China1

Touched Down
So I have indeed successfully made it. I am back in the land of great walls, giant dams, and banned internet. In fact, I’m going to have to figure out how to even put what I am writing online, as I cannot seem to even access blogspot.com. Last time I was here, I was able to post things but just couldn’t read what I wrote. Now I guess they’ve stepped it up a notch. I should still be able to find a way to post on my blog, but I may have to do it not as often. I’ll probably do what I’m doing now and just type up a bunch of entries on Microsoft Word, then put a bunch of them up at a time. We shall see.
I have also learned that in addition to Youtube and Wikipedia, I am also unable to see Facebook and Twitter! Curses! How am I supposed to live the cool college-age life now? Those are pretty much the only two ways people communicate with each other these days. It looks like I’ll have to live with real, non-watered-down interactions instead, sigh.
The reason for said recent banning (of Facebook at least) is apparently the trouble they’ve been having with these “wiggers.” Yes, I know that’s not how it’s spelled. I actually talked with my Chinese friend about the situation last night, and she was surprised I had even heard of it. I guess they expect to be able to keep things secret from the world. Good luck with that.
I suppose I should backtrack a little bit to tell more of my story so far. The plane ride was long but not so bad. I flew into Toronto on a short, uneventful flight, ate some overpriced nachos while I still could, and then hopped on a plane to Beijing. I made sure to reserve a window seat this time, after missing 6 hours of a constant sunset over the Arctic Circle last time. This time the sun actually never went down, which made for a rather creepy 24 hours of consecutive sunlight. I feel like I’m either in Alaska or witnessing the apocalypse. Either way it has made me quite disoriented.
On the plane I sat next to a very nice Chinese couple coming back from visiting their daughter who was starting school in Canada. Apparently it was their first time out of China. They spoke no English, so I had a good time chatting with them and even helping translate to the flight attendant for them. I can say I successfully acquired them alcohol! Quite a feat. It was actually really interesting being on a Canadian airline going to China. All announcements were done in English, French and Chinese. So I was somewhat able to understand everything that was ever said. It was the first time I’d ever been anywhere that was using all the languages I spoke, no more, no less.
After the plane, I went through a very easy customs area, and then I was off! My friend met me at the airport and actually has given me a place to stay while I’m here. Apparently one of the bedrooms in her apartment isn’t being used by anybody. So hey, no spending money on a hotel. Her apartment is on the 14th floor of a high-rise building with all young people living in it. Funnily enough, though, is that her floor is actually labeled 12B. Like many places in the States, there is no 13th floor (labeled 12A) because it’s bad luck. But 14 is also bad luck, because the word for 4 in Chinese, “si” has similar pronunciation to the word for death. But I’m pretty sure there still was a 4th floor…I dno.

So like I said, I was pretty disoriented when I got off the plane. I had slept for a few hours during the flight at some random time in my day, and when things started getting dark I just did not feel right physically. Just like last time, I was not hungry at all, but I forced myself to eat. We went out to have some tasty fish (and other things) absolutely covered in spicy peppers (lajiao) and even more delicious Chinese peppercorns (majiao) that make your mouth tingle for 5 minutes after eating one. I enjoyed, and I felt a lot better after eating. By then I felt ready to pass out, so I headed back from some surprisingly restful sleep. We will see if I can still sleep past 4am in the next few days, though.
So I have to say it was really nice to actually have somebody I know here. It made the transition very smooth, and I actually do feel surprisingly at home here. That makes sense, considering the time I spent in Beijing. We will see if that still sticks when I’m in Nanjing, a place I’ve never been before. I started to think on the plane about the fact that I have actually left everybody I know for at least a year, a rather scary thought. It took until the plane touched down for me to actually realize it. But while I am certainly out of my comfort zone on the other side of the world, it is a strangely good feeling. I think having friends here has made things easier, but mainly it is because I am doing something I really want to do. Straight out of college, I’m going on a traveling adventure to a new city all by myself for an indefinite amount of time. This is the kind of thing that I can look at from an outside point of view and be really happy about. I think of the Third Eye Blind line that I heard on my flight over here, “I’ve never been so alone…and I’ve never been so alive.”