One Month in China: Day 1

First impressions:

Arriving at 6am in the morning in fog (or smog take your pick) at 26c was a bit worrying.
Despite having official taxis I still had to argue with several drivers until I eventually found an honest one (a woman) that charged the going rate (rather than 4 times more).
Traffic was bad – but isn’t that true of many capital cities?
I’ve come to improve my Chinese (especially spoken) and that is already happening thanks to hearing the language spoken everywhere 🙂
I have Chinese friends who have helped at lot (xie xie Vanessa, Cassie and Changqing) but in general people have been helpful.
My flight connection problems meant I was a day late and missed my University course selection exam. Lessons start tomorrow at 8am and I’ve been placed in a group – but can move if it is not right.
University registration was a great example of Chinese bureaucracy that my Russian and Eastern European friends would have felt fully at home with. And ‘westerners’ (if I may use that term) and North Americans would have been completely amazed by – think of walking around to various offices and buildings getting scraps of paper stamped 😉

The ‘great firewall’ is causing some challenges:

1) Facebook is banned – vk isn’t!
2) Dropbox is often banned and unreliable
3) Gmail banned
4) Microsoft sites and products appear to work well

4) Using my Samsung as a wifi gets around these bans – huh!??? But I’m going to try and figure out better ways (less expensive) of uploading photos.

I’m not sure I’ll post every day… sometimes it is better to do than talk 😉

Zàijiàn