November 20, 2004
After a loooong trip half way around the world, I arrived in China Friday afternoon. The trip was uneventful (thank goodness) and I managed to find my way around O’Hare Airport in Chicago and then the Beijing International Airport where I had a 3 hour layover after booking my flight into Changsha for 7:30 pm. Arrived in Changsha at 9:40 pm and I was met by Wayne, the Director of the school and Jacky, a young Chinese man who is the Office Manager at the school.
I am writing this on my laptop at my desk in my bedroom. I have to save it onto a disk and take it to school tomorrow and send it from there. Hopefully by tomorrow night I will have internet access in my room. Steve, a young man from Alaska who lives next door is coming over to set it up. In the meantime he leant me a power bar that works on my computer. My voltage convertor is not 3 prong and won’t work. So I have to go out and buy one soon.

In the past 24 hours I unpacked, showered and got caught up on some much needed sleep. My room is all set up and organized as you will see in the pictures.
And guess what? I have 2 roomates – Kim, from Calgary who is 30 and Husky her puppy. Kim had to teach 3 classes today so the puppy and I napped together. Kim phoned from the school to tell me her adult class wanted to take us out for dinner at 7 pm. We went to a very authentic Chinese restaurant. The food was amazing – although very hot and spicy - Hunan Province is known for it's hot food. Also famous for “Stinky Tofu” which is a 2 inch square of tofu that looks like it has been dipped in dung and blackened on a BBQ. Needless to say I did not try it. But so far so good. I went back and forth between the hot, spicy pork and bacon dishes to the blander rice and cabbage. We drank a white, creamy rice wine which was sweet and tasted a little bit like pineapple. Yummy!
The group we were with consisted of: Denny and his son who is 6 years old (no English name and I can’t remember let alone pronounce his Chinese name), Kate, Sara, Richard and of course Kim. I think I am going to lose some weight here if I don’t master chopsticks very soon. I managed and of course they were very polite and didn’t laugh at me. I laughed at myself and that made them feel more comfortable instead of being embarrased for me. The meal consisted of a bean soup which was very good, ginger pork with stick-like pieces of hot ginger, cabbage in a mild sauce, cabbage and vegetable soup, a bacon dish with a vegetable that was very good but I don’t know what it is called. They said it grows in the mountains in spring – it’s the size of toothpicks and looks like wood but it’s very tender. And of course white rice and a fried flatbread with green beans inside. All through the meal we had bottomless cups of green tea. It was wonderful! The students can speak fairly good English or as they say “Chinglish”. We all went for a walk along the river after and I learned a little about the city.
After our return, Kim and I took Husky to the 24 hr. supermarket and I stocked up on a few things: coke, cookies, noodle cups and bottles of green tea. For breakfast I still have my Special K bars that I brought from home. The school provides one meal a day - lunch or supper depending on your schedule.
Tomorrow (Sunday) I am following Kim through her morning classes and watch Wayne teach in the afternoon. I will get my schedule and then I start teaching I think on Monday! (Scary, eh?)
Our apartment is in a nice building downtown and only a 10 minute walk to school. There is a McDonald’s right across the road from the school. The only fear I have is of crossing the busy street. There are no lights and cars use whatever lane is clear, so there aren’t 2 lanes going each way, sometimes 3 one way and 1 the other. They more or less go wherever they want. Pedestrians just head out and hope they stop! Wish me luck! (I just hope they don’t have that saying here for foreigners – you know the one about 10 points! That’s an inside joke that only a few of you will get – sorry.) The pollution here is TERRIBLE and I am having a hard time getting used to the smells, reminds me of Mexico. It’s damp and chilly here and that’s winter I am told. Wish I had thrown out more shorts and put in my warm sweatshirts when I packed – but I will endure!