Beijing!!!

Well I have been in Beijing now for nearly two weeks. I must say the first week was a bit of a shock being back in a huge city like Beijing again and hearing Chinese all the time, but I have quickly adapted back into the environment. When I first arrived, I was placed at a university called Beida, which I thought would be close and convenient to my work, but quickly realized that the commute to work took a solid 1 hour and 20 minutes each way, which seemed like a long commute to be making back and forth to work. Not only was the commute bad, but the room that I was placed in didn't have a functioning A/C unit, which is quite difficult when you have to live in the Beijing summer, and for the price I was paying I would have expected more. I am so fortunate though, because I was quickly able to make a change and found housing at CRI, and now am able to roll out of bed in the morning which is such a treat and has made my life so much better!

My first week at CRI went overall really well, some days are more interesting than others but thats life. I really like all my co-workers and feel that they are super welcoming and supportive, which has been really nice. It's always fun going to lunch with my co- workers, and I'm loving getting to have the delicious Chinese food that I missed so much when I was in the States. The only thing I must admit that I miss is the BBQ's in the summer time, but other than that I don't really miss American cuisine. I really like the apartment I'm staying at, and love that it has central a/c ( I know I keep obsessing over the a/c but it is something that actually makes a huge difference in the Beijing summers). Though I must admit, I think it was hotter last summer when I was living in Taipei.. I think that it's just that I haven't been in hot weather like this for a long time so it just feels hot in these first couple of weeks. My first weekend in Beijing was spent kind of just getting adjusted to everything, and making the move from my housing in Beida over to CRI. I did end up meeting one a friend who's from Beijing and goes to umass which was fun... we went to have Xinjiang food, which is one of my favorite types of food here in China. I also found the Catholic Church here, which was much easier than I had expected. I've been always fortunate to be able to find the Catholic churches in every place I have traveled, which has always been nice.

This weekend, I ended up doing some more exploring. On Friday, I went out with a co-worker and we went to this area( I'm forgetting the name) that had lots of little restaurants and shops. We ate at this great little restaurant that has a roof top terrace, which was really nice. I got to practice my Chinese as well, which was really nice. The one thing about working at CRI is that its mainly an English speaking environment, so I don't get to use my Chinese very often in the work environment.

On Saturday, I met up with another student from my university who is also in Beijing doing an internship for the summer. She's living in this really cute little hutong( traditional) neigbhorhood. Right next to her house is an entire street of pet shops, which was really fascinating to see. I couldn't get over all of the animals were for sale in this one little block. It seems like a trend now as China's middle class is growing, pets are the new thing to have, especially cute little dogs. However, the one thing I was surprised about is that people just buy animals so casually without really thinking about the major responsibilities that are involved with having pets. As a result there are a lot of street dogs and cats. Anyways it was fun getting to pet the little puppies, but I think the shop keepers were annoyed with us because they wanted us to buy one of them and not just play with them.

In the evening we went to this area called Lotus lake, which is filled with bars and restaurants. It was really a hopping place with tourists and natives all around enjoying summer and the weekend. I was pretty exhausted by the time I got back, especially with the subway ride. The one thing that is very different about Beijing than Shanghai is that the subways here tend to be extremely crowded, which means that in the prime hours I usually feel like I'm squished in like a sardine, which is not always the most pleasant feeling, but it's something I'll just have to get used to!

Overall my two weeks here have been really fun... I'm looking forward to more adventures in the coming weekends. But for now, its back to work tomorrow morning. Hope everyone is enjoying the start of summer so far. I'll post some pics. soon, I haven't gotten a chance to upload them to my computer yet.