The First Day

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." --Confucius

I have finally touched down in Shanghai, China. The journey to China was 15 hours, but felt like an eternity. I sat next to two Chinese women who did not speak any English but were excited about my trip. They asked me in very broken English, "first time???" and I responded in my best Chinese "Yes, I am an American student." After I said I was American they smiled their biggest smiles and even laughed a bit (little did I know this was going to be a common reaction to the revelation of my home country--still don't know why). Their eyes lit up with excitement as they told me how great of a city Shanghai is. I could not wait.

Beth finding her long lost luggage

After a four hour delay, Beth (my friend from Bucknell) and I were extremely tired and eager to get to campus. Due to our flight delay and late arrival, the campus staff couldn't pick us up at the airport so we had to hail a taxi ourselves and navigate our way to Eastern China Normal University (ECNU). Before we could grab a cab, we waited for our luggage to sluggishly pass along the belt. I lugged my two giant suitcases off the rotating belt, and Beth looked anxiously at the revolver for her bags. Suddenly, an announcement came over the loudspeaker--only in Chinese. People around us seemed angry and frustrated, but we were pretty clueless. After waiting around a bit, a friendly Chinese man came up to us and told us about the situation. Apparently our plane was too heavy, and the flight crew removed some luggage and sent it to Europe instead of China...both of Beth's bags were now somewhere in Europe. I looked at her with disbelief and felt incredibly mad/upset for her. Beth instantly took action and went to the desk, telling the flight crew our dorms' address so that they could ship her luggage ASAP. I was really impressed with her ability to communicate in Chinese and her calm composure about the situation. "Nothing we can really do about it," she shrugged. At that moment I knew we would get along perfectly.

Statue of Mao Zedong on campus

We finally made it to our dorm around 2am, after getting very lost and hailing 3 different cabs (none of the drivers spoke a lick of English). I was elated to run up to my room and greet my roommate Ann, another friend from Bucknell. We woke Ann up and told her all about our journey as she sleepily laughed along with us. That night I slept two hours and woke for orientation at 8am.

First lunch on campus...noodle bowl with mushrooms
and boc choy (Chinese cabbage)---yum!

From 8-12:30 we listened to lectures about our academics, safety/security, emergency health situations, and more. Most of the information was extremely helpful and interesting but I was so tired I found it difficult to stay awake and engaged. I had lunch with Ann at 12:30 as we chatted about life while sipping on our delicious noodle bowls. At one point during our meal, a Chinese man turned around to stare at me for 10 minutes straight with absolutely no shame---it takes some time to get used to being a minority and outwardly "different." 

Global Harbor Mall, 10 minute walk from campus

Next we went to a 5 story mall, filled with anything you could imagine. We only went to get school supplies and other dorm necessities, but I will definitely be back for future shopping. At the register the woman asked me in Chinese if I wanted a bag and I wrongly responded "I don't have"...learning my way around the language by stumbling---a lot. 

Dinner at the Sichuan restaurant...spicy!

To finish off my first day in Shanghai, my whole program went to a traditional Sichuan restaurant. The food is from the famous Sichuan Province and everything has a spicy kick. My favorite was the sweet desert called steamed buns, shown in the bottom right of the picture. Of course there was some boc choy and dumplings to enjoy also! The day was definitely a success, but I can already feel my jet lag kicking in hard. Time to rest up and continue adventuring through this amazing city.