糟糕！

糟糕：Shucks, rats, bummer
It's been over a week since I've seen the Sun. Now I know how the dinosaurs felt after the meteorite. Still haven't broken down and bought a breathing mask yet but if the air doesn't clear up in a week it may be inevitable (I'll be sure to post a pic of how ridiculous I'll look if it comes to it). Speaking of breathing masks on my way to class this morning I saw a Chinese man wearing one (I guess he was worried about his respiratory health), however, about every 30 seconds or so he proceeded to remove the mask to take a puff of his cigarette (can you spell irony LOL). But actually, I'd like to see the Sun soon. My memory's starting to get hazy it's yellow right? (pun intended there) 糟糕！

长城

长城：Great Wall
Pretty cool experience. Very different than I imagined, however. I guess my American engrained love of convenience (the same one that makes me cringe when I have to walk up six flights of stairs to my dorm room) led me to falsely imagine that our bus would pull up to a wall sitting in right in front of us and we would get out take a few pics and leave. What I did not imagine was being dropped off at the base of a small mountain and having to hike a little over an hour in 90 degree weather to reach the wall. It was well worth it though. Great views all around and an incredibly cool feat of human engineering. I also learned that the "greatness" also comes from its length not its height, which don't get me wrong wasn't anything to scoff at but not quite as high as I was expecting. I guess after watching game of thrones my views on walls has slightly changed. Granted as we were climbing to the wall I had to comment to my friend how I found the entire wall's construction pointless given the fact that had I been an invading army, in a time without cars, I would've gotten so tired and fed up climbing up the mountains that I would've turned around and invaded somewhere else (I hear Russia's great this time of year). All in all very fun and a great experience.

J chillin on the Great Wall. Can you say prof pic?!

有意思

有意思：Interesting 

I wanted to take a little time to point out some things that I have discovered in my short time here that have struck me as interesting.

The first thing is the crazy amount of PDA (ie public cuddling, kissing, or hand holding). Last semester I took a class on China and read a book, written by journalist Peter Hessler, called Oracle Bones. The book is relatively new (I think mid 2000s) and was written about Hessler's experiences in China over the previous decade. In it he referenced some of his former students (he taught English for a while) and their courtship and eventual marriage. The courtship involved a written letter from the boy to his female classmate inviting her to meet him and take a walk. During this walk they neither talked nor held hands but that was their first date. Hessler used this as an example to illustrate the formality in Chinese dating and the strict adherence to old cultural norms. Considering that is what I had read I was shocked when I saw the level of PDA on campus here. It's like a bunch of freshman at their first boy-girl party. Everywhere I look there's a young couple snuggling on a bench, holding hands while walking, embracing, or (my personal favorite) holding hands while roller blading (gives me a nice 90s flashback). This must be a relatively recent trend considering Hessler's book was written around the turn of the millennium. My guess is the extreme amount of PDA likely comes from the fact that it is new and therefore cherished. Regardless it's pretty interesting.

Another thing I noticed early on was the way people eat. Obviously everyone here uses chopsticks; however, I payed particular attention to how they're used them since I didn't want to seem ignorant (my former glory days of stabbing my food with them or using them to imitate a walrus have sadly come to an end). What I noticed was there didn't seem to be one proper way to hold them. Some held them all the way at the end, leaving a great distance between their hand and the stick, while others (including myself) held them closer to the end, leaving a relatively small distance between the food and their fingers. As I said, I wanted to know what was up, so at lunch I asked one of my teachers (who held it up top) if the way I was doing it was correct. She told me it was, so I asked her why some held it one way while others another. Apparently it depends where you sit at the table. At restaurants all the tables are circular with Lazy Susan's in the middle so everyone is equidistant from the food. However, at family tables it is not so. The father sits at the head of the table and the food is placed in front of him. Then next to him sit his wife and son(s) and then his sit daughter(s) farthest way. So men generally hold their chopsticks down low because they can easily reach the plate, where as girls with brothers hold them at the top because they need a longer reach. Thought that was cool.

Restaurant style table with food in middle on spinning tray.

