Rule of the Day: Kiwi juice may not sound very adventurous, but in China, it consists of crushed kiwis—not finely crushed kiwis with juice—just crushed, chunky kiwis. It is good though!

I flew from Chicago straight to Beijing.  The flight was horribly long, and I only got a few hours of sleep.  I did end up getting a chopstick lesson from my neighbor and a taste of the oh so, um…yummy? Airplane food.  Total, I travelled approximately 15 hours to get to Beijing from South Carolina.  At the Beijing airport, I figured out where to get my bags and passed through passport and visa checks, and accidently got someone to push my bags in a cart for like 3 minutes and was supposed to pay him (John ended up paying him I think).  Finally, I found Julie, my study abroad program person, Adam, the other student doing this program, and John, the CIS in China/AEMG person that will help me throughout the semester.  A bouquet of flowers was thrust into my hands, and pictures were taken…many pictures.  Let me remind you that I just got off my plane.

Well, we went from the airport to the University of International Business and Economics by taxi, and I began to realize that I was actually in China.  I checked in at the reception desk with Julie and John and moved my luggage into my room.  After a few minutes of looking around my room, I was taken to dinner.  This was not just any dinner though; Adam and I were treated to a traditional Chinese dinner at a really nice restaurant.  We then whisked them off to their Welcome Dinner. The Welcome Dinner was held at a very traditional Chinese restaurant.  Roger and Jenny Li, Co-directors CIS in China; Dr. Wang, Dean of the School of International Studies, UIBE; Maria and Jon, from CIS in China; Josh, an Australian who teaches English to UIBE students; and Julie were at the dinner.  The food just kept coming and coming.  I have no idea what half the things were at the dinner, but I tried it with my rudimentary chopstick skills along with the kiwi drink that I had no idea that I chose for everyone.  The entire dinner lasted over two hours!

Finally, I was taken back to my dorm.  I curled up on my bed—which did not have a mattress that you can sink into at all—and went to sleep