Welcome to Beijing

So I've never done this blog thing before but I'm going to try to do it while I'm in China. I make no promises about the spelling, grammar, etc. because I don't like proof reading (so for those of you out there that can't stand reading things that aren't using proper English I'm sorry in advance so deal with it).

There are 5 of us that came over from USC together Dirk, Cooper, Jon, Ted (the only one of us that can speak Chinese), and myself. Ted has been our savior and when in doubt at least for the next couple of months I feel it will be safe to say that Ted is allowing all of us to survive in this country where people don't speak English.

The plane ride over wasn't all that bad about 14 hours from the time we left but I wasn't able to get any sleep. I did get to watch a couple of movies, some tv shows and who knows what else. When we landed in Beijing there were 2 health check points and 2 customs check points. The health check points were interesting because they had these gun things that were pointed at you to see if you had a fever. Once we cleared customs we were greeted by a representative from UIBE (the University I am attending) they took us back to the school and then out to a really good Chinese dinner. The menu was interesting with many of the same things we see in the states but some we don't not like Duck Liver. We stayed safe and ate things that while different don't make me gag. The mashed potatoes that we had I would have to say would be my least favorite dish to start with they are served stone cold and that was followed up by the taste (appeared to be 50% potato 50% sugar very interesting to say the least).

Our first full day in Beijing we set out to get cell phones and do some minor exploring it was also New Years Eve (day). The cell phone buying was an adventure, I think the most interesting part was paying for a phone number based on how lucky the numbers are the cheapest number was 50 RMB (around $8) and the most expensive numbers I saw were around 400 RMB (around $65), I payed 65 RMB so I'm probably not going to have much luck. Ted was the only reason we were able to successfully purchase phones one of many times throughout the first few days he's saved us.

Alright I'm exhausted so going to try to take a nap. More to come later