First Weekend

Well I survived my first weekend in Beijing but before you get too excited I must be honest and say that I've really been playing it safe here.  I didn't do anything exciting or noteworthy but I will tell you all about it anyway.  Saturday morning I went down to the lobby for buffet breakfast at the hotel.  The Chinese have a very different idea of breakfast than we do.  There doesn't seem to be much of a distinction between what they eat for meals down here.  So it is normal to see rice, dumplings, and meat served for breakfast.  They also drink their water hot.  If you go to a restaurant and order water, they will serve it to you hot because they think cold water is bad for digestion and actually contributes to the obesity of us westerners.  They also drink tea and beer ALL the time with almost every meal.  

Well after breakfast I decided I needed some snacks for my hotel room so I went to a grocery store called Carrefour.  It is a French chain and has one aisle of imported goods but most of the imported food items they have come from Great Britain orWestern Europe.  i did snag a box of nature valley granola bars and then headed toward the chip/cookie aisle to see what was there.  Lays potato chips are all over the place.  They have traditional flavors like what we have in the states but had some other interesting flavors like tomato, cucumber, and blueberry.  I tried the tomato and it's not too bad.  They also have "beef" flavored everything - chips, cookies, noodles, candy, etc...  Most food was pretty inexpensive.  I had to get some lotion because it is sooooo dry here and I forgot to pack a razor so I bought one of those which was fairly expensive and had a security tag on it.  When you check out of the store, you have to pay extra for your grocery bags too.  It's a good incentive to recycle.  I made sure to avoid the meat aisle - I was afraid of what I might see over there.  

After I returned from my crazy adventure at the grocery store, I decided to relax in my room the rest of the day.  I was pretty tired and overwhelmed and ended up taking a long nap which I definitely needed.  Saturday night I went to the church Christmas party.  I met some super awesome people - soooo nice and helpful.  We had a traditional ham Christmas dinner served with a few asian dishes thrown in.  I met this fabulous couple that works at the embassy, Dave and Sheri Bensfield. 

 I went to church on Sunday morning and the meeting was your standard LDS meeting.  The branch isn't very big and is mostly comprised of American families but there are some from Hong Kong, Korea, Australia and even a family from Venezuela.  Expat members are not allowed to talk or congregate with the native Chinese members either.  We are suppossed to be out of the building before they arrive in order to avoid contact.  Anyway...The Bensfields brought me a recyclable grocery bag and some helpful information I could use to get around the city.  They invited me over for dinner after church which was super awesome.  They live in the area near all the embassies so the housing there is really nice and more western. Unfortunately my housing allowance won't allow me such luxury but I still hope to find a decent place.  After dinner, Sheri took me on a walk of the area and pointed out some locations for me.  She lives right near where my school is so we headed over to see if we could find it.  My school is located in a shopping mall called Solana.  Solana is a very, very western style shopping center similar to what you would see in California or something.  It has some awesome stores including Sephora and LL Bean,  a movie theater, and a ton of restaurants.  We located my school and went up to check it out.  My supervisor Lesley was there and I got to meet a few others also and pick my room.  The center is really, really nice.  The classrooms are small with small smartboards on one wall, a small white board, and another wall that is a giant digital white board.  Disney has state of the art technology in each room which is great.  I get to be in the "Reef Room" which looks like the coral reef from Finding Nemo.  After visiting the center and getting to know the area a bit more, I headed back to the hotel.  

The most frustrating part of being here is the language.  It is really hard to communicate with Taxi drivers.  I have a phrase book but it takes time to find what I need to say and then I can't pronounce it right so when I try to talk, I come across as this dumb American.  Hopefully I'll start learning more of the language this week.  I also hope to go out and find an apartment soon too.  That will definitely be on the agenda next weekend.  I'd like to be out of the hotel before Christmas.  

Pictures to come later this week - I promise!!