A haze of a day (in more ways than one)

It's been about 2 days since I've had a proper night's sleep, so I've been having random dizzy spells and a blurry gaze since I landed in Beijing this morning. Yeah, this morning. At 6 am (Beijing time, which also happens to be China time, since all of China is contained in one timezone). Let me just say that twelve and a half hours on a plane is not fun. I have an inability to properly fall asleep on a plane. If I had known this, perhaps I would have resigned myself to this fact, avoided the half-hour snippets of napping, and watched the many movies and TV shows that were available on a personal screen in front of me. I did not know this was a common option, but apparently it is.

Fortunately, the plane I took from LAX to Beijing Capital Airport was brand new, which meant modernity and cleanliness. I was very tempted to watch some of the classic movies that are on my to-watch list (i.e. "Casablanca", "Gone with the Wind", and "Citizen Kane") but I was attempting to fall asleep. I have to say though, there were more than a few Reese Witherspoon options. I spotted "Sweet Home Alabama", "Vanity Fair", "Just Like Heaven", and that recent movie in which Captain Kirk and Bane are spies and fight over Reese Witherspoon (yes, I'm referring to the actors Chris Pine and Tom Hardy). Maybe a Reese Witherspoon craze going on?

Anyway, I spent some time talking to the American man sitting next to me. Apparently he's been to China many times because his company has a manufacturing plant there. He has a lot of connections, too, which means that he's involved in the increasingly popular equestrian sport, of which his business partner's daughter is quite adept at.

The first thing I saw when the plane landed was a hazy airport. When I asked the American man, he told me that it was probably just fog. As the day went on and I waited for the fog to clear, it became obvious that the fog was from the pollution. I spent the entire day under a seemingly cloudy sky, without one sight of a blue sky or the sun. There was a ever-present haze in the air. What made it worse was that it was very, very hot and humid. I'm talking about DC-in-the-summer heat and humidity. After dragging my two big bags up two flights of stairs, I was sweating and convinced that I would have toned legs by the end of the semester.

I made friends with some of the other people, all of whom are pretty friendly to each other. Since a sizable chunk of the group is from American University (the original partner with Beijing University to create the China Studies Institute, my program), many of the students already knew each other. Despite this, I got to know some people while I walked around, got lunch (accidentally ordered a very spicy, hot noodle soup that I burned my tongue on), bought a sim card and calling cards, and hung out in the lounge as a battled with the George Washington University's VPN so that I could access facebook and blogger. Fortunately, after hours of work, I switched to Firefox, repeated the process, and succeeded.

This was followed by time spent studying a guidebook, putting important numbers into my cell, and basically just basking in the cool air from the air conditioner machine. There is no real AC in any of the buildings, just the machines and some fans (I kept myself hydrated with lots of water). I went to dinner with a pretty large group, to a place nicknamed "Hollywood". This meant that there were pseudo-classic-American dishes with a Chinese flair. I got the most Chinese dish, beef fried rice with a microwave fried egg on top. By the time I got back to the dorm, chatted a bit with a new friend, then got ready for bed, I was exhausted.

Note to self for tomorrow: 1) Buy some bug spray, 2) Wake up early for orientation, and 3) Try not to fall asleep.

Also, let me just mention that the back door to the student lounge is basically a small door akin to the one in the Disney Alice in Wonderland movie, in which she grew too big and had to crawl through a small door. The student lounge is technically in the basement, hence the strange back door. Fortunately, we don't have to crawl through it, but there is a lot of ducking involved.

Glorious sleep awaits me.