My first 12 hours in China

I finally made it to Beijing on March 6th at 8:30pm. My 3 hour flight from Hong Kong was great and not only did I get an aisle seat, but there was no one next to me so I got to stretch out!

At the customs check, there was a young man holding up a sign with my name on it. He didn't introduce himself, he just said, "My English is bad. My aunt sent me to pick you up. You go to Shi Jiaz Huang?" He took me to the enormous Beijing West Train Station and put me on my 3 hour ride to my host city.

In my sleeper car with me were two Chinese business men on their way home from the capital. They knew I was incredibly nervous about missing my stop, so they tried their best to explain to me what was going on. Not expecting to be travelling on my own, I hadn't brushed up on my transportation vocab, so I was really a mess. My biggest problem is that I don't want to fill in the blanks of my words and phrases with English, so I fill them in with my other foreign language - Spanish. This does not help a young American woman who is traveling for the first time through China.

"Ivy" the owner of my language center was at the station when I arrived. She took me to the office and set me up with a room, but I was too excited to sleep. I just wanted to get out and see the city so badly! But eventually, I drifted off.

This morning - March 7 - I started my day at the Hebei Health Clinic. I apparently need a physical in order to live with a Chinese family. I had a blood test, urine sample, eye exam, ultrasound, eco cardiogram, and a chest x-ray. Then I went to get some noodles with my teacher.

I spent the rest of the day in the center, talking to both teachers and students. We have a really small program with only 10 students at the moment so it's lots of individual attention. Tonight I will spend another night in the office and hope that my physical results will come tomorrow and prove that I'm not HIV positive and therefore can live with a Chinese family.