Day One: Teusday

I'm in China! Maybe I just adjust easily, but it doesn't feel like I'm that far from home, or that I've even left. It's like a birthday. Up until the day, you think that you actually think and feel different once your age changes. It doesn't. I guess I thought the same way about coming here. I'm still the same person I was before I got on the plane, and aside from only seeing one non-Asian since I got off, people are generally the same here too. Yes, there are a massive amount of cultural differences, but they're still normal people.

Plane Rides (aka The Sitting Marathon)
Sunday October 26, I didn't sleep the night before so I could more easily sleep on the plane. Instead I sat in the bathtub for about 7 hours reading a book. I didn't expect to have a bathtub in China, so I wanted to get one last good use out of it.

My mom knocked on the door at 2:30M and told me it was her turn, so we could leave at 3:30. For once I was ready before she was. I slept most of the two hour drive from our home to the Pittsburgh airport. That was probably a good thing since I had to be semi functional enough to find my gate. Everyone at the airport was surprisingly nice for it being so early. The baggage check-in people even started early. I had been to this airport a couple times before so I was able to find my gate pretty easily. From there, I had an unremarkable flight to Newark.

The staff at the Newark airport were just as helpful as the ones in Pitt. I guess I kept expecting a repeat of the Georgia airport when I went to Costa Rica where everyone seemed to be very angry with everything they could. My time at the Newark airport consisted of a bathroom break and getting a fruit salad at McDonalds. (Is that an oxymoron?) While waiting at the gate for my flight to Beijing, I turned on my laptop and called my mom on Skype. I think some of the people around me may have been wondering what I was doing talking to my computer.

The flight to Beijing went about as well as it could have. For a fourteen hour flight, it didn't completely suck. The seats had the little screens on the back, so I was able to entertain myself with a couple movies I haven't seen before. Unlike what I expected, we flew in a generally northern direction over the Arctic and Russia. I managed to sleep for a couple hours. How many? I don't know. Like I said, there was nothing wrong with the flight, but it's hard to say good things about something that made you sit down for 14 hours. The best thing I can say is that I had an aisle seat, and the the people I sat next to were nice.

The Beijing was a jumble of terrifying relief. Relief, because I wouldn't have to sit down for a while, and terrifying because I was on my own in a non-English speaking country. Things went about as smoothly as the could Customs was easy. My belt buckle set off the beeper, so I got patted down by a good looking Chinese girl. I can only hope she enjoyed it as much as I did. I quickly learned that the signs at the airport, though in English as well as Chinese, can only give you a vague idea of where you need to be going. Luckily for me, people told me I was going the wrong direction before I could actually get lost. Once I found my gate I got out my laptop to see if I could email or Skype my mom again. Unfortunately I couldn't read the greeting page, so I wasn't able to figure out how to get to their internet.

I slept for the entire flight from Beijing to Xi'an, so there's really nothing to say about this. I only woke up long enough to let the flight attendant know I didn't want any food. Two our flights are easy now.

By the time I finally got to Xi'an I was mostly in a sleep deprived daze. From the arrival gate it was a generally straight walk to baggage pickup and the exit. It took a little bit to find the people who were there to pick me up. I was even beginning to worry that they either had the wrong time (not my fault) or hadn't shown up. It turns out that there was another baggage pickup farther down the airport and out of sight and they had been looking for me there. Once they (Sara and Summer) found me they took me to the Kid Castle bus (van) and we drove to my apartment. I don't know what it was, but the highway into Xi'an just looked so strangely foreign. Maybe it was all the street lights or just the way people outside of America drive, but it just felt weird. Or it might have just been the fact that I had less than eight hours total sleep in the past three days.

My apartment is nicer than I expected. It's on the fifth floor and has a nice view of the other apartment buildings. There is actually some greenery if you look down from my bedroom window, so that's a bonus I wasn't expecting. I don't think it's been in use for a while, so there's a lot of dust on the floor in the living room. I'm told that my roommate moves in next week. I'm hoping to have enough time to clean up a bit so it looks nicer for her (I think it's a girl) arrival. I don't have internet access or television yet, but hopefully that will get fixed soon. I was right about the bathtub. The shower is connected right onto the bathroom wall. Like Costa Rica the water is electrically heated, but it's in a separate heater so it's not going to zap anyone. We got my bed set up. I love it because it's bigger than my bed at home. It's hard as a rock, but my bed at home was too so I like it.

