Almost spending the night as a hobo

The plane arrived a little late due to some taxi issues or something, but fortunately customs was quick and I had just enough juice in my ipod to get to the baggage claim and grab my bags and then it died. There were soooo many people waiting for people coming out of the airport, apparently the person that was supposed to be waiting for me was there half an hour early at the very beginning of the entrance so I missed him because I was thinking “wow thanks for running into me with your cart random guy” and “yes that would be a fantastic idea to stop walking when you’re in front of me short lady”

So after half an hour of searching I just bought a phone card for 50rmb to call him.

He finally found me and took me to his car and I’m like wow you drive an audi?

What’s cool is that I actually had a 20 minute conversation with him without any awkward pauses and not too many times where I asked “can you repeat that?”

What really surprised me is that I was able to compare Audis with Jags and BMWs IN mandarin which is totally not in the textbook.

Honestly, without Zhang xian sheng’s help, I probably would have spent the night as a hobo out in the streets because he drove me right to school and figured out my room situation, tuition, and food (which is always most important).

Ok so here’s the lowdown on my dorm, there’s parts about it that impressed me like the fact that I have 60 channels 90% are in Chinese, a Spanish channel, French, Korean, and a channel from HK. The room is locked with a keycard, sort of like the ones you get for your hotel room, but when you walk in, the electricity will only be activated in the whole room when you put your keycard in this glowing blue slot on the wall. If you take the card out, the tv, lights, and anything you have plugged in will shut off. Cool huh?

The room is quite small but honestly it has pretty much everything you need, shelf space, mini fridge, desk, rock hard concrete bed, small patio to hang your clothes, and a bathroom.

It took me about an hour and a half to get settled in and organized. I guess the last person that used the room didn’t do a good job defrosting the fridge because there was this big puddle of water in the middle of the room. The bathroom shower head was broken off so after I put everything away, I pretty much showered using a garden hose. Water was really warm though so that made me very happy.

I missed dinner just because I wanted to get everything put away, so I decided to do a little exploring at around 7ish. Found a nice grocery store about 3 blocks east of my apartment. I ended up having Mcdonalds for dinner, yah I know I go all the way to Beijing to eat something I could have down the street from my house, but its seriously a must for me seeing I’ve had Mcdonalds in Hong Kong, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, and a couple other countries, but they all seem to have their own little unique flair compared to the one back home.

Before I left I got the unlock code from T mobile on my phone. At the grocery store I got a sim card and 100 yuan phone card for about $30 US. That thing works like a charm, but the phone card only lasts about 10 min calling out to the US since its only a 100 yuan but its definitely better than nothing.

I'm sad though because I had a feeling that some sites were going to be blocked and blogger was one of them. It was a good thing though that I wrote a post earlier on here so I still had the URL to make posts but I actually can't see the finished product, still...that's better than nothing.

Busy day tomorrow, So I’m just gonna go to bed now seeing I’ve been awake since technically 5pm yesterday China time.