TWO METER PETER!

We arrived in Beijing around 3pm. Overall the flight was uneventful, but weird to get there the next day! The time difference between Beijing and New York is 12 hours, although China has only one time zone for the whole country.

We had no problems with customs; in fact, no one even said a word to us! It was interesting that they had a ‘changing of the guard’ where all the officers marched in unison and in line for the switchover of the shift. This seemed very rigid. As we came through customs and out the door, there were a lot of people waiting, and we commented that it felt like a marathon with people cheering you on.

Thankfully we found Peter easily, as he is ‘2 meter Peter’ and towers over the crowd. We got tickets and boarded a bus. There was a lot of traffic and we moved pretty slow, which gave me time to take in the scenery. I noticed a lot of people just lounging by the side of the freeway. Also, there were a lot of construction workers. It seemed like the labor in China is more manual than in the US. They were doing everything by hand and with wheelbarrows, as opposed to the big machines we see in the US.

Obviously, we saw a lot of Chinese characters, but it was strange to realize I couldn’t tell if they were road names, building names, advertisements, etc.

We drove by the Olympic Stadium which will host the 2008 Olympics. There were lots of men on the roof, working to complete the structure. The architecture was really striking! Peter said they have been campaigning around the city to clean up both the city and some of the cultural habits, such as spitting.

Bikes seem to be the main source of transportation. Some of them have baskets, totes, or people riding on the back. They all appear to be old, or ‘grandfather style’.

We walked from the bus to the campus where Peter has been living. It was about a 30 minute walk. He offered a cab, but we wanted to stretch our legs. We commented that the campus is similar to a US university due to athletic fields, dorms, and classrooms. Everywhere we went in the city, there were a lot of people. It seemed more crowded then New York on a more consistent basis.

The weather was smoggy/cloudy, and hot. Peter was great about answering our questions, even the seemingly dumb ones!

Peter’s place is nice. It’s a one bedroom apartment, though they have three people living in it right now! The furniture was nice and it was spacious. It was definitely bigger than most New York apartments!

We met Peter’s two roommates, Nakia and Drew, who both went to St. Johns/St. Ben’s. One of his Chinese students, Tracy, was also there.

We freshened up a bit and left the apartment to go to dinner. We walked across the street to a restaurant on the top floor of the campus cafeteria. We sat in the main room, and tried to take everything in. The food was really great, and our hosts did a good job of ordering a well-rounded meal.

Food is served family style here, on a lazy susan. We decided right then to take a picture of every meal, or we could never keep track of everything we had! It was difficult at first to eat with chopsticks, especially since everyone was watching! The worst part was the noodles, which were thin and slippery, but we got the hang of it by the end of the meal. We had hot water and beer with dinner.

The entire meal cost less than $20. Peter said it would be cheap once we got here, but I didn’t anticipate this!

We learned how to say hello (ni hao) and thank you (xie-xie).

After dinner we got on the subway to go to a play. Clark and I cringed because at this point we started to feel really tired. The subway has only three lines and is not too complicated. I’m amazed by what most large cities have in common.

The play was at a theater in the hutong, which is the old area of Beijing. There were lots of small alley ways and little homes and shops. It was interesting to see how the new and the old be come mixed together.

The play was in English, and the theme was dreams. It was in three parts. My only complaint was the long time between the scenes that they took to prepare and change the lighting. We sat on cushions in the front row. I downed a coke to try to stay awake and amazingly I was able to!

We took a cab back to Peter’s, and showered and tried to prepare for the next day.

Clark and I each called home via Skype on the internet. Dad laughed when he heard my voice from the other side of the world.

We took sleeping pills and slept really well through the night, waking up at 10am!