**This post was written yesterday after I'd just arrived, but I just now got the chance to create my blog and post everything**

February 11, 2009

Wow. So today was my first introduction to what this semester will really be like, and it’s going to be intense.  Erin and I got up this morning relatively early to try and catch our train from Shanghai to Hangzhou.  Although we were staying at the Holiday Inn RIGHT NEXT to the train station, it was our luck that our tickets said we had to leave from the other train station, because apparently, there are several.  Anyway, we rushed out the door and made it to the train station right as everyone was boarding, so thankfully, we weren’t late.

The train ride proved to be interesting as we got to see the urban sprawl of Shanghai give away to rolling fields full of farmers (though these “rolling fields” were still overshadowed by skyscraper-esque housing developments.  You wouldn’t believe how many 50 floor housing developments there are in China).  After we got off the train, we were immediately accosted by tons of taxi drivers promising us the cheapest, easiest cab rides to wherever we were going.  We were smart enough to say no, and instead, we waited in the official taxi line for our cab.  Though it took over an hour, our ride only cost 20 yuan when minutes earlier, I had been fine with bartering and paying 100 yuan for the ride from one of the guys mentioned earlier.  Regardless, we got to Zhejiang University of Technology in one piece.

From the moment we got to our dorms, Erin and I didn’t speak any English at all.  I think the last thing I said to her was “I’m never packing this much again if we have to lug it arou...!” before I was cut off in Chinese by the director of our program.  I mean, Erin and I did manage to sneak in a few words of English here or there when we could, but it wasn’t much.  We immediately went upstairs to the second floor to move into our rooms and meet our Chinese roommates.  Mine was more than happy to see me which was strange, but not altogether disconcerting.  All of us were immediately whisked away to lunch with the other students.

Afterwards, my roommate offered to take Erin and I to ChinaMobile (the state run mobile phone company).  Two of his friends came along, and after literally an hour and a half, we managed to make it out alive and with two working Chinese cell phones.  One of the stranger things about the experience is that in China, you buy your SIM card separately from your phone, so you get to choose a number that’s been recycled from a previous user.  The most important part of picking your own numbers is to pick the number with the least amount of 4’s in it (because in Chinese, the word 4 or si is extremely similar to the word for death si which makes it a terribly unlucky number).  Conversely, you should pick a number with the most number of 6’s considering 6 is a lucky number.

After this harrowing experience, my roommate and his friends took Erin and I to see our first glimpses of West Lake, though at the time we had no idea what we were doing considering we could understand scant few of their quickly-spoken and garbled Chinese sentences.  Finally, we arrived at the famous West Lake and were greeted by a jaw-droppingly beautiful lake surrounded by verdant mountains.  The trees are almost in bloom here, so as you can imagine, the setting was near perfect.  At one point, we all decided to charter a boat rowed by a nice, older Chinese man further down the lake.  The sun began to set at this point, and the distant mountains were thick with mist (though it should be noted that the “mist” is actually just China’s pollutants blocking the sun and scattering its rays, haha.  Nice effect, though).  After going back to the dorms, we went on a small tour of the campus, which by the way has two rivers running through it.  Very cool.

I guess the hardest thing so far is going to be keeping the language pledge which says that I cannot speak ANY English at all while I’m here.  It’s going to be strange, but I suppose I have to do it.  Today while Erin and I were buying our phone and seeing West Lake with my roommate, I felt like I was going to pop if I didn’t say something in English.  Everything was so beautiful, but all I could say about it in Chinese was “That’s so pretty.  Really beautiful.  Oh wow.”  It was frustrating, but I’ll just have to get over it.  Either that or save all my English up until Erin and I can go by ourselves somewhere, haha.

I’ll keep everyone posted with pictures and such as soon as I plug in my camera, and I’ll try to keep this updated fairly often.  It probably won’t be that hard to update though considering this is one of the only ways to communicate in English.  Until next time.