Travel and First Day in China

20 hours of traveling would seem unbearable, but I found it rather enjoyable. After watching two movies on the flight (I love You Man and 17 Again), eating three meals, playing video games with other people on the plane, sleeping for 6 to 7 hours and being with 40 students from Pepperdine made the trip a breeze. We had an hour and half lay over in Hong Kong, which is a beautiful airport, and headed to Shanghai (two hour plane flight). When I first entered the Shanghai airport we had to pass though a quarantine line, where everyone who was working was wearing a mask (this made me feel safe, haha). Then we met up with our program director Chris, who is awesome, our program assistant Gigi, and assistant director Will. We loaded are belongings onto the truck and boarded the bus to the Jia (The Pepperdine House).

The drive to the Jia was incredible. Billboards filled with characters, the highways lined with amazing landscape, traffic that is nothing like LA and drivers that are nothing like LA drivers. Entering downtown was a sight to see, there were thousands of 40 story apartment buildings, crazy scooter drivers, lots of construction for the World Expo, brown rivers and dozens of skyscrapers. Then we arrived at the Jia.

The Jia is awesome! There are three buildings, building one is where the girls rooms are (set up with chandeliers, wood flooring, balcony, sitting room), the medium size class room, and the offices for the admins. Building two is where the kitchen, some of the boys rooms are, and the student lounge are located. Building three is where I can be found, my room name is the Hainan room (best room in the Jia), I live with Chris Gertz (awesome guy), my room has air conditioning (all rooms do), two beds (bunked), awesome view of the building one and the city behind building one, the room is pretty big too (nothing like UCLA's or UCI's dorm rooms, ours are much better haha Rachel, Tommy and Elim). There is also the sunshine room, which use to be a greenhouse but is now our dinning area so you can see everything around you. Pictures will be posted soon!

On Thursday the day we arrived we unpacked and had orientation all day. For orientation we went over house rules and other stuff thats pretty boring. At around 5:30 we headed out to the Jing An temple (15 minute walk) and had dinner at a really nice restaurant called South Beauty Chinese Restaurant. On the way to the temple I noticed how crowded this city is, the city is really clean considering how many people there are, the intersections are packed with people and cars have the right away haha. At my first meal in China I ate different kinds of fungi, stuffed fish (head was still there), orange chicken, shrimp with the eyes still on it, fruit like the star fish fruit, pork and a bunch of other things (it was a big dinner). Then we headed back to the Jia and went to bed.

This morning, Friday, we were up at 6am for our Health Exam for the Chinese Government. This was an adventure. At the exam they have different rooms where they run different tests on you. Before you can enter the exam areas you have to strip of your top garments and put on a robe. So all 40 of us were walking around in robes, it was a sight to see as well, we looked like we were at the spa. The first exam I had was an eye exam...the exam consisted of characters not letters so we had to say if the character was facing up, down, left or right (this was difficult even though I could see them haha). The next exam was the blood test and they could not find my veins so the lady had to keep slapping my arm this made me laugh and made her mad but it was too funny. Next I had my first ever ULTA SOUND, this was an adventure. I was greeted by two laughing ladies who threw me on the table opened my robe and applied the gel on my stomach. They were hilarious women even though I had no idea what they were saying (I guess you really have to be there for it to be funny, but I feel like it would have been a great video for Americas Funniest Videos.) The next exam was this radiation test where a big giant metal door shuts behind you reminding me of the movie SAW where the guys are looked in that bathroom behind the metal door and theres that window where people can see in but you can not see them. Then my last test was a weird suction cup test thing with claps on my feet and hands. Keep in mind we are all walking around in robes during all of this, it was hilarious. then we had Pizza Hut for lunch and several meeting following lunch.

Tonight we have a secret special activity planned, I'll keep you posted.

I love China so far and am so excited to be here and feel very blessed. I am currently trying to find a job and plan a trip to Hong Kong in two weeks!

*excuse the grammar errors (I am rushing through this)