My first week in China

So here I am in China. Sorry for the delay in posting but China censors blogs and makes it very difficult for me to even load this page. Going along with that, as of now, I can't read any of your comments so email me or post on my facebook instead.

Anywhoo, the flight here went really well. All together, including the trip to Chicago, the flight is about 17 hours long. Since I am a freak I slept for literally 15 of those 17 hours. It was delightful. I woke only to eat the airplane meals, which many of you know is one of my favorite parts about traveling. I was not disappointed. Going through customs was easy as pie. Will picked me up from the airport and we came home and celebrated a belated Christmas with the cutest little Chinese Christmas.

So far life in China has been good. The culture shock is definitely much more intense than in any of my other travels but I'm slowly getting used to it. The whole hacking and spitting thing is no joke. In the short time I've been sitting in my room, writing this blog I've heard a man hock up a loogie and spit on the street. Lines are also very difficult to deal with here. You literally have to fight for your place in line because people will push you out of the way. There are also waaay fewer white people here than I was expecting. I figured since Shanghai is such a big city they'd be everywhere. In my neighborhood there are none. In more touristy spots you'll see them every now and again. On top of that it doesn't seem like too many people speak any English. I've had two disastrous trips to the supermarket where the cashier would repeat something to me over and over again in Chinese while I stood there with a dumb look on my face. I think they may have both been asking for change. Luckily Will speaks Chinese so when we're together everything is quite fine. Unfortunately, he works a lot. I think with the shock of being out here and being intimidated by having absolutely no way to communicate (even my dictionary doesn't help much because the intonation here is so different and important)my adventurous side has taken a back seat and I'm spending a lot of time doing a lot of nothing. Another part of that is it's sort of nice to get to lie in my bed and watch 75 cent dvd's and know that I have nothing I have to be doing. That being said, Will works this weekend so I'm going to make myself, no matter what, get out there and see the sights. I also briefly spoke to the SLP out here today and will speak with her again on Monday. Hopefully that will pan out or I'll have to start working on finding some other type of job out here.

Thats it for now!