Here’s something I wrote up the day after my arrival in China:

– Driving here is insane. On the way from the airport, our driver nearly hit a several people, pedestrians included.

– Drivers here are not hesitant to honk their horns at you. Even if you’re a pedestrian crossing at a designated crosswalk. But I have the right away! No, you do not.

– The dollar is worth more than the yuan (RMB). It will carry you far.

– My apartment is brand-new, furnishings included.

– The internet is of course filtered, so I cannot officially access wordpress. Right now, I’m using a web-based anonymous proxy.

– At our welcome dinner last night, the food packed quite a punch. The Wuhan delicacies tend to be on the VERY spicy side.

– There is a street close by, I don’t know the name, full of street vendors selling an assortment of items.

– Try to learn some Chinese before coming here. That way, when you order noodles from a street vendor, you know the price they are quoting and are not stuck with handing them a 10 and hoping for the best.

– However, now that I have internet access, that should change. There are lots of online tools that assist language learning.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back later with clearer, more in-depth posts.

August 29, 2008

Coming to China for the first time is an experience I’ll never be able to relive. The best I can hope for is stumbling across old writings like this. :)