arrival

I'm here. I have arrived safely. The journey was long and boring. The stop in Munich was probably the worst part - 4 1/2 hours by myself urgh! Though i did go and find the prayer room and get some Christian music blasting from my earphones. I think I may have scared off some asians but I did turn it down as soon as they walked in!! But yes, I'm in China. It doesn't feel like I'm in China if that makes any sense because I'm quite obviously not anywhere else in the world and most definitely not home. However it seems so very surreal to be here. I feel much better now that I'm actually here. It's been rather easy to meet people, because no-one knows anyone so we are all eager to make friends! We had a campus tour last night which was absolutely freezing. we have the best accommodation on it because we have western toilets and hot water. I would be most upset if we didn't thought! The shower too also posed a few problems for me at first as I managed to get it spraying boiling water across the room. I'm clearly too accustomed to luxury! I didn't meet my flatmates until this morning thought because they arrived later than I did. A group of us went out for dinner last night which cost like 70p each. Bargain! Everyone is quite happy to experiment with food. Even I tried some meat thing from a cow. I think they said it was intestine. Yeurch. Doesn't matter really because I spat it out again (how rude I know, but I tried it at least and it really was disgusting!!) no-one as yet seems brave enough to want to try the "pregnant fish (or the fish that sleeps around)", "some kinda drink that cost 25" or "chicken that makes you slobber" all of which were found on the menu last night!! as was phoenix claws. strange cuisine. Eating could be quite fun out here though. It's a case of point at something and hope against hope that it's something nice or in my case, not meat! after that we went to a karaoke bar. very amusing. and eventually we came back having bought rice wine in a supermarket and sat in one the rooms getting to know each other a bit better. My flatmates were asleep by the time I'd popped my head in to see if they wanted to join us. ah well. Today has been a free day really. we have our welcome meal in about an hour. We spent our day productively though! a group of 13 of us made our way to the forbidden city via public transport! with the help of a series of maps. I've taken quite a lot of photos but it's really not as exciting as you might think. The place is huge but after the first few buildings... it's all the same. There are limited exhibits and things so it's just empty buildings. got a bit boring after a while which makes me feel most uncultured. perhaps i would enjoy it more if it weren't so damn cold! It is absolutely freezing!! It will be much better when we move to Guangdong next month as its currently 25degrees warmer than beijing. i may fedex the coat home!! There's a rather large number of us heading to the same province and our most likely method of transport will be the train. That's a minimum of a 24hour journey! something like 35 i heard but at least there will be plenty of us to keep ourselves entertained!


I have discovered that i do have access to facebook (oh yes) but not to my own blog so i really do have to email myself! also means that i can't read any comments so you will just have to email me if you want to say something!! I haven't got round to buying a sim card yet... maybe tomorrow