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Arrival, and a few indoor photos
Oct. 16th, 2009 02:32 pmWell, here I am in China!
The trip was long, but everything went very smoothly. My first flight, from Minneapolis to San Francisco, was in the early morning, and when I got to the check-in desk we found out that one of my bags was 13 pounds over the weight limit and that it cost $150 to have an overweight bag. I was completely baffled by sleepiness and had no idea how to react to this information. In the end my parents took some things out--mostly books--to ship to me in China, and I moved my winter coat into my carry-on bag. The final weight of the bag was 50.5 pounds, which the clerk declared good enough.
I slept most of the way to California, had about three hours in the airport to get breakfast and buy some magazines, and boarded the plane to Shanghai. We all spent the entire trans-Pacific flight with absolutely no idea what time it was. The flight crew instructed us to pull down our window shades, and we spent about six hours pretending it was nighttime while it was perfectly bright outside--mid-afternoon in San Francisco, early morning in China. Then they gave everybody a bowl of instant noodles and said "good morning." Whatever works, I guess. On the plane I watched pieces of the movie Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian and reflected that if this is how America portrays itself, it might not be terribly easy to explain to people who have never been there what America is really like. The film included the Lincoln Memorial coming to life and saying "I never lie!" a lot, General Custer giving everybody very bad advice, an octopus in the Reflecting Pool, and the main hall of the Air & Space Museum filled with come-back-to-life pilots trying to launch all their aircraft at once. Everyone spoke in inscrutable accents.
Anyway, we crossed the International Date Line into Thursday and landed right on time, and customs at the Shanghai airport went very smoothly, and Emily was there to meet me. She and I and a driver who didn't speak English got into the school's car and drove the five hours to Quzhou, and I got to my new apartment a little after midnight. I spent some time settling in and got to sleep around 1:30, only to be awakened at 6 by the school's wake-up call and morning exercises. I will have to be more careful about going to bed on time.
Today I unpacked, figured out how to use my shower, met the school principal, and had lunch with four members of the English department and the two British guys who are also teaching at the school. All of the English teachers we ate with have been to Red Wing, so there were a lot of little reunions and hugs going around. Maggie, who stayed with my family when she was in Red Wing, was worried the food would be too spicy for me, but it was delicious. I got the leftover sesame dumplings to take home. This afternoon I'll have some errands to run, but in the meantime I have a bit of a break, so I took some pictures inside my apartment: ( Click for pictures )
So far, so good! I'll keep you all posted of further developments.
The trip was long, but everything went very smoothly. My first flight, from Minneapolis to San Francisco, was in the early morning, and when I got to the check-in desk we found out that one of my bags was 13 pounds over the weight limit and that it cost $150 to have an overweight bag. I was completely baffled by sleepiness and had no idea how to react to this information. In the end my parents took some things out--mostly books--to ship to me in China, and I moved my winter coat into my carry-on bag. The final weight of the bag was 50.5 pounds, which the clerk declared good enough.
I slept most of the way to California, had about three hours in the airport to get breakfast and buy some magazines, and boarded the plane to Shanghai. We all spent the entire trans-Pacific flight with absolutely no idea what time it was. The flight crew instructed us to pull down our window shades, and we spent about six hours pretending it was nighttime while it was perfectly bright outside--mid-afternoon in San Francisco, early morning in China. Then they gave everybody a bowl of instant noodles and said "good morning." Whatever works, I guess. On the plane I watched pieces of the movie Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian and reflected that if this is how America portrays itself, it might not be terribly easy to explain to people who have never been there what America is really like. The film included the Lincoln Memorial coming to life and saying "I never lie!" a lot, General Custer giving everybody very bad advice, an octopus in the Reflecting Pool, and the main hall of the Air & Space Museum filled with come-back-to-life pilots trying to launch all their aircraft at once. Everyone spoke in inscrutable accents.
Anyway, we crossed the International Date Line into Thursday and landed right on time, and customs at the Shanghai airport went very smoothly, and Emily was there to meet me. She and I and a driver who didn't speak English got into the school's car and drove the five hours to Quzhou, and I got to my new apartment a little after midnight. I spent some time settling in and got to sleep around 1:30, only to be awakened at 6 by the school's wake-up call and morning exercises. I will have to be more careful about going to bed on time.
Today I unpacked, figured out how to use my shower, met the school principal, and had lunch with four members of the English department and the two British guys who are also teaching at the school. All of the English teachers we ate with have been to Red Wing, so there were a lot of little reunions and hugs going around. Maggie, who stayed with my family when she was in Red Wing, was worried the food would be too spicy for me, but it was delicious. I got the leftover sesame dumplings to take home. This afternoon I'll have some errands to run, but in the meantime I have a bit of a break, so I took some pictures inside my apartment: ( Click for pictures )
So far, so good! I'll keep you all posted of further developments.