Day One
Summer came and got me at about 10:30. BUSY DAY AHEAD! First we walked to the nearest Kid Castle (There are four in Xi'an apparently.) This place is awesome! I wish my kindergarten could have been as cool. I can tell already that I'm going to love this. For about two hours I was given a tour of the building and had a chance to email my mom. The kids seem to be happy, and my arm was tired from waving to them so much by the second classroom.

After the tour, Summer and I went to open up my bank account. It went pretty well, but I wasn't able to deposit $60 because the bills had some tiny tears, or were too folded. They didn't want to risk the machine not taking them or something. I dunno. We ended up having to walk about 3 blocks to another branch of the bank just to get the currency exchanged. I got my bank card though. Really quickly actually. So that's nice. It can be used anywhere too, so I can hold onto it once (if) I return to the U.S..

During the walk to the second bank, I had my picture taken. I guess I needed more face photos for the residence permit. Cost of photos... About $1.50

After the bank and the photos, we grabbed a cab and went to get me a cell phone. So far this is the most expensive thing I've bought while here. I can tell already that Chinese people love their cells. While she was helping me choose one, it took her a while to realize that I didn't want a supergreat phone, but wanted something better than a 200 yuan ($30) phone. I finally settled on a 698 yuan (Bit over $100) phone. I was nervous about how much the plan would cost, but it wasn't that much. The SIM chip was 100 yuan, and the plan is only 15 yuan a month .10 yuan per minute. They were able to switch it over to English which is nice, since I don't speak or read any Chinese at this point.

On the way back to my apartment, we stopped off at the Lotus Supercenter. I didn't get to see all of it, but it looks like a mall and a Walmart rolled into one. There we picked up some basic things I'd need. Food, plates/bowls/cups and basic silverware. There are a couple things I forgot, but I can get those today.

We took the stuff back to my place and then we went to dinner. I have come to realize that food here is spicy, and I'll need to get used to it. Jonna, if you read this, I know how much you like spicy food. You need to come up to Xi'an some time. Everything here is hot. They even serve the water hot! I can't tell how much hot you think is hot, but I think you would love the food here.

After the long day I was happy to get back to my apartment (I love saying that. MY apartment.) and take a hot shower. I was sleepy by that point and just went to sleep. Today sounds like more of the same, but I can't wait.

Observations, Mundane and Otherwise:
1. They have corn flavored candy here. not Candy corn like back home that tastes nothing like corn. this stuff is in the shape of corn, and it tastes like corn. I don't get it. Why corn? WHY?!
2. The pollution here is bad. It's one thing to expect it and another thing to see it. From my bedroom window, I can't see more than four blocks or so. After that it's a foggy wall of gray. Also, almost everything outside is dusty. There's little to no trash on the ground, and everything is very neat, but it's almost all dusty.
3. All of the police and security people I've seen have about the same uniform. It will take a while before I can tell the difference between one and the other.
4. In Jonna's blog, I've seen her mention how many excess employees stores and restaurants have. She was underexaggerating. At the phone place, there were about 3 people per phone brand. At the restaurant, there were three (I saw a fourth show up later) women at the door to greet us. Just that. Their jobs were to all stand there and great people. Walmarts back in the U.S. had a person to do this, but they were also partial security. We also had three waitresses. Lots of overkill.
5. I've been told that Nolan is hard to pronounce. (The trick to saying it correctly is not caring how the "an" part sounds.) I told Summer that she can just call me James (My middle name.) since that's easier to say. I'll tell other people, but I have no idea how it will go.
6. I wasn't able to find any cereal at the grocery store. No Trix. No Captain Crunch. Not even Frosted Flakes. This could be very bad. Summer didn't know what cereal was either, so my my looking for something other than oatmeal could be in vain.
7. Milk comes in bags. I had milk bags back in grade school, but I haven't had any for a while. Later today I'll find out what Jujube milk tasted like. It has some sort of fruit on the bag, so maybe it will be like a cherry or something.
8. I was tall before, but now I'm a freaking giant. I'll have to get used to bending over to listen to people. Summer, at least, is a very quite talker.

Today:
Today, Sarah (I think) will soon be coming to get me. We're going to a different one of the Kid Castle schools. There I'll get to sit in on a class given by one of the other foreign teachers. After that we'll go and get my residence permit, and pick up a couple more things for my apartment.