Ni Hao!

(that's basically the only thing either of us can say in Mandarin!)

Ohmygosh I don't know where to begin. I cannot believe we're in CHINA!! After all that talking and planning, we're finally here! We already have tons of stories and have had some veeery interesting experiences in our 15 hours in China. I think it will be easier for me to bullet point some of them to keep it somewhat concise.

We made it!!!

FLIGHT: relatively painless. 13 hours (we landed early!), several solid naps, a little reading, and a little movie watching. The highlights include a girl across the aisle watching a Harry Potter movie on her computer sans headphones--very loud--and a guy eating pizza with chopsticks.

AIRPORT: after going through customs, we piled into a tram to get to baggage claim. We were looking out the window when Adam commented that it was funny to put grassy areas along the sides of the tram's path because we were still indoors--his [very logical] reasoning was that there was an orange ceiling above us. I agreed, but Sarah (Adam's co-Fogarty) looked closer and realized that it was not, in fact, an orange ceiling, but the night sky!! That was definitely a strange revelation. I guess you don't really know what to expect with the smog until you actually experience it. (Side note: today is also extremely overcast, but it's also the worst time of year for the smog. The combination of humidity, lack of wind, and pollution creates the thickness in the air. It should dissipate somewhat by early September).

Thank goodness for the little buggies--
we piled our stuff as high as we could!

Try understanding this!

HOTEL: Adam's Chinese counterpart (his "twin), Shangying, has been very helpful in picking us up from the airport and arranging a hotel for the first week that we're here. We are very close to Adam's hospital, which we got to glimpse as we drove in last night. This hotel is a maze; our room is on the 2nd floor, but we had to take the elevator (with all of our stuff) to the 3rd floor because it only goes to 1, 3, and 4. We walked down 2 never-ending hallways to get to the elevator that took us down to our room. After settling in, Adam and I tried to go back to the lobby, which was no easy feat. We tried 4 different staircases before eventually succumbing to the elevator scramble. When we finally got back upstairs, I went to shower, but was completely confused by the sign on the shower door. At least there was a picture to help! Read it carefully and see if you can translate the English into something that makes sense. When you do, let us know!

When we were FINALLY ready for bed, we realized that we couldn't turn off the lights in our room! To get power, we have to put our room key in a slot by the door to turn on the power (lights, A/C, power outlets). We tried everything to get the lights off, but when you take out the key, it also turns off the air conditioning and the computer that we had set up to function as an alarm clock. After testing a bunch of things, we realized that we had a big decision to make: sleep in a cool, bright room or in a warm, dark room. We ended up putting the A/C on super low for 20 minutes to cool it down and then went to sleep. However, we just learned that there are light switches hidden behind the bedside table--tonight is going to be a cool, dark room. Thank goodness because we're exhausted!!

Jet lag has caught up, so I'm off to bed after a crazy/overwhelming/hilarious/ridiculous first day in Beijing! Adam will probably write about Days 1 and 2 tomorrow--he fell asleep in the cab on the way home from our Peking Duck dinner with Kate (an Amherst friend in Beijing--what a great way to start us off in China!)