It was pretty late when I arrived in Beijing.  There were two other IES students with me on the plane from Seattle to Beijing.  It was a really long flight, about 14 hours long.  I was restless and bored for most of the time.  The headphones were not working right, so I missed most of the movies.  Well, anyway, we landed in Beijing about 10:10 pm local time.  The first thing I noticed when the plane was landing was the thick cloud of smog covering the city, which tells me the city is really polluted.  But the city was illumminated by the street lights.  There were lots of cars still running around.  After getting off the plane, we followed the crowd and went to the Customs officer, who only checked our passports and visas, which is a big relief.  It’s not that I smuggled anything, it’s just that I don’t want to have all my clothes search and to fold and stuff all the clothes back into the suit case again.  The biggest happy momment that night came when I saw the IES crew were already there waiting for us with their IES signs.  There were money exchange places at the airport but the service fee was enormous and that they do not accept traveler’s checks turned us away.  But we were happy just to follow the crew to a nice comfortable bed to sleep.  We went on a long bus ride to the Bei Wai University.  On the way there, most of the students were sleeping but not me.  I wanted to take everything in and breathe the Beijing air, well sort of.  I was pretty tired, so I did not remember much of it.  I remember the highway is very much like ours at home.  They have the big green signs for exits just like at home but they’re in Chinese with English subtitles.  The cars drive on the right side too.  After we turned into Xi San Huan Lu (West 3 ring Avenue) exit, I noticed that the street was filled with huge high rise apartments, big banks, and hotels after hotels.  All them have neon Chinese signs (big Chinese Characters–mostly red and blue).  The ride took 40 minutes.  After we took our luggage out of the bus, we went through the campus gate, which was guarded by an official in green uniform.  About five minutes later, we arrived at our building, also guarded, this time by a woman, our night watch service.  We registered for our room and received an informal and quick orientation and went to our room. The building has four floors; one for teaching and two for student residents and the first floor is for staff.  Each dormitory floor has two Resident assistants, student lounge, bathroom, and shower room.  Each room houses two students, which has two sets of desks and beds and closets, and a TV.  The rooms are small but livable–reminds me of small college dorms.

Interesting Notes of the day:

-the police cars ran with lights flashing.

-Water for Elephant (what I was able to watch) is not a bad movie, but not that great either.

-no toilet paper allowed in the toilets.  The plumbing system is fragile in China.  Also, we have to provide our own toilet paper.

-my pillow was flat as a pancake. 

Location: IES building, Beijing, China.