Beijing Day 1

We woke up this morning to a thunderstorm that even 老北京 (long-time Beijing residents) said was unusual. The roads on campus became rivers that in some places were over akle-deep, and we had to wade through these to get to the classroom on the far side of the campus. We arrived pitifully soaked to the bone, but in good spirits nevertheless. We were in China! We met our teachers and picked the books we would use for the next two weeks.

We were supposed to have an afternoon session chatting with Chinese students, but we postponed that until tomorrow due to the rain. SY and I spent the afternoon arranging our room and settling in a bit more.

Our room is fantastic. It costs us about $20 a night, and comes equipped with a water boiler, cable TV (over 50 channels), a mini-refrigerator, air conditioner, two desks, and Internet access if you’re willing to pay for it. The washing machine and drying racks are across the hallway.

We think our room has never been used, either – there are no scuffs either on the floor or the walls, the circuit breaker switches hadn’t been flipped on when we first got in, the TV still has a sticker on the screen and the remote control is still wrapped and without batteries. It totally surpassed our expectations. As far as I know, they have just one important rule:

We can deal with that.