Saturday, June 25, 2011

And now I'm in China

Well, the plane ride was painfully long. Technically plane rideS, there were 3! Got cheched into the hotel last night, I don't even know what time it was. Our plane flew into the future so I lost my Saturday. It is Sunday in Shenzhen and aside from one minor adventure I plan on spending the day sleeping, watching my American DVDs and typing forever on my kindle to update this blog. I haven't yet decided how personal this blog will get or what privacy options suit me. I also don't have internet on a computer to really play with this stuff.

Today's adventure was a dull old trip to the grocery store. Finding the stoe was the hardest part! The word 'grocery' is aparentlly not too common here s he first obstacle was remembering the word 'supermarket.' Who woulda thunk.
 
Luckily most of the packaged food is labeled in Chinese and English. If it doesn't have English labeling, it is probably covered in pictures of the food. It is really hard for me to not think of Chinese RMB as dollars when I look at the price of things. Milk was 11.60! But when you convert that back to US dollars its less than $3. It is weird to see a 100 bill and realize it is not like carrying a big bill like that at home.

The hotel the company reserved is really nice! I'm going to hae to go back and add pictures as soon as my computer can get online.

I will say this for China: so far everyone is very kind. I felt so lost in the grocery store, on the way to the grocery store, at the front desk, etc. But the people I have encountered just smiled and helped me out as best they could given the language barrier. In the grocery store a man helped me with getting milk. I used my first (and only) Chinese words to say 'thank you.' We laughed at me, probably because he knew it was all I could say. And I probably pronounced it wrong.

I plan on taking the rest of the day to lounge and relax. Tomorrow someone from EF will pick us up at the hotel lobby for the first day of the three week orientation. Wednesday is apartment hunting! Super exciting.

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