My First Day.. updated

I arrived in Beijing on time at 9:30 lastnight. After a long wait to get through customs, I immediately met up with EF Representative Rose Ding. She took me to my hotel, The Beijing Courtel. It is situatated at the front of a residential hutong, a traditional Beijing neighborhood. There is a beautiful park that runs in front of it. I took a walk through the park awhile back and came upon an informal gathering of Chinese people playing instruments and singing, not unlike picking and grinning on the square in Corinth, and saw many families out enjoying the park and walking their dogs. (yes, they do more than just eat them here.)

This morning, after a traditional Chinese breakfast of steamed dumplings, I was off to EF. There was a miscommunication and instead of someone picking me up, I had to navigate my way there myself. Thanks to Wei Wei Fu and her excellent directions, I made it just fine navigating the subways and streets. After a brief orientation, I signed my contract then it was off to a welcome lunch with Michael, another new EF teacher, Wei Wei, and Rose. Wei Wei is the teacher life coordinator, which means she takes care of meeting our needs. Rose works closely with Wei Wei although I am not sure exactly what her title is.

After lunch, I went to the school I will be working in. It is in the Haidian district. This is the part of Beijing where the universities and colleges are. I am glad to be here as this is the part I had hoped to work in.

Here are pictures of the days activities:

Walking To School Subway Station

My Bowl of Shrimp and Wonton noodle soup- Yes that is a serving for one person!

We also ate several types of Dim Sum, steamed dumplings, as well as some vegetables. One was a stir fried mix of of mushrooms and a very spicy cabbage, excellent! The other looked like a pile of wet grass and that is exactly what it tasted like! Otherwise, the meal was excellent. If you like Chinese food in America, you will love it here.

One question I have been getting quite a bit is: "Do you have culture shock yet?" and I must answer no. I am sure I will at some point but right now this doesn't really feel like a foreign country. There is so much American culture here (except for on the TV, thank God for itunes!) that it just feels like an area of the US with a very large Chinese population. An example of the American culture that transcends the language barrier:

By the way, if you are a reader of this blog and have Skype (if you don't what's stopping you?), I am beijingtim1 on there and would love to talk with you.