Getting ORIENTed

First of all, my bags finally made it, which has been a great relief since, as the airline still couldn’t locate even which airport the one which contained all of my clothing and toiletries was in as of Friday morning, I had pretty much given into the idea of having to buy and wear the Hello Kitty dresses they sell on the streets nearby to work for the first week.

Finally dressed in clothes I haven’t been wearing since Tuesday morning, and with deodorant and toothpaste again (which is wonderful seeing as how it’s about 90 degrees with oh, 99% humidity), we’ve spent the last couple of days being tourists and getting oriented with the area. We spent Friday learning where the nearest subway, banks, bike rental places, and subways were, and yesterday we took a bus around to see all the big sites like Tiananmen Square, Beihai Park, and the new Olympic Stadiums, which are AWESOME.

Group Shot at Tiananmen Square

Me n Mao :)

The New Olympic Stadium - "The Bird's Nest"

The most interesting part of the last couple of days has definitely been meal times. Since it’s been an orientation period, the program leaders have taken us out for traditional Chinese meals, which for me, of course, have been, uh, “stretching” experiences. Even with an open mind (or at least much more open than it is in the States), I’ve been able to eat about 1 out of every 6 dishes they bring to the table (meals are all family style with a giant lazy Susan in the middle with more food than anyone could possibly eat), and then I can get about another 45% of what I do want to eat into my mouth because my chopstick skills are rudimentary at best, though I’m improving quickly out of a need for survival! (I also found some plastic forks at a Starbucks we found last night which I stowed away in my purse for future emergencies).

My favorite part of traveling is always seeing the differences in how other countries go about the seemingly mundane details of everyday life. Things like the squatter style “toilets” and Coca-Cola labels in Chinese have kept me constantly amused. My favorite part of yesterday was definitely going necessity shopping for the first time. We had to pick up a few things like hangers and toilet paper (which is definitely not readily provided) in a grocery store located in the basement of a department store in which there is no discernable system of organization at all whatsoever- we FINALLY located the hairdryers next to the pocket knives and calculators after an extensive game of charades with a not so appreciative Chinese employee. Adventures of trying to discern what was what (little did you know that large jars of peanut oil look INCREDIBLY much like apple juice) in the grocery store were highly entertaining/scary as well.

We have today free before we have our first day of Chinese classes on Monday and first day of work Tuesday – both of which should be pretty interesting. Feel free to let me know what you’re up to too. Anything is English is comforting.