A new (and very gigantic) city

I'm using this blog to try to share my life this summer in Beijing.

I'm here for about 10 weeks on a copyediting internship for the Chinese Internet Information Center, www.china.org.cn, which is an English-language Chinese national news website. So far, I'm not really sure what I'll be doing specifically, since details have been scarce, but I'll share that when I find out.

I left RDU at 6 a.m. Friday June 4. I flew to JFK, to Tokyo and finally to Beijing. I spent about 30 hours travelling, including the time to RDU and then from the airport in Beijing to my new apartment. I travelled with Dan, one of my fellow interns who is also a journalism student at UNC.

We arrived at our new apartment last night around 11:30 (Note: I will be using my local time from now on, which means 12 hours ahead of North Carolina). We are staying in a two-bedroom apartment with three other interns. I'm sharing a room with Annie, and the three boys are sharing the other room.

I was expecting there to be internet in the apartment, but there isn't. Fortunately I have unlimited access to the office computer so I can still try to stay in contact with people back home. The apartment is very simple. There are two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a living room and a bathroom. The bathroom is different from those in the U.S. The shower is not separated from the rest of the room, so that the water covers the entire floor. Also, the showerhead is hand-held, so I have to hold the water while I'm trying to use it.

The beds are also very different. Basically, I'm sleeping on a sheet of plywood with some blankets on top. I wasn't very uncomfortable sleeping last night, though. I've taken a few pictures, but I didn't bring a card reader up to the office with me, so I'll share those later.

This morning (Sunday), I woke up around 8:30, and walked up to the office to use the computer. Then I went with two of my roommates to get breakfast/lunch. It was only about 10:30, but we hadn't eaten so we went to a Japanese restaurant on a nearby college campus. Yes, my first meal in China was Japanese food. It was pretty spicy, but really good. I learned from this experience that Chinese people usually drink water hot, and that you have to specifically ask for cold water. The hot water wasn't very helpful in cooling off my mouth.

After that we went to a grocery store--actually, I guess it was more like a Target. It had some of everything: food, clothing, toys, dishes. I bought a bowl and spoon, a towel, a basket to keep my shampoo and stuff in, a big bottle of water, a bottle to fill with water at work, some snacks and a Sprite. I spent about 106 yuan today on lunch and groceries, which is about $15.50.

We went back to the apartment after that, and I read my book for a while and started to doze off. About that time, Brian asked if Annie and I wanted to go exploring, so we walked around for about an hour. We didn't really find anything. I took a few pictures, but nothing really noteworthy.

It's about 4 p.m. now. I'm pretty tired, and I want to go take a nap, but I also want to get on a regular sleep schedule, so I'm trying to resist.

There might be more adventure this afternoon. I'll be sure to share as soon as I can.