where everything fit in my bag originally.
- I tried to learn everybody's Chinese name from the door signs, all the while endlessly hoping I'd be able to semi-pull off this language.
- On the plane to Seattle, I watched Karate Kid for the third time. The first two times were with my high school friends, this time with some random strangers with whom my giggles at the funny parts were barely audible so as not to disturb other passengers.
- What was the first movie choice on the second leg to Beijing? Karate Kid! Thus, after the plane snacks came around, it was time to attempt some sleep.
- It's been a long time since I was on a plane that wasn't full, so it was quite fun to be on an overnight plane that was about a third full so people could stretch out in their own rows to sleep!
Leaving the stripe of a cloud layer with its underbelly still faintly aglow from the city lights behind, we took off to cross the absolute blackness of the nighttime Pacific.
Quite a few hours of drifting in and out of consciousness later, laidao Beijing!
Arriving about 10 minutes early, with a billion Chinese phrases running through my brain, I was trying to remember if customs or baggage claim came first. Oh well, just follow the group of foreigners, right? Thankfully, everything went smoothly and I got through customs to meet my taxi group on the other side. I was greeted by Zhao Laoshi, but he had already been there an hour and had not yet seen the other two students on the flight that landed about a half hour before mine. So we waited, and waited. Made three loops around to possible places they might be (unless they were stuck in a different terminal), second-guessed ourselves, and after an hour we hopped in a taxi in the hope those two would find their way with the directions we had given them.
Final leg of the journey to Tsinghua Daxue (university): a 40 minute taxi ride with a driver who didn't look much older than me and who was chattering away on his cell phone in an accent Zhao Laoshi hardly understood at first. The driver even said he thought Zhao Laoshi was a foreigner because he didn't recognize the Tianjin accent either! What language diversity in this country. It was almost pitch black, but we could still make out the Olympic's Bird's Nest! Finally I got to unload my bags from the taxi and check in at what will be our residence the next couple days. This is like a nice Western hotel! Zhao warned us our living quarters will go downhill from here, we're lucky to be here for now, and foreign student dorms will still be decent. I was getting in late so I left the lights off and tried to keep the fumbling around in the room to a minimum, but when my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized my roommate was out. Only to also realize I couldn't figure out how to work the lights. So I kept bumbling around in the dark, but at least I could make noise... It was quite fun to catch up with my roomie Kellianne when she got back (we got to choose our roommates, also, she showed me how to work the lights), and we're both super excited for a great term in China!
Random thought while lying awake:
I've never been to a country where my appearance has stood out so much. I could pass for normal in England and Spain where everybody was some shade of pale with brown hair, and I could even semi-sort of pass in Mexico. But not here. We'll receive some stares, but hopefully people will be pleasantly surprised that we can at least speak a little bit of the language!
Today begins our touristness in Beijing for a few days, so my next post will probably be in Tianjin with an innumerable quantity of photos.
Until then! Much love,
Kaining
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