5 days into it...

Hello hello!

I've been in Beijing for a few days now and it's about time I give you all a better idea of what I am up to and tell you about the city.

Since I got here, JG has been my saviour with her incredible Mandarin skills and as a result, we have been able to make many great successes.

The newest success is that we found an apartment to live in. It is close to campus, close to the subway station, close to food and grocery stores and close to our friends. One thing that I have found very interesting about Beijing is that they really don't take any care at all of the public areas or the outside of buildings. You see these concrete blocks that look dirty and not really appealing, walk inside to find concrete floors and poorly painted walls that have marks from hands, shoes, etc and really don't get a great impression of the place. However, you walk into the actual apartments and more often than not, they are quite nice. Our place has tiled floor in the common area and hardwood in the bedrooms, nice taupe-ish walls and crown molding. There are three rooms, all of good size, and two bathrooms. The closets are good although with the little clothes we have here, this was never going to be an issue. The kitchen is of a good size and the dining room table is beautiful- it is good and fits 6 people around the rectangle. The living room is connected to the dining area and there's three navy blue leather couches. There's also two sunrooms that are supposed to be used to dry clothes because there's no such thing as a dryer in rented apartments here. Overall, I am really excited to live there, the place is clean and it feels homey and inviting. The common space is big enough to host decent dinner parties and pre-drinks as well so you can all imagine how happy I feel. We are signing tomorrow and hopefully moving in directly after, and looking at having a house warming on Friday for our friends.

I must make a point to tell you all about the city of Beijing and what I've found so far. I don't know how you all picture the city but in all honesty, I imagined a place that looked gray, old and unlike what I am used to. To my surprise, I found a city with wide, spacious streets and sidewalks, beautiful buildings, sky scrapers and a Time Square look-alike corner every few blocks. The cleanliness of the city really impacted me although it can rightfully be attributed to the Olympics. The one other thing that I have really loved is how friendly strangers are. Coming from India, where people gave me dirty looks when I smiled at them, and Toronto, where people barely look at each other, I have been surprised to see that most people smile back at me. It is so welcoming and it makes the language barrier a tad less intimidating. The food has been incredible so far...the Chinese have something great here. The combination of flavours and textures is something that you really need to get into, but once you do- there's so much to explore and most of it tastes so delicious!! We also found a sushi place with really good sushi. It is very close to our school and our apartment and it has the conveyor belts that just flow food through and you pick up whatever you want. It was cheap, too! I paid 30 kuai for dinner, which is about $5-6 canadian. Oh I also found my new favourite candy! They sell fruit on a stick dipped in caramel everywhere and it is so yummy!!! To save myself from becoming a whale, I have done my best to restrain myself when I see them but it is such a great treat!

Exploring the city has been really fun, finding new grocery stores, markets, nail places and cool restaurants every time we venture out into the cold. Hopefully it gets warm soon. The locals say this is a cold front and it should pass quickly and I'm crossing my fingers hoping they're right.

Today was a frustrating day but we finally successfully registered for our courses. Just so you can all point and laugh, I am taking things like stats, macroecon, developmental economics (which I am uber pumped about) and other equally thrilling courses. It should be an interesting semester even academically, as I am really stepping out of my comfort zone and taking courses that I don't know much about- hopefully I will emerge with a whole new lot of knowledge!

Ok then, I am off to get ready for dinner. A few of us are going out for hot pot- my first time! I am very excited.

Zai jian!!!

Cat