So here I am...in Beijing

So here I am, in Beijing, China.  How did I get here you ask? I’ll back up real quick to how I got to China.  I am a college student at Brigham Young Universtiy – Idaho and for the first time in the universities history they offered a full semester study abroad at Capital Normal University (CNU).  I first heard about this during my second semester at school, which happened to be my first semester living in Idaho.  I had been very apprehensive about living in Idaho since this was my first time attending school outside of Michigan, and I did not really know anyone there but my cousin. I had been missing my friends at home a lot the day when Brother Galer, my professor, announced that there would be a semester abroad in Beijing, tentatively of course. So when this news came, it came as a sigh of relief to know that I was where I should be at that very moment. 

After it officially came out that the study abroad was going to go through, I jumped on the opportunity as quickly as I could.  Soon after my application was in, I was accepted into the program and a little while after that was officially accepted to CNU for the semester.  Over the summer I prepared myself for the trip, which was a trip in itself.  I had gone to Africa with my friend Jordan that spent some money intended to go towards China.  I was not planning on that trip being as expensive as it was and so I had to get a part time job for a little while to make up for it.  That ended up being the best idea as had I not, I would not be here at this time.  With the help of the job I got my visa (2 weeks before I was due to be in China) and with the help of my parents, until I got my loans, I got my plane ticket (3 weeks before I was due to be here). 

I was scheduled to leave Michigan on the 23^rd of August from Detroit.  When I arrived, I checked myself in and had my tickets all set.  However, between the time I got my bag checked and the time it took me to get to my gate, my flight was cancelled!  My original flight was scheduled to fly through Chicago (which apparently had a horrible thunderstorm) and then onto Beijing.  When I checked with the desk agent and asked what was going on she notified me of the issue.  She fixed it so that I would travel on AirCanada to Toronto and then on to Beijing.  This would get me into Beijing earlier than expected.  What a relief right? Well guess again.  When I arrived in Toronto I had to check in with the airline to get my ticket.  The agent informed me that the plane was over booked.  She said that according to the system I was confirmed to be on the flight, but she did not have a seat for me.  Perfect… I did not have my phone on me since I was not expecting to need it and since I would be able to use it in China, and there was a possibility that I was not even going to make it there when I needed to be. I would not have been able to let Brother Galer know that I wasn’t going to be there.  Fortunately, the airline asked people to accept a travel voucher as well as $500 to give up their seats.  This meant that I would be on the flight.  I was really sweating it because of the timing, but was very grateful to those who were willing to give up their seats.

The flight was great.  I sat between two Chinese women. I got to practice a little bit with them as I was sitting down.  One of them, as the flight crew were asking us what we wanted to drink, asked me to translate her drink to the crew.  I did not know what it was, but with the help of the other woman and acting it out finally got out what she wanted.  She was very appreciative to me nonetheless.  As we landed I helped the same woman with her luggage and an endless amount of “谢谢!” (thank you) came from her.

Wow right? Finally I was in
Beijing, on time (not early as expected because the flight was delayed) and no other problems right?  No, wrong… I was supposed to take a shuttle to the university at 4pm, however I never received my luggage until 4:15pm.  The thought crossed my mind that maybe I would find someone that was with the group waiting for me to take the shuttle.  I took a lap around the lobby, but could not find anyone that was there.  So after taking out some money I proceeded to get in line for a taxi, got in and sat in silence and amazement at the scenery for the next half hour or so as my driver took me to the school.  After many trial and errors on how to get into the building (I was dropped off on the opposite side I needed to be) I checked in, and got up to my room.  I did not have anything to do, no internet, so I lay down on my bed and took a nap.

Around 7:30pm my “roommate” Brandon showed up.  I say “roommate”  because we were not actually supposed to be roommates, but ended up being one of the guys from my CHIN102 class back at school though we did not speak very much to each other.  He served his mission in Australia as well just in a different mission.  Both of us were pretty hungry so we tried ordering food over the phone.  Neither of our Chinese was very good so we ended up hanging up and eating downstairs.  We ate at the “Japanese” restaurant which was very good, and then went out to get some essentials that the school didn’t provide (AKA toilet paper… which was the first excursion into Beijing, Success!)  After unpacking and a little of TV we went to bed.

The beds were not very comfortable at all. When I first sat on it, I hit hard on the mattress, which surprisingly squished down enough for me to hit the hard box spring.  Lying on the bed might be more comfortable if I took the tiles from the floor and slept on top of those, and do not get me started on the pillow.  Let’s just say that a piece of paper might have been fuller than it.  Obviously just kidding on that but it was pretty flat.

Over the course of the first 2 days, I had 3 rooms and two roommates, unpacked three times, and lugged my things up and down an accumulation of 23 flights.  My first room was on the 3^rd floor, however after hearing that we needed to switch out roommates, I ended up on the 10^th floor unpacked there and then was moved down to the 3^rd floor again in the corner room with my roommate Drew, where I am currently at. Overall the first day in Beijing had been enjoyable even with all the mishaps that occurred.  Now to focus on having fun, and studying hard to improve my Chinese.