arrival

Let me tell you, for those of you who haven't ever changed time zones a full 12 hours at once, its not a fun experience. It drains your body and your mind and takes away the urge to interact with people who don't really know you or speak your language. My advice, is don't be over 6 feet tall so you can sleep on the plane without constantly getting bumped by the cart if you're on the aisle or curling up like a contortionist (I tried both). Both that brings me to my first major change of the journey... I was on the plane with a dookie and we talked and it was nice!!! Given she was an exchange grad student there with her husband on her way back to China, but still it felt weird (and a little dirty (not in a good way either!)).

Anyways, it took 24 hours to get here, plus a 12 hour jump forward. After getting all my bags, I met up with my connection here, Cissy He. She is a very nice and brilliant girl but a little quiet and quite the perfectionist. She took me to look at apartments for the next 3 hours. It was exhausting on no sleep, with no elevators, and 150lbs. of luggage. But I settled on a nice 6th floor place which has a western style bathroom and a small kitchen and washing machine (no dryer, my stuff is hanging in the kitchen as i type). It gets the job done. I haven't really met my roommates, they are never around and keep their doors closed. But I'm not here much. The bed was horribly uncomfortable, but after eating and all that I had hit about 30hours awake and physically exhausted myself, so my first sleep in China was amazing... I take that as a great sign, a deep sleep in a new place is rare if not unheard of for me. Positive omen or future karma kicking my ass?

After sleeping like crazy I started to find my way around Beijing with my tour guide Cissy and got settled in. It is an overwhelming place, very big and bustling. I did see the Watercube and Birdsnest from a bus which was cool. Anyways, I don't know where I'm going with this other than to answer all the people who asked if i'd seen olympic stuff yet, so on to more relevant stuff...

Its really friggin cheap here to eat. I fed myself when I was starving for the equivalent of about $1.20. It was amazing... You can find good cheap food if you know where to look, but there is also some very pricey stuff. Its a nice mix, but I could eat on about $5 a day if I wanted and was frugal. I'm not sure about hte nutrition, but that has never been my specialty, i like to have other people tell me about what to eat, then ignore them and have a crazy metabolism.

Anywho, thats the basics for now, I have started my job and its cool and I have a lot to share, but right now I'm tired and I just wanted to crank out a post. I've got some deeper more "andyish" posts coming (random, sometimes deep BS that I like to push :-) ), hopefully over the weekend, or if I get bored at work and finish my first project.

Let me know how things are state-side/whatever country you are in-side. Until then, just remember to think twice before buying a plane ticket, you might end up somewhere you hadn't quite prepared for.