Lastly all girls carry umbrellas for the sun. They're generally fancy looking and legit every girl has them. A lot of men have man purses, like straight gucci/louis vaton/prada man purses. I think its a way to flash wealth but honestly idk (not a huge fan. the only crossover between men's and women's fashion should be with man ugs because they are ridiculously comfortable and everyone deserves to walk on a cloud). I hope you found these things very 有意思, I know I did. 

照片

照片：Pictures
I figured some pictures were long over due. You'll be happy to see I'm looking healthy and happy! Should have some more posts this weekend. I was swamped with work this week and didn't really do anything too exciting.

My dorm room! Nothing super exciting but its home now.

Gotta love that Peking Duck. 

Me and some classmates at the bird's nest (classic me looking yoked)

Best ¥45 I've ever spent. (¥45 is equal to like 2 dinners here or around $7 US) 

对外经贸大学： University of International Business and Economics (my host school)

哈哈哈

哈哈哈：Hahaha
We had orientation today and they gave us our syllabus and explained the program to us. It seemed great but as they say it was all fun and games until your Chinese teacher gives you a fatal amount of homework (some people say that). Obviously we had to start off with a bang so tomorrow I have a quiz on the 62 new characters I was assigned today. Classic Chinese class. I shouldn't have expected anything else from the department that ended the last semester with a five day fun-fest of quiz, test, quiz, oral test, final. So I'm locked in my room memorizing a plethora of lovely vocab from punctually to jet lag for the next four hours. The title of this post may be deceiving cause this is not a funny situation at all, actually, it kind of blows big time; however, if I don't laugh about it I'd probably cry so “哈哈哈！”

我很累

很累：Super Tired. Finally figured out how to get my internet up and running here which took a good deal of time since I had to reeducate myself on the wonderful world of ethernets. As the post title suggests though its been a long trip over. I can't even tell you how long the trip was though, because halfway through my flight a combination of the nyquil and the oxygen rich plane air transported me to an alice and wonderland-esque dream world. An unspecified number of hours and over 1700 miles later (feel free to check the math their the flight attendants announced the distance in Chinese) I finally arrived in Beijing. 

A shuttle bus brought a group of us from the airport to the university at around 6:30. I was quickly given my room assignment, told to put my stuff away, and to meet the group in the lobby for dinner. I got some sweet digs. My roomate Brian and I have our own bathroom, TV (channels CCTV1-15 which sadly don't include Phineas and Ferb), and even a balcony for tea and laundry (no kenmore elite washer/dryers over here but as long as I don't smell I'll manage just fine). We proceeded to dinner and thats when I died. 

The food was actually great especially compared to the microwaved mush Air Canada served me (got to put a plug in there incase they're one of my tens of followers). It had a lot of hot peppers in it which I love so I was totes down for that. Not a lot of meat but thats fine because at dinner tonight I saw what my have been fried chicken feet so I can deal with a vegetarian diet for now. The death came when I suddenly came to the realization that everyone here speaks Chinese. That's a lot of Chinese in one city I'll tell you that much and can quickly induce a headache and brain overload. 

Afterwards I came back to my room and began to study for my 8am placement test (classic Chinese class) and my roommate and I both passed out while studying #nerdswag.  

After the placement test we got to go on an adventure of our choosing which for most people meant sleep. However, obviously I'm too hipster to be mainstream (shout out to my roomate brendydood for making me a hipster) so we gathered a group and walked the 1.5 miles to the Olympic Park. Totally cool and worthy of another blog post on its own, but I'll go back and explore it more since we had to scram early since I thunderstorm struck out of nowhere, so I can do it than. We ran to the nearest bus stop and preceded to try and ask how to get back to the dorm (my broken Chinese plus a bus system that would make any public transit tremble in its awesome might made for a few headaches but we succeed in our journey home in time for a quick nap and dinner. Needless to say its been a long and exciting few days but I'm loving it so far and should have some great stories in the future. As of right now all I can manage is “我很累！”

Pre-departure

Just getting everything in order. I've procrastinated a lot and am just starting to pack now! Someone said a blog might be a good way to stay in touch with people. I'm not sure if I'll be much of a blogger but who knows, I never thought I'd be such a sinophile but look at me now! This post is more to get me acquainted with blogging I promise the other posts will be better (aka funny and filled with pictures and cool links).

Peace out blogosphere,
C-FLY