First Day in Beijing

Hello everyone!

I've arrived safe and sound in Beijing!

It was a really long journey but luckily there were other people from the group on my flights so we could keep each other company. Liz and I flew from Gatwick and had a luxurious journey with Emirates - we were even given a menu! We stopped over in Dubai for a couple of hours and spent some time in an Irish pub - not exactly what I expected. IN Dubai, we met up with more people from the DFES group - it was pretty easy to pick out the English people at our gate and a lot of us recognised each other from Facebook. We had to get a mini-bus from the gate to the plane and I can't describe the heat hitting me when I stepped outside - even at 3 am, it was 35 degrees. The flight to Beijing was slightly less exuberant but fortunately we were all pretty tired and had a bit of a doze on the plane.

We were picked up after customs by some of the organisers of the School. There was about 30 of us because a Qatar Airways flight carrying more students came in half an hour later. We were bussed (luckily it had air conditioning!!) back to Beijing and dropped off at our accomodation. We're staying at Beijing Normal University student accomodation and it is a far shot from Seething Wells or any of the other halls back at Kingston University. I have to admit - when I heard we were staying in halls, I expected the rooms to be cramped and shared between a few of us. I'm sharing with one other girl, but we have separate rooms with an adjoining lounge area with couches, a fridge and a tv, and a bathroom with a very powerful shower! The rooms are very modern and the bed is huge. No complaints!!!!!!!!!!!

We were all exhausted last night but decided to make the most of our first night in Beijing. After quick showers, a group of about 50 of us headed out for a walk in the sticky summer heat of a Beijing evening. We quickly realised that we wouldn't be able to eat in the same restaurant and split off into smaller groups. Call me ignorant, but I assumed that everyone in China would speak at least a little English - this was not the case!!!!!!!! Hardly anyone speaks English and none of us speak Chinese, so it's turned into a bit of a miming and pointing game. Our restaurant fortunately had a menu written in English as well so we were able to order a few dishes. Drinks were more of a problem and one of the boys ended up going to the fridge and pointing at bottles of Sprite and beer for us - after Emily's attempt at asking for Sprite (she pronounced it with a rolling 'r' - claiming it was 'Sprite' with a Chinese accent!!!) had failed. The entire restaurant marvelled at the Westerners and every waiter and chef came out to watch us order and eat. The locals laughed at our attempts to use chopsticks! We ordered roast duck and as I tried to fill my pancake, the waiters groaned and whisked my chopsticks out of my hands and quickly demonstrated to our group how it should be done! I called out 'xiexie!' (thank you) and got a cheer from the group of waiters - my first attempt at using Chinese was successful!

All of the Chinese people we have met so far have been very kind and wanting to help us, although the language barrier has been a big problem. Luckily we start Chinese classes on Monday so hopefully we'll be able to communicate a bit better!

After dinner, we bought cases of bottled water for our rooms. I started having a go at the girl in the shop after she charged me 45 yuan (about 3 pounds) for a case of 12 bottles - until she managed to convey to us that I had paid for the 2 cases that the other girls were holding as well!!

Back at our halls (I feel like I shouldn't call them halls - it's far more like a hotel!!), we met back up with more people from the group and stayed in the bar downstairs until about 1 AM. I think I've met about half of the people who are here for the school now - it's hard to believe there's 100 of us! Everyone is really friendly and up for a laugh and we're all getting on really well. Should be the trip of a lifetime.

It's already 3 pm today - none of us got up until around 1 pm because of night of sleep we lost travelling as well as severe jet lag. There's talk of visiting the Summer Palace but it might be getting too late. Tonight we're going to sample the local nightlife. A couple of guys from the first cohort are still here and it's their last night in Beijing tonight so they're going to show us all the good places to go.

Tomorrow we're departing at 8:30 AM to go to the Great Wall with a group of Chinese students, and then we have our opening ceremony at 4:30 PM. The first group have warned us that there will be TV cameras everywhere and that it may be broadcasted nationally. Apparently the deputy prime minister of China may be there as well - it's going to be quite an ordeal!!