Hi from China

I arrived in Beijing a little over 24 hours ago and this is the first time that the internet would let me log onto my Blog, so it looks like my posting may be as random as the internet is here.

Well I have settled in to my place. it is actually fairly nice but most would not like the beds (one step up form the floor) but I am not minding the hardness, in fact I might even like the stiffness. Other than that the room is like any typical dorm, the one difference from a dorm in the states is that there is made service that brings us hot water thermos for tea and new towels, not bad.

My official classes start today, but we had a three-hour orientation class with the director yesterday, he is from Beijing but has lived in the US for a long time, this comes through in his candidness He is extremely personable and does not have the academic air about him that some of the older professors have in China, in fact he may be more laid back than most of my AU professors. We are studying China’s Nationalism today, and since I am the only one who is not Asia studies which means that even while reading the book he assigned I lack the historical knowledge to really grasp the issue well, so I think I will let the rest of the class lead in the discussion, I will just listen and learn.

Oh, one down side is I caught the dreaded airplane sore throat sickness, but I got some strange Chinese medicine so all will be good;)

Well I am not much for words at 6 in the morning so I am just going to show the very few pictures I took of cool buildings and funny things while out in the town yesterday.

This is a lake on campus.

I don’t know what SOHO really stands for over here but I would say it stands for pure awesomeness, these  types of cray buildings are everywhere and they all say SOHO.

Do you see the bus in the picture, the scale of this strange outdoor pavilion thing was something else. There were several structures that reminded me of a sifi move were people built structures that looked a little odd and then later you find out that they are actually built to help aid in an alien invasion, that is what this structure reminded me of.

Apparently there is a real problem with brass bands making too much noise in the neighborhood.

Well that is it for now, got to go read more for class.

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