CH-CH-CH-CHINA...

Neehow,

I arrived in China in one piece and thankfully, so did my bags. A teacher from the school met me at the airport and took me to my friends' apartment with a driver from the school. He gave me an information package that had some city maps and a small grocery gift card, a bus card, and a phone card (which I haven't used yet oops!) and an envelope with 3000 kwai in it (about $400 advance on my pay). I was feeling OK (not too dead to the world) so we hung out for a bit and then went out for a Chinese meal and then to a bar in Sanliturn (one of the bar areas) to a place called "The Saddle" (a mexican restaurant/bar). The past few days have been easy in some ways and ridiculously hard in others. I am tired and stressed and overwhelmed and do not have the energy to be house-hunting but have to so it is a daily battle. I go to bed at about 9:30pm and get out of bed at about 5:30am ( I wake up continually in the night and usually wake up about 4 or 4:30 am). I work 8am to 4:30pm Monday to Friday. Right now I don't have a class which was a surprise. I have been observing and trying to make myself busy but it has been confusing and hard since I (and some of my bosses) don't really know what the deal is or when my class will be starting.

I'm hoping to start working officially on Monday and I also hope to have secured and apartment by then. It's possible that I will stay with my friends until October which I hope they are ok with. Beijing is ridiculously Western and swanky where I work. Sometimes I forget that I'm in China. I was hoping that the grocery stores would be more like the ones in Hong Kong but sadly they are more like Korea. Oh well. I went to the Walmart the other just for fun and found the Korean Pomegranate juice that I used to love and soju that was only $2 so at least I can have a drink this weekend despite being broke. I'll put up pics and whatnot when I get internet on my computer---my access is limited right now. I'll update soon when i can really tell you what it is like here. Right now I am in a daze, my right eye has been twitching for a day, and I don't really have anything to do at work!